"I'm late to the comment party on this one This is an excerpt from my blog ([www.unsprungartists.com]).
...If you're an artist and you don't know my position, here it is in a nutshell: You need to be in at least 200,000 music devices (iPods, cell phones, Zunes, etc.) so that you may somehow convert 5% of these device owners into 10,000 fans that may spend $30 on your tickets, "premium" music and merch over the next 18 to 24 months, and FREE is the only way an unsprung (unsprung = not famous) artists can rapidly place songs into 200,000 devices over the next 24 months...
...If Total Music can stock a device with 40,000 songs that a particular fan may want to hear based upon selections generated by a rudimentary recommendation engine (I like rock not rap…) then everyone with a radio-ready song could potentially participate..."
Bruce Warila commented on Universal Plans Total Music Anti-iTunes Initiative With Free All-You-Can-Eat Music
http://gizmodo.com/310214/