Way to go Apple!
This is the best news since... the iTunes Music Store
So one of the iTMS's 4 major flaws is on it's way of getting fixed. Great! Now don't get me wrong. I think the Store is great. It's by far the best designed online music service ever made. But it would be even better by making a few not so difficult adjustments.
a) Get more variety in there. Indies, international artists, more genres. Apple seems to be on top of things in that departement now.
b) Offer (at least some) of the music at higher bit rates/quality. 128kbps is fine for pop and oldies. But for audiophile stuff; classical, opera, jazz, symphonic soundtracks, etc. It doesn't quite cut it. I rip those in 192kbps AAC. And some discerning ears think even that sucks.

They could sell the HQ singles at a premium price, let's say 1.29$. Or why not as .sit compressed AIFF, for those with DSL/cable/broadband? The 99¢ "regular-quality" singles are fine. But I'd lower the price of the albums to 7.99$. At the current prices, they're about the same price as a CD, with only "near"-CD quality, and no CD. What's the incentive? Selling the HQ albums at 9.99$ would make more sense. And make
all the tracks available as singles. I despise cheap marketing ploys...
c) Make it available internationally. If not the whole world, at least the major players. Canada, Australia, Europe. Would probably double the iTMS's business. And sign up some international/local labels and indies too. Céline Dion isn't the only great voice in Quebec.
d) Get rid of the dumb-ass restrictions. Apple restricted iTunes music sharing to the local subnet with 4.0.1. Fine. Now what's the point of the "3 sharing computers" maximum? I know this was certainly a condition imposed by the Big 5. But their protectionist attitude is precisely what's fueling the P2P craze. Apple has a solution here. Let them do they're stuff unhindered guy's, and maybe they'll save your behinds.

Same with the "maximum 10 burns without shuffling" limit. Stupid! I doubt I'd ever burn the same playlist more than 10 times, but I should not be prevented from doing so if it pleases me, without having to perform silly useless acrobatics. Big 5 again; consumer is guilty until proven innocent. Stupid! Hey guy's, if I wanted to sell pirated copies of an album, I wouldn't do it from AAC files. I'd buy an original CD and make copies. Duh!

I only own 2 Macs at the moment. Hopefully, I'll own more some day. If I end up with 5 in the house, I want to be able to share music on
all of them. And I will, because I will
not buy any music with restrictions. Same with a businees with, let's say, 50 Macs all over the building. Why shouldn't they be allowed to set up an iTunes Library on their server, from which employees can custom-pipe music into their office? Sounds like an additional incentive to buy Macs to me... Free, easy-to-use music server. When I buy a CD and rip it to AAC, I can do what I want with the files. So until I can get the same deal from Apple, I'll continue to buy CDs. And P2P for singles.
End of rant.
Apart from that, the iTMS is fabulous.
