On Thursday June 18th a jury awarded a group composed of music giants Warner Music Group Corp, Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group, EMI Group PLC and Sony Music Entertainment 1.92 million dollars in a copy right suit. Who were these giants of the music industry suing? A huge musical conglomerate who could crush them individually if they DARED not to sue en mass? A music mogul who attempted to steal the recordings of their artists to become even wealthier? Who frightened the companies that give us the bulk of our distributed music? Would you believe a housewife and mother of two?
Yes, Jamie Thomas-Rassett was found to have willfully violated the copyrights of 24 songs by making them available for free downloads and was charged the sum of $ 80,000 PER SONG! This is Thomas-Rassett's second trail. Music industry fat cats are saying that people like Thomas-Rassett are the reason they keep jacking up the price of downloading music for a fee.
Fact the average C.D cost 18 dollars and usually has 11 songs on it, most of which are filler material. The average blank CD cost a few cents. The music industry seems too stupid to grasp that the REASON for wholesale "Piracy" are their ridiculous prices. I wanted to purchase the soundtrack of "Jesus Christ Superstar" on CD. The price was $40.00. I went out and bought the MOVIE "Jesus Christ Superstar" and it only cost me $10.00. Does it cost more to record an album than it does to make a film? Of course not. Record companies are run by men and women so incompetent that they have ceased to ask what people are listening to and now TELL us what we listen to. Most song that make it to radio are chosen by a handful of record company executives and the heads of a few major corporations that control the bulk of Americas radio stations, Cashbox Media, Cox & Clear Channel Communications control most of the major market stations in every format. Recording industry low life tell the media conglomerates what they have, buy lots of air time and we get sucky artist like the Plain White Tee's, L'il Wayne and The Jonas Brothers going platinum. Prior to Disney shoving these warmed over Osmonds down our collective throats...who the hell ever heard of the Jonas Brothers.
Music industry types have always wanted to squeeze every dime from consumers. In the 60s when cassette players were about to hit the market, record companies sued saying they would lose hundreds of millions from people recording things on cassette. They lost thankfully and an entire generation recorded songs directly from radio and made our own poor quality cassettes. We still bought the albums but some times we merely wanted a single rather than an album. Ironically the recording industry didn't collapse and the earth didn't fall from it's axis.
When it became possible to buy music online not only did recording industry types complain, but overpaid, spoiled artist did as well. At one point when Napster provided free downloads, Heavy Metal band Metallica's drummer Lars Ullrich whined like a little girl who had soiled her favorite Sunday dress at the thought of someone downloading "Master of Puppets" for free. Globally Lars' music has sold hundreds of millions of copies making him and the other members of the band very wealthy men several times over. Not satisfied with his millions Lars whined on behalf of all spoiled musical vaginal cavities. Apparently he could have bought platinum fixtures for the bathroom in his yacht rather than gold ones had one person in Michigan not downloaded one of his songs without paying for it.
One can't help but wonder how small someone's genitalia would have to be in order to measure his worth not in the QUALITY of the music he's created, how many concerts, he's sold out or his place in music history, but rather how many poor people he could prevent from listening to his music, becoming fans and possibly BUYING his music. The music industry needs to take a long hard look at itself. For decades the quality of music has declined to the point where when someone with talent proves how well they can sing we are collectively Amazed because the music industry in addition to over charging us, has brainwashed us to think that only attractive people can sing or should. If that IS true and we can judge someone's beauty based on their personalities then the bulk of record company executives shouldn't be allowed to record out going messages on their own answering machines.
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