Thanks Dave,

Your comment on the licensing issue is useful. I was confused by the fact that Magnatune offer commercial licenses by subscription (see https://magnatune.com/info/licensing) but the license for non-commercial use is Creative Commons by-nc-sa, which I now understand is perpetual.

The subscription model has changed. In the very earliest days there were several, and you could buy individual albums, including on CD (I have a few). I think a monthly "all you can eat" subscription followed that: I was a monthly subscriber for many years. Finally, about 5 years ago they changed to only offering a lifetime subscription. I imagine this significantly reduced their overheads.

There's a blog where their business model has been discussed, for example: https://blogs.magnatune.com/buckman/2010/03/new-business-model-for-magnatune.html