The Music Establishment: "Victims of self-inflicted wounds"

The Record Industry should also make buggy whips!
Ice Weasel at The News Blog

The NYT's Spinning Into Oblivion is yet another crack at the
music industry (an industry which deserves more than a few "cracks").
However, written by two independent retailers, it's only part of the story
and, it's not all that much of expose, more of a mea culpa.

I'll add some bits from that piece here as way of an introduction
into a larger point.

"when we opened an independent CD shop on the Upper West Side of
Manhattan in 1993. At the time, we figured that as far as business
ventures went, ours was relatively safe. People would always go to
stores to buy music."

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The reason the music establishment hates Dick Dale.

It's a video post. Go, listen th the words of the man who has beaten the recording industry and RIAA.

The RIAA... We call it ridin’ the gravy train.

Ahh, The RIAA.
Chuck Dupree at Bad Attitudes

…according to the MIT campus newspaper “The Tech,” the RIAA has suggested to students that they ought to drop out of college to be able to afford RIAA settlements. They’ve also sued people who don’t own and never have owned a computer.

[…]

And now we reach the crux of the matter. Those companies are part of a multi-billion-dollar-a-year business. They argue that people downloading music takes money away from the artists, but in reality, it takes money away from them, if anyone.

I don’t like people that hide behind lies. If the RIAA is going to do this, and they will continue to, I only have one request: Be honest with us. If you want more money, come out and say it. Don’t act like you’re protecting the artists. If you really were, would a huge group of them have formed a coalition (that would be the Recording Artists Coalition) aimed specifically at bringing change to the recording industry’s structure?

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Boycott the RIAA

Lumpy at WEBBITS

Most important, change the way you think about the music you do buy. Each dollar you spend is, in fact, a vote. If any portion of it is funneled to the RIAA, its fire is fueled. If we all stopped listening to and buying RIAA music, how long would it be able to continue with its madness?

In any way you can afford to, support organizations that are protecting your rights and opposing the RIAA. This could mean donations, linkage, or simply spreading the word. Make a statement on this matter.

I heard of a good way to make such a statement this month on The Daily Source Code Podcast. The idea is simple, elegant, and a great way for all of us to make a statement. It is a great way for us to say that we, the consumers, should decide what and how we listen to. It is Bum Rush the Charts.

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The record companies are starting to read the writing on the wall!

Victoria Shannon at The News Blog

CANNES, France, Jan. 22 — As even digital music revenue growth falters because of rampant file-sharing by consumers, the major record labels are moving closer to releasing music on the Internet with no copying restrictions — a step they once vowed never to take.

Executives of several technology companies meeting here at Midem, the annual global trade fair for the music industry, said over the weekend that at least one of the four major record companies could move toward the sale of unrestricted digital files in the MP3 format within months.

Most independent record labels already sell tracks digitally compressed in the MP3 format, which can be downloaded, e-mailed or copied to computers, cellphones, portable music players and compact discs without limit.

The independents see providing songs in MP3 partly as a way of generating publicity that could lead to future sales.

For the major recording companies, however, selling in the MP3 format would be a capitulation to the power of the Internet, which has destroyed their control over the worldwide distribution of music.

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