Don’t buy any music from the big four labels. None of it. No iTunes music, no CDs, and best of all, don’t pirate it. Don’t listen to it. Don’t tell your friends about it.
If the RIAA wants Apple to license DRM so they can cram it down our throats even deeper, I say a big “Screw You!” to the RIAA.
Now, is there a site where you can enter a song and find out who will be paid if you buy that song?
In the end, we the consumers control the music business. The sad reality is, we’re all dolts and go along with the crap they feed us just so we can listen to some artist they have deemed worth of their promotion.
Buy only open and free non-big four music. See how they like them Apples.
Steve, the only problem with this argument is that all the small acts are still striving to get signed to the BIG label. Small local bands that first start selling their music online or through local shops are doing so to get noticed and picked up by the BIG label. If you enjoy a band you are pulling for them to get picked up so they are successful and are able making a living performing. The Decemberists are my latest example of this. They are a local PDX band that used to be on my friends record label (very local) They are now on a BIG one and able to perform around the world. They still record locally and have great freedom within the label, but they need the distribution power of the BIG labels and the Marketing Budgets.
As always money makes the world go ’round. I will not stop buying my friends albums because the get signed by the BIG label. In fact I applaud them for all the work they have put in to finally “make it”.
Consumers do control the record industry, just like they control the local news, and the Government. I cannot help it if the majority of the people consuming, watching and voting are not the brightest bulbs in the lamp. That is something folks like us have had to put up with for years.
Oh well, just wanted to rant with you. 🙂
Burl
I don’t buy it. Literally. Lets work on models and stores so your friends can be successful without the big labels.
Why are the big labels successful? Because we’re moronic and like what we listen to on clear channel or see on VH1. We should be more like you and like music for the musics sake and not because we heard it on the radio.
Lets work on larger distribution. Lets force Job’s hand to distribute The Decemerbists free of DRM and free of a label. Then they get all of the money, not some BIG label.
The BIG labels are only BIG because we make them BIG. We can make them small and distribute the cash where it belongs – in the artists hands.
I don’t really mind that this sounds idealistic – We have the internet and distribution models like never before. With mySpace and other avenues of social sharing, bands can get their information out – heck you just shared a band you like on a blog.
Lets move to not needing the BIG labels, their lawyers and their crappy talent. Lets move to supporting the artists we like directly.