Until the RIAA demonstrably proves to me that they are trying to increasing my sales as an independent artist, I will never buy into their rhetoric. The recording industry has done dick for my music. By killing Napster and the file-sharing community, they have decimated one of the best chances I have had to increase underground interest in my music. Corporate radio sure as hell isn't an outlet for discovering talent anymore, and Karaoke and country line dancing have killed live music dead in the small clubs and bars.

I hate the RIAA (and to a lesser extent the MPAA) because of their unwillingness to embrace new technologies and develop a proper way to monetize them. To the RIAA: You are killing my livelihood.

To the MPAA: Your FBI logos in front of my store-bought DVDs are doing absolutely, positively nothing to curb pirates AND they're pissing me off because I, who paid good money, can't skip past the annoying messages every time I put the damn DVD in the player. Hell, even VHS let us fast-forward. And with regards to my fan-editing projects, if you'd develop a reasonable royalty calculation method by which I (or downloaders) could pay for distributing fan-edits the way I do to all musicians when I cover their material, then you'd stand to make money off of my hobby. As it stands, neither of us do. Because I will not capitalize on what you won't allow in the first place, even though the market shows there is a demand.