As long as the debate over the issue of internet piracy of music is reduced to one simple issue: "Is downloading copyrighted songs illegal?", everything will go the RIAA's way. The fact that it is illegal is the only reason why no one should ever download copyrighted music off the internet. Getting caught is very expensive. The major labels have bent judges to their will and effectively bribed elected officials to pass draconian copyright protection laws and now they are able to sue any one of millions of people for the heinous crime of using their PC as a combo radio and tape deck unit. In court there is no contest. The judges and juries have been primed by a media blitz to pass down guilty verdicts and harsh financial penalties to anyone caught breaking the law. Of course, the major labels, not the artists, will get all the money from those lawsuits, and the major labels will continue to abuse their artists with one-sided contracts and undelivered promises. Justice simply does not get served. Welcome to the new age of corporate warlordism.

This is the truth: the internet scares the major labels. For decades the corporations which control the music industry have worked hard to dominate the production and distribution of CDs as well as control the media outlets which decide which songs are to be played. This is how they've made billions of dollars. Now the internet can do all of those things far better and cheaper than they can. With the advent of the mp3 digital format and the rise in popularity of high speed internet connections the home listener no longer needs to wait for hours to hear the songs he wants to hear on the radio, or buy a CD full of songs that he doesn't want to hear just to get the one or two he does, or deal with having huge stacks of once listened to CDs cluttering up their homes. Now anyone with internet access can log in, select the songs he wants to hear, store them, play them as many times as he wants, delete them if he doesn't like them or put them in a special player to listen to anywhere he goes, and not only tell all his friends how cool some new band is, but send them each a link so that they can hear the band for themselves. This is far better than anything that has come before it. It is a true music revolution as significant as the invention of the phonograph. If left unregulated, music on the internet would obliterate profit margins for labels, radio stations, and CD retailers as well as send major ripples through all of the music related industries. You could download the MP3s for free, buy the CDs of the stuff you wanted at 44.1kHz quality directly from the band through the internet, and listen to new bands in a user driven interactive environment. Consumers would benefit immensely. Isn't that the whole point of capitalism? In theory, yes. In today's world, no.

Of course, if the internet was left unregulated, less music would probably be produced. Let's assume that industry is at least partially right and that consumers would buy less music when they can download mp3 samples for free. This is not a given. The RIAA has yet to show lagging sales for CDs that cannot be accounted for by the current economic slowdown, their decision to no longer release singles, and their focus on high profile artists. Their own numbers show a massive surge after mp3s became popular to trade online, tailing off only after the Napster and MP3.com lawsuits. But perhaps sales would eventually fall to some degree as a result of internet piracy. With less money being spent on music there would be less incentive for bands to record CDs. But since most of the money spent on CDs today goes to people other than those who created the music, the elimination of the middle men would not likely have a dramatic effect on the number of bands making music. People will still want to go to concerts and worship their rock star idols, and musicians will still want to play, party, and get laid with shocking frequency. There is high demand for music and people are willing to pay for it. Rest assured that new systems will arise to meet these demands if the major labels crumble. And to be sure, getting rid of the musicians who are only in it for a chance at superstardom would be a good thing, so why are we letting the recording industry scare us? Getting rid of the middle men might bring about a sorely needed purification of popular music. The trouble is that the middle men are going to put up a fight rather than be rendered useless by modern technology, and when those middle men have billions of dollars to spend and numerous hooks into media news outlets that they can use to push their agenda, they will prove difficult, if not impossible, to beat.

The RIAA represents corporate warlords. These warlords make it standard policy to own everything that has anything to do with the bands they sign from their music to their name to their image and to their fame itself. The corporate ownership of a band is so complete that a member of a signed act cannot legally make a copy of a CD he has recorded with the label and give it to a friend or family member. Add to that the sometimes godlike power a band's label has over the band's gigs, songs, members, and sound and the band members are little more than puppets singing and playing at the end of corporate strings. But given the drugs, sex, fame, and sometimes good money that comes with being a signed act, most musicians couldn't care less. Being on tour beats working at Guitar Center any day of the week. The fact that there is a seemingly endless supply of talented musicians ready to sell out when a contract is waived in front of them destroys any bargaining power an up and coming band has to cut a fair deal. The major labels hold all the cards.

The corporate warlords try to achieve a stranglehold on the markets so that their acts get the most radio and television play. This exposure translates directly into sales. If your acts get the most play, your acts sell the most CDs. Now the internet gave bands even more exposure and as a result sales for all artists surged even as downloading increased. All the labels were making even more money from all the free advertising. However, since the average user could choose which songs to download, there was no possible way for the major labels to dominate the internet market. Small labels could compete on near equal terms with the major labels and this was causing a major shift in consumer's buying habits away from the multi-platinum rock stars and towards the formerly more obscure artists. As the economy went south, the major labels were hit harder than their smaller competitors and so RIAA decided to shore up their sagging profits by suing anyone with money. Both Napster and MP3.com were successfully sued for hundreds of millions of dollars, but allowing the internet to exist as a gigantic CD listening bar was still killing sales for the major labels, thus the RIAA led the push to crush downloading once and for all.

It is likely that the RIAA's strategy is backfiring to some degree. Some consumers and bands are intentionally boycotting the major labels to protest their war on downloading, but the media continues to demonize the average downloader as someone who "steals" songs instead of buying them and who is putting the bands he enjoys out of business. In doing so the media trivializes the important issues concerning the future of music and the internet and makes the average consumer agree with the RIAA. In the meantime, the major labels charge us more, give us less, and tighten their grips on the bands we love, the songs we hear, and the way we think about music.