In which I do not delight you with my musical aesthetic

I signed onto blogger today with the notion of adding to the layout of this, my blog. The plan was to attached a link to my Muxtape page, which would thus allow you, my loyal reader, to actually hear some of the fairly obscure music about which I write from time to time.

You would be so smitten that you would instantly click on the Muxtape links and purchase the music. Yes, that was the plan, except that the Recording Industry Association of America has forced Muxtape to shut down.

This is emblematic of the problems plaguing the recording industry. It is so blatantly inimical to the best interests of the members of the RIAA that one has to wonder whether the RIAA has been taken over by a band of psychotic groundhogs. Because certainly no human being with even the faintest trace of business acumen would do something so colossally stupid.

Here's how Muxtape worked: you could open an account and upload up to 12 songs in MP3 format. Anyone could go to your page and hear your virtual mix tape. You could also surf it and hear other people's virtual mix tapes. There was no way (to my knowledge, at least) to download and keep the songs that were up there; you could just click and listen, one mix at a time.

If you liked a song, you could click on it and it would take you to Amazon or some other music retailer so you could buy the mp3 yourself, or find more stuff by that artist, etc. When I first used it I was tickled by what an easy, effective marketing tool it was for lesser-known artists. It was a great way to hear music that other people liked, and get into new artists you wouldn't otherwise hear.

The RIAA website says that the organization's mission "is to foster a business and legal climate that supports and promotes our members' creative and financial vitality." A service like Muxtape seems to be so good at accomplishing those two things that if it didn't exist, the RIAA should see to it that such a thing was invented. It "supports and promotes. . . creative . . . vitality" by ensuring that lesser known artists and music gets a much wider distribution than through the tottering corpse that is mainstream radio, without costing the labels a dime. The people who bought the music actually promote it for them! At the same time, it "supports and promotes . . . financial vitality" of record labels by funneling new listeners to places they can legally purchase the music.

So how does shutting down Muxtape help the artists, the labels, the music lovers, or the music retailers? Seriously. Anyone? Anyone at all? Am I missing something here?

Whenever recording industry executives whine about sales being down... it's not because of piracy. It's because of decisions like this which are just inexplicably stupidy. Suicidal, even. Is there any chance that the short-sighted, mentally fossilized nincompoops who destroyed the American automotive industry got jobs running record companies?