I live in Hong Kong and used to be a huge emusic fan for exactly the reasons you mentioned: interesting indie bands and back catalog.

When emusic did their deal with Sony, they also changed their pricing structure. Overnight, one of the most attractive sites became (for me at least) useless. The catalog available to me was gutted and what was left was unattractively priced.

I create “content” for a living and am a firm believer in creators (and the people who make the creation process possible) being paid for their time and effort. And I understand that music labels cannot wave a magic wand and make international licensing issues disappear.

But with situations like emusic, and the international restrictions on Amazon and iTunes sales, it is hard to see how the record companies will retain customers who want to pay for music, much less dissuade young people (many of whom think content should be free) from just taking it.