If you sue customers, you might be a major label…

Just in case you needed a highly biased story that laps up the music industry’s fluff about what a bunch of miscreants and convicts that downloaders are, you’re in luck: What’s with them young whippersnappers?

Among the impartial findings that the Canadian Recording Industry Association found was:

“Nearly 27 per cent of younger people surveyed said they would consider cheating on a test or exam, compared with 10 per cent of the general population… Of those asked, 6 per cent of younger Canadians said they would leave a store without paying for a piece of clothing, compared with 2 per cent of the population at large.”

My, my… such a generation of filthy thieves. Reminds me of a Soviet propaganda quote from the 1930’s: “Today you will play jazz, tomorrow you will betray your country” (but what’ll we do next week, I wonder).

I decided to do my own totally unbiased, informal polling about the industry myself and I found some truly startling facts.

– If you fire artists because they can’t sell two millions copies, there’s a 99% change that you’re a major record label

– If you still charge artists for recording costs, videos and archaic staples like returned, damaged items (back from the vinyl days), you’re 500% likely to be a major record label

– If you ramdomly sue customers for ridiculous amounts of money and make them settle in court for what still amounts to be crippling amonts in the thousands, you’re 4,000% likely to be a major label

– If you constantly find ways to get around each set of payola laws that are passed but publicly grumble about how much you hate the system and how corrupt it is, you’re 6,000% likely to be a major

– If you blame customers, the government and any other scapegoat you can think of for falling sales except for your own failed strategies, lack of A&R and slow technology learning curve, you’re 3,000,000% likely to be one of the big four record companies

– If you blame downloading as the sole problem for falling profits and neglect to mention economic factors and other reasons stated above… well, you get the point