Why do fans download music? Well, the story goes that file-sharers believe record industry executives--i.e. “The Man"--are just a bunch of coke snorting, extremely rich, shady people, who wear Armani suits and pay out hundreds of thousands of dollars to get Christina Aguilera's newest single on the radio. Fans downloading music off the web; it is simply their teenage way of rebelling against the corporate system and sticking to these bigwigs. Now, where in the world would a sixteen-year-old gain such a negative perception of the industry? Maybe, because a good portion of the stories used to be not far from the truth:
“We all did coke. We all smoked grass. We all did Quaaludes, to be honest, and I know about the company's reputation. We didn't do any more than any other company did. We didn't hide it. For some reason, we weren't really afraid of getting arrested. Lawyers and bankers for huge banks were doing them--really strait-laced looking bankers from huge banks were doing them with us... It was part of the culture at the time especially in the music business. As for shady deals, there was payola going on all that stuff and again we weren't the only ones doing it. Everyone in the business was doing it."--Larry Harris, author of And Party Every Day: The Inside Story of Casablanca Records. Read more.
