Music to Their Ears

I'm on record as saying the recording industry going after people for downloading songs is utterly stupid and immoral since the ones complaining the loudest aren't the artists, but the people who screw the artists: the record companies. Now, they've gone too far.

A man is being sued by five record companies for downloading...get this...five songs. Of course, the record companies are just trying to "protect the artists," but isn't this more than a little overkill, especially over five songs? Put simply, this isn't about protecting the artists or making money for those who make the most off the CDs.

It's about sending a strong message to anyone who downloads songs.

Tony Soprano would be proud.

The dark secret is that artists aren't losing that much money off people downloading songs off the Internet. Artists make very little off their CD sales because the record company takes most of it for various reasons. That's why artists go out on tour; that's where they make their money because the record company doesn't have to spend all that money to promote a CD, get studio time, rank songs for release, that sort of thing.

Also, the record companies are the ones driving up the cost of CDs. The actual cost to make a single CD is pennies on the dollar. Yet, new CDs cost anywhere from $10 to $20...thanks to record companies. If you're able to download a song or an entire CD, that's money out of their pockets, and Lord knows they can't have that!

So, until some judge gets the courage to tell the record companies to shove off, we're going to see more legal overkill against people whose only real crime is loving music more than the jacklegs suing them.