Secrets of the music Business

The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side.
-Hunter S.Thompson

I have, for some time kept tacked up a print-out of this quote by the late doctor on my recording console to remind me and whoever is recording at the time just how evil the whole thing really is. Evil in a way that in only the last couple of years has reached a level of absurdity and hypocrisy usually found only in politics. This is actually no accident as the ever-expanding yet increasingly irrelevant comglomeration called "The Majors" and their lobbyist/attack dog the RIAA look to the government to assist in their campaign to restrict developement of new technologies and litigation against twelve-year-old downloaders.

The latest turd-juggling by these weasels is a new lawsuit brought in an attempt to have it ruled that ripping a disk to a portable player is not covered under "fair use" allowances. What this means that it would be considered bootlegging if you ripped your own legally purchased CD to be listened to on your own i-pod!
What they are really trying to move towards is a business model of selling the same thing over and over in different formats: Buy a (protected) disk, pay again to download for your portable and... don't forget the ringtones! And get this: while the lawers were making this arguament, the RIAA website still posted a statement (from a previous suit) that they wanted the buyer to enjoy their legally purchased disks on their i-pods, boomboxes, cars as long as they were not illegally shared. It seems obvious that the real idea here is to kill the CD business (not to mention the used CD business) in favor of downloads which have the fattest, juiciest profit margins imaginable. I believe the real upshot here is that the days of the record companies are over and they are just lashing out like a dying, wild pig with a spear stuck in it's side.

There is no disputing that they do, indeed, have the craft of promotion and marketing down cold and that is really what these entities will be relegated to. Along with perhaps a role as investors and distributors.

But then, what do I know? Maybe the best way to hasten this ugly death would be to stop buying any product represented by the RIAA and spend more time searching out and supporting new, unknown artists. Two good places to start would be MySpace Music and CD Baby.
G'head... do it!