[Strangelet]

Which is where you and I were bound to meet on this issue, Sean.

The most important aspect of this debate for me is what is best for the artists.

Now that the distribution and manufacturing of physical media is no longer an excuse to fuck over the artists down to pennies on the dollar, and advertisement is as viral as a sock puppet video on youtube, there's actually more economic sense for labels and artists to work in agile, like minded collectives.

But that's dependent on the assumption that people will actually pay for their shit.

which is why people who wholesale download whatever the fuck they want, while smirking at Sony, is actually doing a great job of giving the RIAA/MPAA corporate model a new excuse to control everything. So that they can spend all their money on lawyers and more restrictive DRM technology. They can continue the mindset where the consumer's interests come before the artists. Because its all about the great unwashed birther dumb fuck consumer with the corporate model. And that's what we have and will continue to have if consumers act like artists exist for their whims.