RIAA Information Awareness
One of Downhill Battle’s projects is a sticker campaign to warn potential CD buyers of which albums have been released by companies that have ties with the RIAA. Downhill Battle ultimately want rid of the major labels…the reasons - “Music diversity will grow, pay-for-play radio will end, independent music won’t be marginalised, the lawsuits will stop, artistic freedom will expand, musicians will make a better living.”
While I agree with it all in theory I’m finding it very hard to deal with. I would love to just by music from independent labels but what about all the other music that I love? RIAA Radar has a cool little search tool for finding out if a CD is ‘RIAA safe’ but a quick search show just how much of my collection has RIAA links :-( I guess this situation is exactly what the major labels planned, “let’s make it as difficult as possible for the public NOT to buy from us.” After all, the biggies (Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI Group, Warner Brothers Music, BMG Entertainment - is that up to date? I have a feeling that money has changed ahnds and they are now down to three) already have a 75% share in the market, they are all so huge that it would be very hard for them to do away with one another without a buy out. So, rather than compete against each other’s share they can easily muscle in on the remaining 25%. How depressing! I’m troubled!