A few weeks ago we noted that an entrepreneur who comes up with way for users to download music without attracting the ire of the Recording Industry Association of America's lawyers will have a cash cow on their hands.

A new start-up, Songza, is taking its best shot. The site, which is incredibly popular among college students, has come up with a clever way around paying steep RIAA licensing fees. Users can type in the name of a song or a band, and the site then searches the epic collection of music on YouTube - about 28 million songs. It then plays the song, but hides the YouTube video. Songza currently pays some publishing rights to groups like BMI, but they avoid paying licensing fees because they say all the site is doing is turning over the searches to YouTube—which has a partnership with the music studios, according to the NYTimes. However, there is a question of legality beyond the obvious: playing YouTube videos sans video actually violates their terms of service (who knew?).

While it's probably too early to label this a success story (the RIAA almost certainly has lawyers on this as we speak), it's an interesting look at how one start-up came with a new business plan to solve old problems.