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Ah, bless those centralized distribution channels. If only we had a Ministry of Music, sorta like the Cubans, we'd have musical nirvana. Not that this is what you really meant, but the comparison was hard to pass up ;)

Anyway, it might just as easily make a wider variety of music available to us all. Once people realize that they no longer need to convince some A&R scumbag - when he's not busy snorting coke from a hooker's a**, that is ;) - that they're the next Britney or Justin or Eminem in order to make music for people, then they'll be able to bypass the A&R scumbag altogether, which is one less barrier between them and the public. Given that his job is not to filter out artists based on their talent or ability, but rather to filter them out based on what he sees as their profit-making potential, I'm having trouble seeing this as a real loss to the music-listening public.

Yeah, artists will lose the one thing record companies really do provide that's of value - marketing. Instead, they'll just have to sink or swim based on how their music is received, rather than based on whether or not the coke-snorting A&R guy decides that they're profitworthy enough to deserve a million-dollar ad budget.

That's not what I was indicating, don't twist my words. Centralized distribution that's not run by the government is a good thing, it's the basis for the franchise model, being able to go anywhere and know what you're going to get before you get there has benefits.

A wide variety of music IS available to us. Spend some quality time in a music store and really look around, there's an AMAZING quantity of stuff being published by a huge variety of artists. You're not going to hear it on top 40 stations, but that's a no brainer, their playlist is only 40 songs after all. Get away from the profit first section of music and see what's really going on out there. Pick a genre I bet at least 5 albums have come out this year that are getting good reactions from the listeners.

The marketing the record companies provide is what allows the music to be received in the first place. That's what gets the CD in the store, that's what gets the song on the radio, that's what pays for the website, that's what gets the tour started. Without that artists will have to use their own tools to do that, which will keep them pretty much local, real hard working bands can have a low end of national success. Basically everything will be like the non-main label bands have it right now, there's a lot of interesting stuff going on off the mains but that will become the top of the heap.