Mutiny on the Wide Web: The Bigger Picture Behind Music Piracy

Music piracy is taking millions of dollars in profits from major record labels annually, and I wouldn't have it any other way.  The death of the modern record industry means the death of an antiquated machine, whose monopoly on music has raised prices and lowered expectations.  Like many other media giants of its kind, the three major label groups, UMG, Sony, and Warner are beasts that cannot keep up with the pace of technology.  As a result, they take actions that are very reactionary and drastic in order to level the playing ground against the ever tech-savvy public.  Their influence expands to Congress, who does the same in order to favor them.  Things such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and the more recent SOPA and PIPA are examples of this reactionary state.  The backlash to these bills, as well as the rising popularity of piracy, indicates, to me at least, that America is ready for change. More and more we see artists adopting a model of pay-what-you-want, with no minimum, and it seems to be working very well.  Just ask artists such as Jeff Rosenstock, of Bomb The Music Industry! and The Arrogant Sons of Bitches fame, or Radiohead, the indie rock giants from the UK.  And what people against piracy seem to ignore is two simple facts, that 1) the money saved on price-inflated music is spent in other facets of the economy and 2) that stats show that, despite the availability of free music being so easy, music sales are in fact going up.  I myself, an avid pirate and piracy advocate, have found myself buying more music than I ever would have before.  So let's bring an end to the dangerous monopoly that is major labels, and usher in the new user-friendly era of the internet and piracy.