Illegal Downloading & the Death of Internet Radio

Since the 1990's and the first sign of peer to peer software, most notable Napster, where online users could upload and swap music freely, the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) and the major record labels have claimed massive losses due to illegal downloading of music. While there is no denying that piracy has had an impact on the music industry but you have to question how much of that has been brought on by the labels themselves.
They have always been historically slow in adopting new technologies and moving forward with the times. When Napster, Kazaa, and the other file sharing sites first hit big, the record labels spent all their time and resources trying to shut them down rather than moving ahead and trying to find a way to compete. During this timeframe, for every site they shut down, 2 similar style websites popped up creating a futile chase that they could never hope to win.

What's lost in all this is that piracy has always been around. Us old fogies can remember borrowing a friends LP and taping it. The argument is that the quality is way better now but back then LP and cassette were the best quality around and the effect was exactly the same. I think the major record labels have to look in the mirror and own up to the fact that since the dawning of the music video they have been releasing sub-par music based solely on the fact that they can make a mint off of some little hottie that can barely sing but will parade around half-naked in a video and sell 5 millions albums based solely on that. These "artists" are so desperate for a recording contract that they sell their souls to the major labels who in turn rake in all the money that is inevitably made on the backs of these poor schleps.