The way that I promote the music that I make is through mp3s. Its an incredible feeling to receive feedback from people in Zaire and Taiwan on the same day because they got my music for free and they liked it or wanted to say hi. Without the format, I wouldn't be able to do it. Plain and simple.

The amount of music that is being produced independently is staggering now that the internet and bandwidth are easily obtainable. Musicians at home are no longer left with just irate neighbours as their prime audience. Look at the amount of legal mp3s that exist on the internet. There is a huge potential and unfortunately, a market for music distribution online.

Indirectly, its the RIAA's market and they're afraid of losing the control they had even six months ago.

With less control over the artists, they're more unaware of the amount of talent that exists. And there's lots. Look at mp3.com's roster of creativity, for instance.

I'm sick of the RIAA's attempts to hack and slash at the music community and I say fuck 'em, too. They're so concerned about the bottom line that they're forgetting that markets and trends change. If they were smart, they'd work with the shift instead of trying to prevent it from happening. They're kicking and screaming because they're scared.

Let them. Those who throw tantrums don't get their way forever and well... We all have our computers complete with burners and fraunhofer codec already so I don't know why people panic so much when the RIAA makes another rash move somewhere. We will always have the tools to distribute.

What's next... suing whomever created FTP? MPEG?

I hope they'll go away soon.