Ryan, you're a funny person. The fact that people, from all walks of life, glorify and envy talented people, is not the fault of the talented individual. Admittedly, some of the songs around on the radio these days are so "by numbers" that you could easily compare it to your profession, laying bricks. But to say that "Just because you wrote a song doesnt make it yours. You simply "discovered" something someone else would have discovered eventually if you hadnt." is absolute horse-shit! It's like saying that just because you built the house doesn't mean that you own it, someone else would have come along and built one there anyway. You're showing your ignorance by posting such statements. Go "discover" a song then and you might get a taste of that "superficial public adoration". You'll find it's not so easy and that not just anyone can do it. It's a craft, it's a skill and it takes talent. If you're not happy with laying bricks, don't take the bitterness out on the songwriter. Sure they'll be the suckers who'll be paying for those overpriced houses that you're building in the first place.

@Ulrich Schnauss

The point you miss citing "Dark Side of The Moon", "Pet Sounds", "Revolver","A Night At The Opera" et al is that the world, and the recording industry were different places in the mid to late 60s and early 70s than they are now.

Point 1.  The Beatles and The Beach Boys were established high selling artists when the LPs were released.  Ignoring, for the moment, that for Pet Sounds the Beach Boys actually had to learn to play instruments rather than rely on studio musicians, neither album posed much if any sales risk.

Point 2.  Pink Floyd and Queen were higher risk but they were up and comers who could sell out medium sized places at the drop of a hat and had lots of  excellent word of mouth from apperances at places like the Filmore West and East.  Perhaps you're too young to remember those days but it was actually possible to afford concert tickets then without taking out a loan!

Albums weren't filled with dross, that started with the disco era. The 80s saw corporate rock and punk./new wave of which the punk/new wave was by far the most interesting though one or two corporate rock acts actually were memorable.

Another thing happened was that radio ceased to be local and became chained and then heavily and remotely programmed.  As you seem to worship the creativity of the 50s and 60s let's remember that it was LOCAL radio stations that broke new acts which by the end of the 60s and into the early 70s had moved off AM and onto FM radio.  It was still LOCAL stations.

With the coming of corporate programming came the abomination of "classic" rock, country only stations (I'm still struggling to make much difference between most country and heavily homogonized blues rock, btw), disco stations and so on.  So much so that you could drive the length and breadth of North America and hear the same music over and over again from Nome Alaska to Inuvick, NWT, to St John's NFLD, to Seattle WA, to Reno, NV, to Austin, TX to the Florida Keys.  The ONLY way you could tell what town you were in would be the ads.  Otherwise a blanket of corporate mediocracy.  Oh yes, I forgot the crud called the "singer-songwriter".  (Anyone remember that James Taylor was originally considered a folkie) and the fraud called "World Music".

As has been pointed out by the 90s you'd get one or two good tracks on overprices CDs and the other 12 or 13 were filler.  Probably not the artist's fault but certainly the labels had it down that they could move this and keep some kind of release scedule goiing.

Oh yeah..and we had entered the "modern" era where going to a concert required a bank loan or a lot of credit card space at userous (sp?) interest rates.

Along came file sharing with the beginning of high speed internet connections.  Other than a lot of screaming and yelling and sobbing from the labels what's happened?

Most of the filler has vanished from CDs and DVDs.  New artists are broken by file sharers and NO ONE else. (Certainly not radio or music video networs, who seem more into reality shows than music these days) accompanied by god knows how much payola.)

And as for day jobs.  Where the hell do you think The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Queen, U2 and others came from?  You think they all magically walked into a big label and god signed cause someone liked them and took pity on them?

Guess what mate?  They gigged at night and worked during the day.  In some cases almost endlessly.  They learned their art and craft, in fact they lived it.  They did make it but in their wake they left hundreds, ho thousands of bands and artists that didn't washed in their wake.  Complete with day jobs, endlless gigging in small clubs or sidewalks waiting for their break.  Few got it, some did.  And MOST of the money went, as it still does, to the labels and NOT the artists.

Does the AIR Agreement/Sellout change that?  Not one iota.  It keeps the labels in charge, keeps the artists on the third tier of the food chain (if they're exceptionally lucky or incredibly talented) and submerges new artists as it removes just about the last place they get broken these days.  Torrents and file sharing.

Am I defending file sharing as a blanket solution to the many problems plaguing the music industry as it's structured these days?  No.  The industry itself has to do that.  It shows no sign of doing that, mind you, but they have to.  It's easier to sell "solutions" like three strike laws to ignorant politicians than address a broken business model, to endlessly sue and try to somehow stuff the genie back into the bottle.

Music, on the other hand, isn't dying.  It's an integral part of being human.  Good music will always be rewarded.  Perhaps not the way it is now but it will ALWAYS be rewarded.  Always has been.  Music is in the human DNA.

As for file sharing.  Particularly after the 90s do you think for one iota that I'm going to buy an overpriced CD by an artist I've never heard of or heard before without downloading a mp3 or two and listening to them?  Nope.  If I like him/her/them then I'll buy.  If not the mp3s are erased and I move on.  That, in fact, is what most people do.  That's how I discovered KT Tunstall who not only got me buying her albums for me but for Christmas gifts as well.

A download does not equate to a lost sale.  You and others need to get that firmly into your little heads.  Frequently it doesn't.

As for the industry itself it needs to understand that the world has changed.  Permanently.  Time and technology don't run in reverse.  Adapt or die.  Some labels will adapt, eventually, others will die off.  Too bad so sad.

File sharing has existed since the first inexpensive cassette tape deck appeared on the market.  It ISN'T new.  The top artists still pull in a good (some wonderful and umbelievably rich) living.  That isn't changing.

Distrubution is.  That's what has the big labels in a fit.  Not sharing but distrubution.  They've spent 40 years buying small labels, getting control of the entire channel, working with and employing by one fashion or other, corporate programmers for radio, neutered music tv (MTV has anything to do with music anymore????).

Live with it.

ttfn

John

Surely the FAC should also be cracking down on second hand music sales? It's not like the artist is getting any money if I buy a cd off the second hand sales on Amazon, or go into the record shop down the road and buy a bunch of pre-owned LPs. How is that different from downloading it off the internet, from the artist's point of view? I'm getting to listen to their music, while they're not getting a cent from me. To make matters worse, some other guy is making money off their hard graft and creativity, which seems even less fair than filesharing.

"I buy a cd off the second hand sales on Amazon, or go into the record shop down the road and buy a bunch of pre-owned LPs. How is that different from downloading it off the internet"

It's different in nature. CDs/LPs/any physical media breaks with time. MP3/any digital file does not break.

Used thousand times LP will go unusable, as do CD, book, photo whatewer.

Used thousand times MP3/text file/jpeg will remain the same. There's a huge gap between physically limited media and physically-abstracted file.