I hear ya!
It was just a matter of time before they spun their web big enough to snare American farmers.

To me as well, the music industry is only one piece of the Great IP Scam.

Yes, I’m aware of that. I wrote that piece 6 years ago and it was going on a long time before that. I lived in a farming community for many years (although I am not a farmer) and my extreme distaste for IP goes much deeper than the limited scope of this site. It’s rooted in watching my neighbors lose their livelyhoods and their lives.

This principle is widely applicable. It’s both the reason governing bodies or pure capitalism can lead to atrocities, as well as the reason communism doesn’t work in reality despite sounding good in theory (people simply aren’t willing to expend effort for the common good when everyone shares the same benefits and blame).

(Re: “Agribusiness”)

This scam has been going on for years in many countries. It’s one of the primary ways the Corporates exploit the entire Third World for its land and resources, all the while having the whole thing spun as “providing aid”.

Absolute power does corrupt absolutely.
Corporations used to be temporary bodies that existed to benefit society, and then dissolve or reapply for license to continue (again, by presenting a plan that benefits society). They should never have been allowed to operate for themselves, for profit, forever, and without application.

Then, to make matters worse, the “trade group” envelope was then allowed to wrap around these corporations, and operate internationally, without the oversight of any governments.

Who’s better at illustrating why this is so wrong than the Labels and the MAFIAAs they’re in?

Cheers!

It played to 2,000 fans at a sold-out London Astoria, “with touts asking up to £100 a ticket,” said the story, and, the speed with which they band developed a “large and committed fanbase” was attributed to the, “viral marketing effect of the internet, with fans swapping tracks with one another with the blessing of the group,” the story adds.

One thing not mentioned.
The Arctic Monkeys were already signed to a major label before the viral campaign started. The labels, knowing full well the power of viral marketing faked out the fanbase, with the band pretending that they were ‘discovered’ and singed because of the internet, instead of the rality that they were already signed, and used the internet exactly how it should be.
Afterwards, the started bashing the fans calling filesharers thieves, forgetting that sharing was what made them. The same sort of deception brought Rhihanna BACK to the spotlight with ‘Umbrella’ She had many songs before that but pretended to be just a nobody on the net. The labels know the benefits, and use them. The criminalization campaign is meant to create laws, the end result of which would be that only those people signed by labels could afford to use the internet to create their own success.
Proof of how quickly the Arctic Moneys ( intentional slip ) changed THEIR tune.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article1594238.ece
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070402/210639.shtml