Standing Down For The Man
Oct 6, 2007 · 2 minute readI think it’s quite apposite that John Harris’s defence of record companies appeared alongside reports of the RIAA’s victory over Jammie Thomas. It’s rather hard to dredge up any sympathy for a group of companies that have inflicted a $220,000 fine on a person for sharing 24 songs (monetary value from iTunes: $23.76. It’s also worth noting that she got away lightly - if it was determined that she was sharing the files ‘wilfully’, she could have been liable for a fine of $150,000 per song). Especially when, during the course of the trial, they attempted to deny the existence of the space-shifting precedent defined in RIAA vs. Diamond Multimedia.
And really? The Klaxons and Kasabian as art over the marketing department? Sure, they're not exactly Rihanna in sales-stakes, but neither are they Disco Inferno. Kasabian are exactly sort of Britpop-revival-by-numbers band that bumps up a record company's figures, aren't they? I'm not going to deny that record companies can be very helpful to a band (I'm a Factory fanatic, after all). I just don't think the current giants are good examples of this tradition. When even Kelly Clarkson has trouble getting her album released, there's something wrong in the Big 5 (or is it 3 now? Sony-BMG-Universal, EMI, and…Warners, I guess?) Anyway, make mine a 99!