Sometimes it's really fun to play the Devil's Advocate. Particularly when you genuinely aren't on anybody's side. In the FECA post below, I'm defending a nearly indefensible entity (RIAA). I've previously made many of the same arguments that I'm now attempting to rebut.

That's not to say that I'm doing this as an intellectual exercise or just cuz I wanna. Over the last couple of years I've honestly lost a great deal of sympathy for filesharers. Particularly as I've discovered a couple music services (eMusic and now Rhapsody). Whenever I try to "preach the word" the response I usually get is the same: "I don't want to pay $10 a month if I can't download it" (for Rhapsody) or "It doesn't have the [label] acts I like most" (for EMusic).

People want something for nothing. Not all, but many many many people want the record labels to do their filtering for them and then resent the hell out of the people providing the service. I believe these people outnumber the people who generally want to "test-drive" music, which was my main rationale back in the day.

And besides that, if people do want to test-drive music, they have more options than ever. For $10 a month there's Rhapsody, of course. More and more artist sites are including music clips. Sites such as Launch.com offer selections from artists for free. Not to mention all kinds of new radio-format options such as satellite and Internet radio. All of these services do contain some limitation or another, but they have to contain limitations in order to get people to actually buy stuff (either CDs or tracks from iTunes).

Yet with all these options, I see tons and tons of people still fighting the same battle as before these options existed. Yesterday the cry was that record companies are going to have to change the way they do business. With iTunes and Rhapsody and so on they're starting to (however reluctantly), but most people focus on the whole "need to make a profit" thing as though it makes the labels and RIAA evil.

Filesharing has been instrumental in getting the major labels off their duff and on to the Internet. It was necessary to win certain concessions from an industry that never would have adapted had it not been forced to. But its time has come and gone and increasingly the argument has boiled down to "I want something for nothing," an argument that I don't have much sympathy for.

And just to be clear, I don't like the RIAA. They want something for nothing, too. They would have burned down the entire Internet just to smoke out a few filetraders. I also, for the most part, don't care much for their product. They've been slow to embrace the music I like, still haven't embraces a lot of it, and have corrupted some of the ones that it did embrace. If the RIAA and record label system collapses tomorrow, I will shed not one tear.

But this is, quite simply, a tug of war. The marginal cost of music has fallen to darn near nothing. The consumers want this savings to be passed on to them, fixed costs bedamned. The record labels have a set-up right now where an oligarchy of six corporations control 95% of what people listen to and the Internet threatens that. Consumers take advantage of the record label filtering and act-pushing, but then object to the companies making a profit for its services. Record labels want consumers to ignore new technologies simply because they've got the market more figured out on the old.

But the biggest question is whether or not the technological advances ought to be passed on to the consumer or whether the owners of the copyrights have domain over their product. The consumers use law-breaking filesharing to try to force their way while the record labels use their market control and buying power to try to force theirs.

I see no good guys here. I see no David standing up to Goliath with stone in hand. I don't see record labels making honest profits save for those greedy thieves.

And as long as I see people trying to present it as being one way or the other, I'm likely to take the other side. Whichever side that might be.