NP- Supertramp "School"
Interesting thing I found online from Gunnar Nelson (of that hair band Nelson)
He has a great point on the Napster/file sharing controversy, which I will include below, with my own comments following.

Gunnar Nelson:
Once the technology existed whereby consumers could have, in their hands, full-fidelity MASTER recordings of an album, it was all over for us creative folk as far as our ability to truly protect our copyrighted works from being duplicated. The music industry (‘the major label record companies’) were practically falling all over themselves in the stampede to re-release every record title in their huge catalogues on CD, so we consumers would go out and spend thousands of dollars re-buying our favorite albums that we’d already bought first on 33 rpm (in our grandparent’s day) then on 45, then on LP records, then on 8 track, then on cassette, then on DAT (serious pros only, really), then digital compact cassette, then minidisk, then CD. After ripping off the musicians that made them billions (by keeping the rights to their bands’ master recordings even after the bands had re-paid the record labels for advancing the recording funds- please note several previous inspirations that explain the serious problems that’s existed with the business model of the music industry for the past sixty years)- the record companies have brazenly ripped off the music lover/consumer by making them re-buy every record in their collection every time a new, better format has come out that’s made every previous format and media collection obsolete.

And now they want us all to help them preserve their profit margins during this ‘illegal downloading crisis’? OH MY GOD. Please.

You just ask any multi-platinum artist, ANY one, exactly how much they’ve actually made by selling records throughout their career, and they’ll tell you DOUGHNUT. Nothing. Zilch. Nada. A musical artist makes their livelihood by touring and merchandise sales. Not selling records… just because the record labels have had them all by the balls (figuratively speaking, of course) and told them in essence that it was either contractual indentured servitude, or the highway. There were plenty of garage bands out there willing to sell their souls (and any realistic hope of making any money whatsoever selling their records), ready to take your place if you balked at the terms of your contract. The strong-arming has gone on for years. But if you were a muzo and wanted to be big-time, you had to bend over and thank them in the process. It was hell. Trust me, I know.

With all this in mind, can you understand why (with a few exceptions) recording artists are not running to the aid of their labels (publicly or privately) during this ‘downloading crisis’? Yeah man, theoretically it’s stealing, and it’s a drag. But the major labels have created the ‘Robin Hood’ mob mentality that’s out there today. It’s taken sixty years of the labels raping and pillaging not only the record-buying public, but also their own recording artists, to get our collective mindsets to where they are today…and the current paradigm is here to stay.

Interesting to get a musicians point of view, someone who gets screwed by file sharing. And He's right, with the exception of Lars Ulrich of Metallica (who coincidentally runs E/M ventures which is the Electra/Metallica label that metallica is on) what major artists are really stepping up and supporting the RIAA? And why does the RIAA think this is good business? True, it may be stealing, but who are the real crooks here? People who are a little older than 30 might remember back when the CD was first introduced, that the Record Labels guaranteed that they would last a lifetime. Actually it's printed in several older CD cases/inserts. Yet we now know that the shelf life of a CD is actually shorter than Vinyl when Vinyl is treated correctly. CD's have an average life span of approximately 15 years before oxidation begins deteriorating the Aluminum where the code is stored. Furthermore, the epoxy that holds CD's together was notorious for disintegrating during the first few years of production. If you have a CD that was made in the mid 80's chances are it has either a rainbow colored marking on the playable side, or something is peeling on it. Lies and Fraud in my opinion. Especially when we were told that unlike vinyl, the CD was virtually indestructible (ha-ha!) I was one of the stupid ones that replaced a lot of my Vinyl with CD, even though my vinyl was in better shape, and I swear sounds better.
You know it's kind of funny, and I believe appropriately describes the true motives of the RIAA, when in the Napster case they refused to discuss licensing for the music that was being downloaded, yet they screamed that the Bands were the victims of hundreds of millions of dollars in lost royalties. If the RIAA was remotely interested in protecting Artist royalties, they would have come up with some online licensing thing where the service pays royalties based on the number of songs downloaded, much like Radio stations pay to play the music. The RIAA refused further, even with congressional pressure to set up a Standard Royalty System for downloads, so that future sharing services could share files legally, and get royalties to the artists. So why did the refuse to do this? Simple, they aren't interested in the artist at all. They fear that online sharing will cut into their profit margins, and they want the whole pie for themselves. Plus, god forbid the file sharing technique completely eliminated the need for the RIAA, and the Record labels. Why would the artists need a go between, when they can get music directly to their customers with little cost. Frankly I don't know why any major popular artist is still using the Record Label method. Start your own label, use the internet as distribution, recoup 100% of the profits. Screw the RIAA, since they've already screwed the artists enough. I would rather download a song and send a royalty check directly to every artist I download, than to buy a new CD.
Anyway as Dennis Miller says, Thats just my opinion, I could be wrong...

More info availible at http://www.eff.com and http://www.thenelsonbrothers.com

Later