Would You Like Fries With That?

Apple iTunes just announced that they have broken the 10 Million Download threshold. That’s what I just said: 10 Million songs downloaded. Realize that these are paying customers, returning on a regular basis, and undoubtedly buying more downloadable singles via digital delivery. And, let’s not forget these folks aren’t wasting gas and time driving over to the mall for that overpriced $17 CD. This is legitimate, good-old American capitalism having a multiple corporate orgasm. Read the full story HERE.

On the other side of this factoid is the music industry and the RIAA. While the other major labels cringe in a corner pointing their fingers at Kazaa, Sony Music has finally decided to unleash their own digital music delivery service. The RIAA, instead of going after Kazaa directly, has resorted to dragging 12 year old girls into court so their grief stricken mothers can cough up $2000 in the name of copyright infringement. Read the full story HERE.

I find it amusing that Apple can make a great success evolving into the digital age and the legal live music trading community (Furthur, Sharingthegroove.org, and Etree.org for example) are zipping merrily along while the other faction is resorting to suing Junior High School students instead of building a legitimate network of their own. Should the American public be taking the fall for the blatant laziness of the music industry moguls while they sun in Cancun on the Billions of dollars a year they siphon from your pockets on overpriced CD’s? Give me a break.

Evolution isn’t always pretty. Some species die out and some get obliterated by large meteors and then there are the weaklings who get eaten by the larger, stronger members of the group. You don’t need a calculator to figure out that 10 Million paid downloads will clearly exceed the $2000 extorted from the credit card of Brianna Lahara's mom. These types of scare tactics do nothing but backfire and seem to do nothing more than increase the chances of the crime occurring more frequently. Maybe GW Bush will have all of these Kazaa downloaders put to death in Texas? I guess in a country where it’s common that sports figures can buy their way out of double-murders and rape that $2000 is quite a discount but it won’t solve the problems of the RIAA’s or the record labels lack of foresight.

S. Remington – Editor
PhreshWater.com
Questions and Comments: editor@phreshwater.com