Amusing news article from arstechnica (http://arstechnica.com/news/posts/20040903-4156.html): BMI posts record year, despite evil pirates and Fair Use.

If you look at BMI's all time high fiscal year (http://bmi.com/news/200408/20040818a.asp), one might indeed wonder to what extent piracy is destroying the industry, and to what extent artists are suffering from such.

Isn't it ironic that BMI demonstrates through its own profit records that the music industry is still working pretty well?

The part I find funny about the whole matter (and I have yet to download a single mp3 from any Internet-connected website, other than those from some bands where I know the artist personally (http://www.seryn.com/)), is that they seem to allude that when piracy goes up, sales go down... except the same period they're using for their poll, happens to also be the same time when globally, jobs are down 5-15% over the last 2-3 years.

Coincidence? I think not.

Not to mention the fact that popular music seems crappier than ever before and record companies seem more committed than ever to producing unoriginal garbage instead of innovative new music.

... and Hollywood had an all-time summer haul of just under $4 billion from the first weekend in May through Labor Day. You can read more about it here (http://www.abcnews.go.com/wire/Entertainment/ap20040905_1274.html?CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312).