*crickets chirping*
This ruling that has Mark Gorton paying maybe 1.4 billion dollars to the record industry is pretty steep. I'm not condoning the actions of Gorton because I've never used Lime Wire because of lets be honest, he was stealing...plain and simple. Also Lime Wire was known from maleware and spyware (I couldn't understand why people used this knowing many times they computers were getting infected). But one thing is true, Lime Wire is not the main culprit of the declining of music sales.
We have been down this conversation road before but what I've come to realize is that I'm older and people say with their mouths they want quality, rather it's music, books, movies, but really want junk. If this was the case, many listeners that buy commercial music would demand quality from the music industry but they don't and to me it's a broken record.
The music industry has always and will always keep the attitude of "the heck with tomorrow, lets see how much money I can make today." To be honest, the music industry has been in trouble for decades and they've known this but don't care. They hide behind cases like this and Napster but to be honest in order to make money you have to spend money and nurture talent and this is what they don't do. The music industry is like the fast food restaurants and again they know it.
Thank God for the internet. Thank God for podcasters. Thank God for music lovers state side and across the world. With so many musicians using recording tools like Logic, Adobe Audition, Sony Acid, Audacity many artists for over an decade now have learned the key to getting music out there...word of mouth via Twitter, Facebook, MySpace(yep...MySpace), PodOmatic, ReverbNation, Soundcloud, Mixcloud. Many artists host their own sites, starting their own record labels. It takes longer but the rewards are greater for these gifted musicians because they realize when quality music is produced many people (like myself) will take the time and write about it and share it with the world. This is why many of the record industry team up with large companies to stifle the internet because we now live in a world where we, the music lovers, can share our thoughts when it comes to what is good and what is garbage.
I don't feel sorry for Mark Gorton but I surely don't feel bad for the music industry, you brought this on yourselves and you continue to bring this on yourselves. This case was not a victory for music lovers, it's a victory of protecting the music industry laziness to invest , grow, and produce great music.
