As one of the RIAA's clients once said, "The times they are a'changin'."
The current recording industry model made sense and worked in the days when the means of production and distribution of recorded music required a large investment of capital, technical expertise and access to marketing channels. In those days, the recording industry provided an indispensible service to their clients and to their customers, and they deserved their profits.
Technology has changed.
Anybody with a PC, studio software, a sound card and a website can record, mix, publish and distribute music.
The recording industry no longer provides an indispensible service to their clients and to their customers.
Quite the contrary, the RIAA wants all technological innovation to cease so they can continue to collect royalties on other people's work, while cheating the artists out of everything they possibly can at every step of the process.
The RIAA wants all computer hardware crippled so that PCs are nothing more than copyright protection appliances.
If all the RIAA wanted was to collect royalties from downloaders, I would not give a rat's ass.
But that's not what they want. They want to force me to accept crippled technology so they can continue to exploit an anachronstic business model.
Screw them. I don't even listen to music anymore, but I download MP3s whenever the RIAA starts squawking about going after people.
I download them and never listen to them.
Come and get me, you creeps.
Then let them do so, and with my blessing to boot. However, not everybody can afford to give away their product or service. Honest people have two options when it comes to music; either pay the going rate for it, or don't buy it. Those are the only choices; file sharing or copying the music without permission is stealing, plain and simple.
The recording industry no longer provides an indispensible service to their clients and to their customers.
Sure seems funny that so many people are stealing something that no one seems to want. Your logic is in abeyance.