"Intellectual property law cannot be patched, retrofitted, or expanded to contain digitized expression any more than real estate law might be revised to cover the allocation of broadcasting spectrum..."
John Perry Barlow

The structure of the recording industry continues to crumble from within: this time we have an essay by John Snyder, president of Artist House Records, a board member of the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS), and a 32-time Grammy nominee. He presented this paper to NARAS - I'm guessing they were taken aback:

The entire concept of intellectual property needs to be reexamined, and ways of protecting it need to reconsidered. Unfortunately, the entertainment industry has, by legislative crook and judicial hook, obtained a 20-year copyright extension. The Supreme Court recently upheld the "Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA)" that extended the life of existing copyrights an additional 20 years. This, in the face of Justice Steven G. Breyer's estimation that only 2 percent of works copyrighted between 1923 and 1942 are available to the general public. The Supreme Court case pitted the public against Disney, whose early Mickey Mouse cartoons were to enter into the public domain in 2003, and for whom Congress drafted the legislation in the first place.

This is a clear case of a multinational conglomerate using its political muscle to the disadvantage of everyone but itself.

....Why is it that record companies pay dearly for radio play and fight Internet play? What is the real difference between radio and the Internet? Perfect copies? If we look at the Internet as analogous to radio, the problem becomes one of performance rights, not the unlawful exploitation of intellectual property.

....Advances in hardware and software have propelled the movie business ever since the VCR, which at the time was decried as the death of the movie business, just as the cassette was to be the death of the music business. In both cases, these "copying" devices enhanced their respective businesses. Whether it's the MPAA or the RIAA, there is no reason to trust those who have cried wolf in the past about new technology, especially when history has shown that advances in technology increase consumer spending.

....This raises another question. Why don't the record labels have P2P networks? They have proven to be wildly popular. They don't require expensive investments in technology to start and maintain, and most importantly, the online community has embraced them wholeheartedly. The reason is, they can't agree with their "partners" — publishers and artists — on how to share the money. The same greed that got them into their current problem prevents them from extricating themselves from it.

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