Online Music History Repeating?

I've said before that the iTunes business model that's been so successful is really no different than the original plan offered by eMusic many, many years ago, but now a new study in the U.K. indicates that eMusic's second iteration -- unlimited downloads for a monthly fee, which was directly in response to Napster -- might find traction among music consumers.

The research, carried out by the University of Hertfordshire, reveals that an overwhelming majority of 14- 24-year-olds would be interested in signing up to an MP3 download service that would allow them to get as much music as they wanted for a fixed fee.

Of those currently using P2P networks 85% would welcome such a service, with 57% saying that it would stop them filesharing illegally and 77% of them claiming they would still buy CDs.

This is just a single data point, so it would be really interesting for somebody like eMusic to back it up with download data from the period of time when they offered an "unlimited" plan. Unfortunately, I never was able to cross over from the RollingStone.com side to the eMusic side as far as research and analysis when I was over there, so I don't have the slightest idea how that plan worked out in terms of profitability, and I'm not sure how connected the current ownership is to the company's history. Maybe if I invoke Gene Hoffman's name again, he'll come by and comment again.