The recording industry as we know it is dead, or close to it. Outdated legislature is no longer enough to protect the interests of an industry built on an outdated business model. Consumers have become increasingly aware of this fact and at last have begun to respond to it.

For example, the idea of an album is, with few exceptions, a marketing trick to bring in more money on a handful of good singles padded with worthless fluff. In response to the inconsistent quality of songs across relatively high-priced albums, we have reverted to a mentality of purchasing music on a song-by- song basis. In response to the bureaucracy of the music production world, artists have initiated a self-perpetuating cycle in which they struggle to break away from larger record companies, who in turn exercise tighter and tighter holds on their artists and property to remain in business.

Undermining all sides of this is the practice of music piracy, which has grown in leaps and bounds as technology and the Internet continue to develop. The success of musical artists relies entirely on their acceptance of this piracy and their ability to work not around it but with it.

The large music companies – Sony, Universal, etc. – may continue to thrive over the coming years, but it’s only a matter of time. More and more, we see talent replaced by overproduction in a desperate effort to produce commercially viable material. The record companies feebly resort to legal deathgrips that fail again and again, just as much from their own stubbornness as from the environment they refuse to acknowledge. They will face a new level and kind of competition as their monopoly on music distribution continues to disintegrate.