Yep exactly, I remember a Harvard study cited in an article I read a couple of weeks ago that gave credence to the whole 'file sharing doesn't hurt the industry' argument. Most would agree that it is the lack of talent, the increased target marketing (usually at the fickle teenage demographic who have no ongoing 'loyalty' to artists) and the now accepted, albeit annoying, ultra-hype surrounding new acts. People are jaded and cynical of anything deemed 'the next big thing' and with just
cause; we hear it almost every week with some new artist or another.

I remember trading cassettes when I was younger - in fact, I had entire libraries of cassettes before the advent of CD's - and none of them were originals, all copies. I brought maybe 3 'real' cassettes in my entire life. Shihad's "Killjoy", Metallica's "And Justice for all" and Iron Maidens first album. The industry wasn't hurt then; in fact it wasn't unheard of for newer artists to encourage 'tape trading' as a means to boost their name around town. The record companies condoned it then, beacause it provided free advertising, and kids invariably brought the albums (usually on vinyl) anyway. I had a few friends with huge collections of tapes, but they
also had huge collections of LP's and vinyl singles of the very artists whose tapes they had copied.

So I don't buy the 'CD trading is hurting us' mentality - while I support an artists right to say 'don't copy my song' like Metallica did, it's naive and plain stupid to assume that the people trading don't already own copies of the albums - how the hell else are they ripping and then uploading the material in the first place?? If anything, it promotes 'checking out' an albums contents, try before you buy...it's not really any different from going to Sounds (or any music store) and listening to the
entire album on the listening post. I wouldn't keep a crap mp3 on my hard drive if it was crap. But that's really the crux of the matter isn't it! The bulk of new stuff is crap, that's why sales are hurting. The only difference is, people are able to hear the crap first via the web, and then decide before buying the album that they don't want that crap. And that's what's hurting the industry in reality - they'd prefer you buy crap before you know it's crap, and keep the industry wheels turning like the old days. But it's really a load of crap.
Crap.