So what's wrong with this picture? If the RIAA wants people to buy CDs, then they would encourage record labels to lower their prices, right? Well that's obviously not the case. The RIAA seems to prefer lining their own pockets with the cash they make from their precious lawsuits and alienate music fans in the process, even though it means making less money than they would from a decent source, say, selling CDs, which is what they're supposed to be doing! Way to run an industry, douche bags.
Of course, the prices of CDs vary greatly, but for the most part, you will get a massive hole burned into your wallet if you buy more than three CDs a month. Sam Goody and FYE are probably the worst offenders of all, sticking their customers with prices that often hit $19.95, not including taxes. Best Buy and Circuit City are probably the only stores that don't feature prices that make me want to smash a store clerk's head with a crowbar. (Note: I am by no means affiliated with any of the stores that I have mentioned, so don't e-mail me on this subject)
As I mentioned before, individual record labels also have something to do with CD prices. To illustrate this, I bring your attention to a paragraph from the article in Rolling Stone that I mentioned earlier.
"Last fall, music giant Universal announced a sweeping plan to cut the price of new records by thirty percent -- with some CDs selling for just $12.98. But anyone checking out racks at a music store will see recent releases from Universal artists such as D12, Hoobastank and Kanye West still selling for $14.99 to $18.98."
Whew, good thing I don't give a crap about D12, Hoobastank, or Kanye West, or that would be some bad news! There's another thing I noticed. A large percentage of artists claim that file sharing does not pose a problem. In fact, one third of them say that it does more good than harm. Furthermore, most artists oppose the lawsuits that the RIAA has been imposing. Those that do have a problem with file sharing are, for the most part, sell-outs that I don't respect, such as Blink 182, Metallica(I mean the Metallica of today, not the Metallica that released the Black Album and Master of Puppets), and Britney Spears. Yes Britney, I'm sure the pre-pubescent chumps that download your music are horrible criminals that deprive you of all of your necessary income, except the money you made from touring, the millions of albums that you still sold, your Pepsi endorsement, and that crappy movie "Crossroads." You must be starving by now, or at least unable to afford that diamond-studded Nalgene. Why are you complaining when you have the kind of money that would make homeless people cream their pants, you dumb (but hot) bitch?
Sadly, the lawsuits aren't the worst of the news. According to Wired News, the RIAA tried to add an amendment to an anti-terrorism bill passed by Congress. This amendment would authorize them to hack into your computer and delete any files that they think may have been stolen. I wish this was only a joke, but no, they actually do want to invade your privacy and possibly damage your hard drive. Of course, being the jackasses that they are, the RIAA wants to limit any liability for such damage. The bill, which one expert describes as "overly broad and poorly-written," would "deny their victims their right to sue copyright owners and their agents" if they caused any damage to your computer.
So there you have it, the RIAA is either focused toward money, which would make them greedy bastards; or they are focused toward annoying the public with unnecessary lawsuits, which would just make them bastards. Either way, a serious change needs to be made to the recording industry, or else artists like P. Diddy, Korn, and Madonna will forget that if it wasn't for their fans, they wouldn't have jobs. What's that, they did forget? My bad.
