MOG

"...I say revolution and you say die!"
There is little doubt amongst people today that we are currently in a tumultuous time for music recording industry. The current consumption medium has changed. Gone is the day of mass producing CDs and watching them magically transform into steadily growing profits. Technology has enabled people to access, choose, personalize, and process the world in ways barely imaginable as recent as a generation ago.
As comes with all cultural or organizational change, there will be those who herald it and those who fear it. The changes the recording industry faces today are no different. As the major labels and their special interest groups (RIAA, IFPI) try to find their footing in the shifting sand that is music today, there are going to be missteps by artists, the industry, and fans alike. With our twenty four hour news cycle, each misstep will be noticed, likely overblown, and shortly discarded in our desire to find the next misstep.
I don't know how to "win the war" in the recording industry today, but I do see many people fighting the good fight, but doing so in a losing fashion. I want to point out some of these mistakes, so we don't continue to make them and the good points can stand out more clearly
1) Don't think you're Robin Hood -- "Stealing from the rich to give to the poor" only works as an acceptable excuse when talking about oppressive governments. We're not; we're talking about music and what the fair price is for various forms of access to it. In five hundred years no one is going to look fondly on the guy who fell on his sword for a $15.99 compact disc. Also of note - in order to use this excuse, you have to admit on some level that you are stealing.
2) Don't begrudge them as a business -- When it gets down to brass tacks, Universal is a business. So is Sony. So is EMI. They exist to make money and once they stop making money, they'll no longer exist. They are reacting to the decline of what used to be a steady profit stream. While you may believe they are reacting poorly to these changes, attacking a business for simply trying to stay profitable is absurd. "Damn the man!" isn't going to get us anywhere in a point/counterpoint discussion. Music without the corporate suits may be great in theory, but so was communism.
3) Don't make weak analogies -- "...but this is just like that, where it was okay to do this other thing..." We are dealing with a paradigm shift in medium occurring while portability and availability seem to be growing exponentially. Rarely does something a complex as this lend itself easily to parallel comparisons. CDs aren't the same as cups of coffee. A track off an album isn't the same as one donut in a dozen. File sharing isn't a mixtape. We start concocting these ridiculous analogies and often end up losing our point when an aspect of the real argument doesn't fit nicely in the parallel world we just drew.
4) Don't be childish -- Why is it that when people start arguing their passions, they often revert to third grade tactics? While the suits over at the RIAA may actually be money-grubbing jerks, calling them such isn't a valid point in the great debate here. Rather, these ad hominem attacks paint us as immature, unprofessional, and incapable of making well thought out, rational remarks worthy of addressing
We the consumers have great arguments to be made and ideas to propose, but those won't be heard unless we tone down the noise made by these weak, and ultimately self-destructive, attacks. Fight the good fight, but please do so sensibly.

--Torch