Is Starbucks the long awaited meteorite?
To anyone who has been paying the least bit of attention, it is clear that the situation of the music industry has become largely surrealistic. Lately, settlements to avoid lawsuits represent a profitable business for the RIAA (the trade group representing the American recording industry). In essence, they could stop producing music and live purely out of threatening people who download music illegally. This fear campaign has recently been extended to Europe, including France, Denmark and Switzerland.
However, there remains questions nobody cares to answer: what kind of business model involves threatening and potentially suing the vast majority of your customers? And after having paid thousands of dollars in settlements, do people really start buying CDs again?
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