The Music Industry Not Only Doesn't Get IT, Its trying to Commit Suicide
Performer Janis Ian has a piece in the LA Times that dots all the i's and crosses the t's.

I began offering free downloads of my songs on my Web site. Thousands of people have downloaded my music since then -- and they're not trying to steal. They're just looking for music they can no longer find on the tight playlists of their local radio stations.

That's how many artists gain new listeners these days -- through the Internet.

After I first posted downloadable music, my merchandise sales went up 300%. They're still double what they were before the MP3s went online.

snip

The Internet allows people like me to gain new fans; if only 10% of those downloading my music buy my records or come to my shows, I've just gained enough fans to fill Carnegie Hall twice over.

With the court's decision, the RIAA didn't just defeat Verizon, the Internet service provider that the RIAA sued. It damaged the viability of recording artists who don't conform to the mainstream musical tastes of the moment.

Meanwhile 2 insiders from New York make the case that the RIAA has the wrong end of the pineapple. John Snyder is president of Artist House Records, a board member of the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS), and a 32-time Grammy nominee. He submitted this paper to NARAS, saying in part:

They quote John Perry Barlow in part ""Intellectual property law cannot be patched, retrofitted, or expanded to contain digitized expression any more than real estate law might be revised to cover the allocation of broadcasting spectrum..."

The reality is that not only does file sharing on the Internet not damage the Music Business, file sharing on the Internet is the future of the music business, what is not in the future of the music business, are the big recording companies, whose business model is now dead, it just wont lie down.

Links from the Salon Story

http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/02/01/file_trading_manifesto/index.html
http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/2003/2002winners.html
Ananova.com
Clear Channel
Courtney Love does the math
Embrace file-sharing, or die
http://wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,57048,00.html/
http://www.2600.com/news/050102-files/jamie-kellner.txt
http://www.bricklin.com/recordsales.htm
http://www.bsa.org/usa/policyres/7_principles.pdf
http://www.darpa.mil/iao/TIASystems.htm
http://www.vh1.com/news/articles/1459547/20030115/50_cent.jhtml?headlines=true
recent Wired article
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/01/15/hollywood_tech/index.html
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-935243.html
http://www.janisian.com/article-internet_debacle.html
RIAA Statistics Don't Add Up to Piracy
The Economy of Ideas
The Year the Music Dies
Unintended Consequences: Four Years Under the DMCA