in his piece Meet the New Boss, Worse than the Old Boss, at The Trichordist: Artists for An Ethical Internet, David Lowery is talking some serious sense  about the effects of the Internet / filesharing etc on music, especially on the innovation-generating class that had once upon a time entertained prospects of maybe someday eking out a modest livelihood through cult-level record sales

"Musicians are constantly derided by the Digerati.  It’s usually after someone like myself suggest that if other people are profiting from distributing an artist’s work (Kim Dotcom, Mediafire, Megavideo, Mp3tunes,) they should share some of their proceeds with the artists.  At this point the Digerati then proceed to call us “dinosaurs”, “know nothings” or worse.... When it comes to the web, we not only understand the consumer side of the Internet we understand the producer/supplier side as well.  And like any producer or supplier we want to be compensated.  The reason the Digerati are so fixated on “what the consumer wants” is simply because most of them have only experienced the web as consumers.'The consumer wants music to be free'  they shout as they pound their tiny fists on their Skovby tables. The consumer also wants cars to be free.  And beer.  Especially beer.  But any market involves a buyer and a seller.  A consumer and a producer.  If GM can’t afford to give away their product for free it ain’t gonna happen.  No matter what the consumer wants."

reflexive quasi-Leftist anti-corporatism ("cmon comrades, let's stick it to the Man!", "those evil artist-exploiting/consumer-ripping-off major labels finally get what's coming to them!!", etc) is confusing folk, blinding them to the fact that it is just another version of the Man (the  legion of poorly paying or outright pirating Netcorps) who benefit from the new music-distribution landscape, and it is the small DIY-level operatives that are really suffering, not the music/entertainment mega-corps

reminded me I need to read Robert Levine's book  FREE RIDE:How Digital Parasites Are Destroying the Culture Business, and How the Culture Business Can Fight Back