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Actually the evidence is there, the RIAA is loosing money hand over fist which they weren't doing before all this MP3 stuff hit (something the anti-RIAA people cheer vociferously). The MPAA's margins are down but their still profitable (and will probably stay that way, even at cable modem speeds a movie is one serious download and sucks a lot of harddrive).

And of course if even they weren't losing money over this stuff it's still theft.

If anything, the numbers say the exact opposite -- the RIAA's revenues went up during 1999-2000 (the heyday of Napster) and down afterwards (in the post-Napster environment in which it takes considerably more work to find bootlegged files).

More likely, there isn't really any connection either way and the whole thing is a classic example of the post hoc fallacy.

If the RIAA is INDEED losing money, could it also be because of the utter crap they're selling ? Maybe people are getting tired of Britney Aguilera and the N'synch Boys.

After all, corporate-tested, pablum pop only tempts the palate for so long.....

Actually the evidence is there, the RIAA is loosing money hand over fist which they weren't doing before all this MP3 stuff hit (something the anti-RIAA people cheer vociferously). The MPAA's margins are down but their still profitable (and will probably stay that way, even at cable modem speeds a movie is one serious download and sucks a lot of harddrive).

The RIAA is stupid. They refuse to evolve and they know deep down inside that that will kill their member labels in the long run. Rather than promote PC production tools so they can phase out recording studios, they insist on binding artists to them through costly recording studios that could largely be duplicated at a fraction of the cost by a few PowerMac G4s, synthesizers and a few 100-count spindles of CD-Rs for recording potential gold master cuts of a song. They refuse to change their business model so that the onus is on the artist to create the gold master and then have them produce it and distribute it. The record labels want to maintain absolute control over all but a handfull of artists (the cashcows like Metallica, Britney and N'Sync). That just isn't economically advantageous to them anymore. Moving to the model I suggested and selling directly online from their website would allow them to (a) cut out the middlemen for many sales, (b) split the sale with the artist to create a better image and (c) continue to be profitable.

Most artists will rake in more cash from a few concerts touring for a CD than they probably will make on the record sales itself. How? Ticket sales, merchandise sales and the ability to sell live materials such as DVDs and live albums. Artists have plenty of ways of raising revenues. They can open paypal accounts and announce online how to send them micropayments. They can also distribute high quality mp3s on Kazaa and Gnutella with ads for that paypal account at the beginning and end of the song. Most mp3 fiends would like to be able to send $.50-$1 for a song they really like rather than pay $18 for a CD. The only "problem" with this model is that it benefits the artist. Oh wait, that is who should be the only one financially benefitting from a copyrighted material in the first place, the creator.