I don't disagree. There's lots of people trying to figure out how to make a living off the Internet and widely distributable content. That's exactly the problem. The problem is we have a business model that is still trying to work in an age where they can no longer control the medium of exchange. That's just plain doomed, for right or wrong. If they're going to survive, somehow the model needs to change.
Here's another way to look at it: Maybe due to distribution necessities, and other market and industry forces of the past, musicicians have been able to take advantage of these forces and leverage their labor into monumentally outrageous sums of money that was merely the luck of the draw. A few managed to work this system into many millions of dollars, and *good* for them. They were in the right place at the right time. No blood, no foul.
But is the multimillion dollar payment really a *right*? Well... no... only in so much as the market is willing to bear the price. Is Eminem really so wonderfully talented that his labors should result in a life of wealth for producing one measly little album? Say what you like... but the guy is no Mozart.
I'm not even trying to say that good marketing shouldn't be allowed to substitute for talent every now and then. That's not what I'm all about. What I'm trying to say is this: Maybe some artists are only now finding out what their product is worth.
Eminem will likely not make millions from his ASCAP rights. He will make his millions from the sales and marketing of his image and recordings. That's an RIAA issue, far removed from what ASCAP is doing.
Hearing names like Madonna, Kravitz, or Eminem, in which all three both perform and write something similar to music, kind of confuses the issue. Imagine all those John/Jane Doe songwriters you've never heard of -- the ones who write the songs performed by people surgically altered to be more beautiful. Those composers/publishers/producers are the people ASCAP represents. If you happen to be a performer as well, more power to you. But ASCAP is there to collect the royalties for the people who created the performance pieces in the first place.