by SHANE SINNOTT

Those of you who read this column with any regularity have probably noticed a certain cynicism when it comes to the music industry’s attempt to sell music online. For years, these dinosaurs have been slow-moving, and their models for online music sales always come with a catch—you can only download the song so many times, copy it to a certain number of computers or burn it to a certain number of CDs. It’s annoying as hell, considering you can still buy a physical CD for the same price and do whatever you want with it. The model of paying for shittier versions of what you can already download for free has led to a predictable lack of interest on the part of the music buying public, and so it was refreshing to find out last week that the Web site lala.com—with $20-million in backing from Warner Music—is deciding to call a spade a spade.

They’re “selling” songs from their catalogue of five million, and when you buy them, you can’t download them. You can’t put them on your iPod either, or burn them to CDs. In fact, you can only play them through your Web browser, streaming them as much as you like. But! They cost 10 cents. Now things are finally starting to look fair.

The site will open to the public shortly, but for now, you can try it in beta form using this link: tinyurl.com/6j6t5n. When you first sign up (for free), you get 50 credits to get you started (songs cost one credit) and after that, they’re 10 cents a pop. You can listen to anything in the catalogue once for free, and it’s extensive—the only thing I was able to stump it with was Fuck Buttons, which probably has more to do with the name than anything else. Once you buy songs, they’re moved to your “collection” area, after which you can play them as much as you like, from any computer with an Internet connection. It’s always hard to tell with this stuff what will last, but I have to say, 10 cent song rentals is the best idea I’ve heard in a while.