The service industry is a loaded gun: if you point it in the wrong direction, the heart of the operation loses just that--its heart, the "goodness" of its goods. The music industry today is a very self-conscious lordship, musicians are the base of the service industry pyramid. They can get screwed as easily as they can have a great time getting screwed. This matters a great deal to me because bad situations, andcrummy record company barriers make for a limited music pool and ensure a survival of the shitiest trends going on. And yes, there are small label exceptions, but you know what, no one's listening--or at least not enough people--and Badness is being thrust upon us in the meantime. Last week a lot of press releases surfaced at theRIAA (Recording Industry Association of America). Hilary Rosen, a very un-proactive sounding CEO for the RIAA, spoke about statistics surrounding "the consumption of music." Yuck. And indeed, this "consumption of music" mentally has permeated the industry, coupling Rock with Coca Cola, Rock with jeans, Rock with arbitrary sponsorships that musicians need, the "tips" they live on.

The Internet gives bands the ability to promote themselves. This potential theoretically implies that record labels now hold a less tenuous grip around the necks of artists. Which is why severe sink-or-swim tactics are being lobbied and employed against artists' rights. Simultaneously, if we choose to listen to sound bites coming from artists like Lars Ulrich (Metallica) and Courtney Love (Hole) on these issues, fans can make the convergence of music and the Internet a happy marriage for the artists involved. Love has notably displayed the potential for self-promotion on the web: her website (www.holemusic.com) is fabulous on several levels. Her 19-year-old "webmistress" created the whole amazing thing, which really encapsulates the anti-dot com crap stigma, and also stands for the fan interaction dynamic of the site.

As a waitress, I really revere the service industry, realizing at the same time that sustenance depends on tips. Without tips, it's sharecropping. The way recording businesses are set up, the artist can literally suffer the arrows of getting stiffed. Bad deals do this, but more importantly it's bad legislation which encumbers the artist from escaping bad deals unscathed, or even moderately scathed. When artists are completely scathed, and no one complains beyond the point of bemused head-shaking while watching TLC on Behind The Music talk about their bankruptcy after that big huge successful album, we become music "consuming" simpletons. Out with the financially decrepit, in with the exploitable. Bad scene. Space limits the realm of my arguments, after all I'm just pointing out in A&F fashion a phenomenon, albeit a cultural-malaise-based rant. But really, this concerns the state of a Time Warner-ruled nation, where monopolistic practices heavily influence what music is coming out. Try finding any real music that doesn't address the terror and rage of fighting or working through these conditions. Given that people don't live in vacuums, neither do artists: music is about money, and Rock has never concealed that blatant truism. "Give me lots of money that's what I want." Just consider now that the real Rock Stars are technologymongers. Kill those rock stars and promote real artists. Opening up the playing field, so to speak, and the democratization of music through shifting the values of the distribution system, means record labels should consider what they can do for their artists and the fans of their artists.

In this way, the real piracy (arrrr…) taking place in the music industry involves the stolen possibilities through greedygreedygreedy money filters dubbed distribution systems (grrrrrr….). The effect of college kids listening to bad quality MP3s they or someone they know owns anyway can't hold a candle to the damages incurred through record companies who own copyrights indefinitely. This distinguishes music from print publication, where authors eventually own their work. The Work for Hire Act hidden under the guise of an amendment to the Satellite Home Viewing Act of 1999, means that making a record is no different from writing a standardized test, translating a novel, or making a map. This was the RIAA's doing.

Relinquish the "duties" of major record labels, and what do we have? A situation where artists like Love and others use the Internet to reach their fans directly: if they're giving their money away anyhow to record labels, why not have fans "steal" via the Internet. Of course venture companies provide the means with which to do this, i.e. the system still stands, but the movement towards more artist control prevails through success of independently blazed trails. Music is a service to its consumers, not a product. Or at least it should be. I want the choice of listening to good music from artists who are more invested in their music than their contracts. The kind of piracy committed by major label record companies steals value from the surrounding culture, censoring artistic validity. 'Nuff said.