Quiet Desperation

I am finally convinced that the RIAA is simply insane and/or pure evil...

From an article on MTV.com about the emerging legal controversy of selling used-iPods with preloaded content:

"When you buy a CD, you have it for personal use on your computer or iPod, but you can't give it away and keep it for yourself," said RIAA president Cary Sherman. "That's having your cake and eating it too. If everyone did that, [record labels] would only sell one CD."

So the game is selling CDs rather than promoting artists?

Forbes had an article recently about the Rolling Stones and music's other top earners for 2005:

In the Stones' case, as with many of the acts that made this year's top ten, the fact that the group doesn't sell much music is irrelevant--their big money came almost entirely from touring. That's because even one of the year's top albums--say, the Black Eyed Peas' Monkey Business, which sold 3 million copies in the U.S.--generates an average of $13 per CD sold. But the average ticket price for a top act can easily dwarf $100 a pop--an evening with the Eagles cost an average of $108 a ticket last year--and this lets the biggest touring acts gross millions per night.

That's also why there's not much crossover between the 2005 top earners and the nominees for the 48th annual Grammy Awards. Though Mariah Carey, who is nominated for Song of the Year and Album of the Year, sold some 5 million CDs last year, she didn't hit the road, limiting her potential revenue. But Green Day, which is up for a Record of the Year nomination, sold both CDs and concert tickets, earning the group a fourth-place slot on the top earner list.

I guess like any other product in business, true success comes when you have a decent product as well as a solid distribution system based on the product's reputation.   Entities like RIAA are far too shortsighted to see the efficacy of sharing music as a means to eventually selling music.