Not Allowing Legal Music Downloads

This weekend, I was searching many of the legal music download services for cuts off Led Zeppelin's recently released How the West was Won live album. (I heard the kick butt rendition of Heartbreaker on the radio, and just had to get it.) Not one service had anything by Zeppelin available. Now, Led Zep is one of the biggest bands ever, so this was quite surprising. After searching through some FAQs, I discovered that "in a number of cases, such as Led Zeppelin and The Beatles, [MSN Music is] limited by the desires of the artists or their management not to sell their music digitally online." Apparently the Beatles, the biggest band ever, are in the same position as Zep.

In this day and age where electronic distribution of music is so widespread and popular, why would a band choose to not allow it's material to be distributed in this way? It makes absolutely no sense. By not making material available through MSN and the other services, the bands drive their fans to the illegal services like eDonkey and Kazaa. This is clearly not in the interests of those bands. Bands, no matter how big, must bow to the demands of their audience. Users who want electronic distribution will get it, with or without the approval of the bands.