The RIAA Takes on Music Bloggers

While the majority of the current mainstream press coverage of the state of the music biz mentions a lack of quality artists, music afficiandos (full disclosure: I am totally one of those pretentious indie rock kids) will tell you that there have been many great records in the past couple of years. MP3 blogs are perhaps the greatest propellant of the music scene these days, the only goodwill ambassadors the industry has left, and most certainly the new king makers. Now, in their ceaseless march of self-immolation, the RIAA is attacking these bloggers by sending takedown notices to their ISPs. From the Idolator editorial:

Granted, we give music bloggers a lot of crap, but they do possess one quality that the greater populace lacks: They have an undying enthusiasm for records that goes beyond the boundaries of marketing budgets or Q4 balance sheets. What the RIAA is doing by short-circuiting bloggers, causing them to say "Hey, what the hell happened?!" is the sort of blame-the-consumer action that's resulted in people calling for boycotts and becoming even more leery of buying music. Which, honestly, is not behavior that anyone who's involved in the record industry should be encouraging at this point.

Link.