"Wait a minute, are you sure you need six months for that? Couldn't some bright people do that in two days?" That's Paul McCartney venting his frustration with the time it took his former record company, EMI, to release and market his music. McCartney has put his finger on the problem that has faced Big Music ever since the original Napster taught people how to download songs over the internet. Instead of embracing the technology, the record companies spent countless millions trying to hold back the tide. Even now that the rest of us have discovered that we can find what we want online - and pay the artist directly - the musical middle men are still doing very little except running interference.

PS: McCartney's new album, Memory Almost Full, is released by a division of Starbucks.