While Dr Dre and Metallica are both talking about suing Napster, record company people are starting to get it. Wired News reports that the majors are going to offer downloadable music in a big way this summer. Quote: “Although the recording industry has complained that some services that offer downloadable online music violate copyright laws and cut into a label’s profits, company sales actually are up.”

It’s promising in one way, but the article is also pretty depressing, because the contradiction between Metallica/Napster and what the labels are planning to do indicates that the artists are probably going to be squeezed by this whole thing.