My own thoughts are that I am not particularly concerned about the cost — $15 a month for all you can rent doesn't seem out of line to me — but the compatibility/portability issues are the deal-killer for me.

Meanwhile, will digital music replace CDs? Five years, no. Ten years, maybe so:

"The new format is no format," predicted Petersen, a 24-year industry veteran who also owns a record label, a recording studio and a music-publishing company. "What the consumer would buy is a data file, and you could create whatever you need. If you want to make an MP3, you make an MP3. If you want a DVD-Audio surround disc, you make that."

"We're moving beyond the media stage to the delivery stage," agreed Mitch Gallagher, 41-year-old editor of EQ, a San Mateo, Calif.-based magazine for music producers. At some point, he said, "you won't have something to hold in your hand" until you transfer a data file to a blank disc or tape.

"We can make our own plastic," Petersen said. "I've been thinking this is what should happen for years, but it's actually the way we're going anyway."

....Record executives devote a lot of thought to the future of the product they've long manufactured. "Five years from now, absolutely there will be CDs. Ten years from now, though, there will be fewer," compared with other digital music options, said Larry Miller, the 47-year-old CEO of the Or Music label, a Sony Corp. offshoot that gained notoriety this year for its biggest act, Los Lonely Boys, the Tex-Mex trio nominated for four Grammys. "As far as another [physical format], if it exists, I haven't heard about it. . . . When I look three to five years in the future, I believe that 20 to 25 percent of music purchased will be downloaded."

....The compact disc has had a great run — developed by Philips and Sony in 1979, introduced to the United States in the spring of 1983, 1 billion in world sales by 1990. And it's still going strong.

According to Nielsen SoundScan, which keeps official tabs on point-of-purchase sales of recorded music, 2004 was a comeback year for the CD. Sales of CD albums, which make up 98 percent of all album sales, were up 2.3 percent compared with 2003.

...."I think CDs are going to be around for a long time," said Petersen. "The cassette was a silly format. It was never designed to be a high-fidelity format. Plus like LPs, you had to flip the media over halfway through. Music buyers are still replacing all their favorite albums on CD."

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