Pathetic moves from desperate giants

What has our world come to when a simple a woman is given the equivalent of a life sentence to satisfy a corporate record industry problem!!!

A court in the US has ordered Jammie Thomas, 32, from Minnesota, to pay $220,000 for offering to share 24 specific songs online, at a cost of $9,250 per song.
(bbc 5/10/07)

How malicious of her, how could she?!!!

A short term victory day for the “Fat-Cat” record executives surely?… or more likely a black day for common sense!. They must be glaring at their wall of gold records thinking… “there is still hope for me, perhaps I can still continue shafting artists for a few more years and get away with it”. I don’t believe that musicians can forever buy the con that is “a record deal”. Artist DON’T need record companies, record companies need artists.

Major Record labels are nothing more than dinosaurs preventing their inevitable extinction.

- It’s a common knowledge that in general people don’t pay for music anymore (ask HMV’s accountants). Why should they? when it’s constantly in their face for free (like a fat-kid in a sweet shop).
- People discover new bands through file sharing.
- If you rely on mass media to get access to the best music (for you), then you’re only exposed to a limited & funneled choice.

If I could pay a license fee every year to download any music, and all that money would go to collection societies that distribute money to artists according to how many downloads the artists have received, without a penny going to record companies.. I WOULD PAY, full stop. Would´nt you?

Artist DON’T need record companies, record companies need artists.
It makes sense, no? Record companies should be there for the benefit of artist, and not the other way round. Let’s take a leaf out of the advertising industry, which are not short of their own faults, however at least the relationship between the brand and the advertising agency makes some sort of sense. Advertising agencies are there for the benefit of the brand, why can’t the record industry be the same.

In any case we are already seeing signs of change; Radiohead have just released their unannounced new album, available to download for a price of your own choosing? It would be fascinating to know if it generates more profit for the band, than a record label release.

Maybe the Record industry will implode sooner than we think…

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