Major U.S. music retailers have joined together to launch a service to deliver music via the Internet, in the hopes that they can avoid losing money to people downloading tunes for free on unauthorized Web sites. The companies involved in the partnership are Best Buy Co., Hastings Entertainment, Tower Records, Trans World Entertainment, Virgin Entertainment Group, and Wherehouse Music. Together, they will charge customers to download music from the Internet — instead of just buying albums from their stores — in an effort to compete in the digital market. They are also attempting to stand up against stores who offer music at a discounted price, like Wal-Mart. Whether their attempts to fight illegal album downloads over the Internet will be successful remains to be seen, but with album sales continually dropping — there was a 10% decrease in sales in 2002 — forming an alliance to boost profits must feel like the only answer...