The Consumerists’ readers voted the RIAA the worst company in America, just beating out Haliburton. This shouldn’t be that surprising, anyone who cares about how the RIAA operates knows the horror stories about their desperate attempt to hold onto the “good ol’ days” when they had complete control of the distribution music and got to sit back and get crazy rich off consumers who they took for granted.

An article on Medialoper reporting on NPR’s outrage at a recent ruling that allows the RIAA to charge much higher royalties on internet broadcasting, highlights some of the critical mistakes the RIAA has made in recent years. Sitting on the sidelines while Internet distribution exploded has to be one of the biggest mistakes. However, the true cause of so much animosity toward the RIAA is their refusal to evolve. Once music hit the Internet, everything changed, and with it the business model that had sustained the executives of the RIAA, became no longer feasible. Everyone could see this, of course, except them. The RIAA reacted like a cat backed into a corner, lashing out at anything they could, clawing and scratching to get back to their beloved days of having ultimate control.

Now, the RIAA will tell you that the poor victims of all this change are the artists. Oh the poor, poor, artists. They were getting so much money before and having great lives and now they are eating ramen from the bottom of trash bins, sleeping in shelters, just living really terrible lives. Right. First, the artists were never getting a lot of money, especially not from record sales. It has been well documented that artists get a very small percent of the overall record sales. Artists really get more money from shirt sales than they do for record sales. One commenter on Digg stated he would much rather give the artist $10 for a record, than let it go to the RIAA. The truth is the only person the RIAA is concerned with is itself. They want to be super rich again, they want control over the market again, they want it their way and they don’t want to change for anyone.

So, how have they dealt with this new way of doing business? Suing. Suing everyone and everything. Another Digg commenter said the RIAA would start suing people who just don’t buy any music just because they aren’t giving them money. The internet community is sick of all the lawsuits, the bullying, and the RIAA. People call for boycotts of any record put out on a label that is part of the RIAA and encouraging others to pirate it and send money to the artist. Consumers are looking for the artists to step up and refute the claims that they are the ones who will benefit from suing a mother of three or a twelve year old. When artists make it known that the witch hunts are just to further the record executives and not the music, then the RIAA will have nothing to hide behind. It will be shallow, it will be ugly, and maybe finally the RIAA will change or go away, which many people would be happy to see go.

On the subject of the artists, what keeps them from leaving a label and going on their own? The cost for production has continued to drop with new technology. The Internet is an amazing publicity engine that costs a fraction of what traditional marketing models have in the past. Facebook, MySpace, etc. all allow musicians to spread their music at a very affordable price.

Are artists not willing to make a sacrifice for the greater good of music? I could see how they would rather hold onto the old ways, sitting back and letting the label handle all the details so they can go and spend money, that they don’t really have, i.e. M.C. Hammer, and live the glamorous life. Part of me wants to believe though that their are artists that really do enjoy making music. They could live in a normal sized house, drive a Honda, but make really great music and have a strong connection with their fans and not care if they don’t own three Hummers.

Obviously, some artists are just hacks, pretty faces that are packaged and sold and have absolutely no tie to the music they make, because quite honestly, they don’t make music. I could care less if they lost everything and had to get a real job. They aren’t artists. They represent one of the most unattractive sides of America. You can clearly see, I don’t think much of them.

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