My sympathies lie with the former. The business model of the industry is, simply put, terrible. With merger after merger ultimately resulting in record labels becoming bigger and bigger, the focus has become more on the money and less on the music. Many of these labels, most of which are (not coincidentally) affiliated with the RIAA, aren’t recognizing music for what it should be—an art form. Rather, they’ve chosen to view it as a pure dollars-and-cents asset.

Therein lies the problem. When labels are so focused on the almighty dollar, the tendency is to sign cookie-cutter artists who could potentially sell well. After time, these unoriginal pop-music “icons,” who are in fact fabricated by the industry, all blend together. I know I’m not alone in thinking that this is happening already. If unique and important new artists aren’t being signed, the quality of music will suffer. When this happens, people won’t pay for music, since it’s not worth the $15 plus for a CD, if the CD is terrible.

Suing students is not the answer. It’s a negative, scornful approach that will only further damage the reputation of the recording industry and worsen the problem. Why can’t they focus on positive promotion of music and its rightful place in the cultural pantheon? Why aren’t artists more focused on putting on good live shows, since a live show is truly the one thing that the Internet can’t touch?

Through better promotion of new and unique artists, the recording labels could mitigate some of the damage caused by the file sharing pandemic. There are a number of methods the labels could try. The present practice of marketing a subpar product then taking legal action when consumers reject the notion of overpaying for garbage, however, isn’t going to work for the industry in the long run.