I don't know if someone caught wind of Janis Ian's grand plan or if Universal is just clicking to the worldbeat, but according to Geek.com, Universal has plans to offer cheap, unrestricted MP3 music downloads at a buck a shot, $10 for a whole album. For those who may have just arrived, that's exactly the scenario Janis recommended.

So ... looks like the ball's in our court now. What we gonna do now, eh? Do we fess up and pay for all those MP3's we've collected off Gnutella? Or do we prove the anti-trading pundits worst fears and shy away. It's our call...

$10 per album... That's what Saturday Night Fever sold for when it came out, highest price ever for a two-record set, but it's still $5 less than what amazon wants for it now. I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to take a long hard careful look at the Universal Music Group roots-music catalog...