The Real Music Problem?

Last week in the Post's Outlook section Jeff How of Wired magazine describes a different threat to online music: The Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which according to Howe undoes the concept of "fair use." It's a compelling article, and makes a smaller argument couched in economic reality:

The major labels own scores of smaller ones, such as Elektra, Epic and Interscope, where much of the music is made, marketed and distributed. The people who work at the smaller labels, people I got to know while covering the music industry, are the ones now losing their jobs in droves, at least in part because of file sharing. They are not fat cats. They don't chomp cigars and relish caviar. They have much more in common with obsessed file sharers and the music lovers than they do with the lawyers and CEOs of the conglomerates they work for.

The terrifying (but unsurprising) thought this yields is that the music fan's online revolt might make it harder for scrappy indie acts to get signed and distributed. That means more Britneys, more 50-Cents. More mindless pop schlock.

All of which doesn't mean I'm ready to break boycott yet. I'm still angry at the labels for stupidly antagonizing music fans instead of investing in a new technology that could have revolutionized their businesses. But it does mean that perhaps we should start talking about the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, and why it exists, and how we can secure the rights of the creator without destroying the rights of the user.