W e received a couple of e-mails regarding a poll being conducted by a local TV station. KXMB of North Dakota is asking its viewers the simple question: "Would you pay 99 cents per song to download music from the Internet?" The choices are the equally simple "Yes," or "No."
While there is no text accompanying the poll, it would seem that the question is related to Appleis iTunes Music Store (iMS), where songs can be purchased for 99 cents a piece. The results of the poll do not offer raw numbers, but the results are currently running 27% who say they would pay that much to download songs, with 73% saying no.
Apple sold some 2 million songs in the first 16 days of operation for the iTunes Music Store, with 1 million sold in the first 7 days. While the jury is out on whether large-scale piracy among P2P file sharing network users can be converted to a legitimate online purchasing scheme like Appleis, those results indicate that a good many people want to buy their music legitimately. Currently, the iMS is limited to Mac OS X users, with a Windows version on the way by the end of the year.
If you wish to vote in the poll, head to KXMBis home page. The poll is on the left hand side, and will be replaced tomorrow.