Bottom line, if my instincts are good here (I own a 14-year-old), is that a buck a song is peanuts for kids who own computers and music players. Especially true with iTunes gift cards being no-brainer birthday presents.

Ease of use is 90% of the game (look no further than the iPod), and the other 10% is availability. The kids' mindset is that the Beatles, inconveniently, are "on Limewire".

(I've taught my daughter that when iTunes fails her, a used CD on eBay is just as economical, and often cheaper.)

I find that funny?!

My reason is that I used to use Limewire and it was the same structure as the early Napster. Peer to peer file sharing, i.e. pirating.

I know I got a some of my music there.

But here are the demographics that music co.s need to think about and not us old folks.

Apple focuses all of it's R&D, marketing, sales, etc… on existing Apple purchasers as well as the "UP and Coming."

This is why market share is going up at a steady pace since the entrance of the iPod.

Ease of use. Kids like easy, cool, slick, rad, cool, said that, equipment.

PC's aren't cool. Apple is.

Apple wrangles them in young, and markets to them as they grow with great products that work. Not only in the home, or school market but in the business world too.

A paradyme shift in the work place is happening with CIO, IT managers and techs.

Macs work. Macs are better. Macs require less support and productivity has been proven greater on Apple computers than PC's.

REason? Mac are less frustrating as most kids and or adult don't require IT degree to keep their machines running.

For example, if those kids wrote about iPod, Apple, or even Mac, it would be a lot more positive and honest than Mr. DeWitt, who as an adult getting paid to do a job that earns Fortune advertising dollars, spends all his time thinking of ways to spin the facts to generate some controversy, which, most of the time, means making Apple look bad.

I think many of the others who post in your articles have already coloured you cynical. I understand your point, but the statement really comes off with the wrong impression.

Now THIS is an inappropriate comment. I've glazed over the articles you've posted before and had a little chuckle at the comments directed your way, mostly thinking the trash talk was over the line, but this deserves a rebuttal.

Talk about trying to fudge the results to suit your view point. Why not include that statement whenever you quote any statistic?

ex ped: Color me cynical, but it seemed to me that asking minors to own up to quasi-criminal behavior in an e-mail survey is not quite the same as estimating the number of iPhones stuck in channel.

True, but kids learn at least as much from their peers–ask any middle-school teacher.