How many times have we heard about bands being ripped off by their record companies, how many times have artist ripped us off by being paid well over the top for their services by record companies, Eg, Robbie Williams, a £70,000,000 contract, come on even Robbie is not wrth that much in one hit.

There are many examples of artists and their record companies earning extravicant amounts of money at our expence, the price of CD,s in the US has always been cheaper than the UK, the record companies know about this and so do the artists and has anything been done, No!

You only have to watch a few episodes of Gribs on Sky TV to wounder how much artists are being paid to be able to afford multi million pound houses.

Sure charge us for downloading music but make it an amount the public are happy with paying not the price they have set themselves today.

Dont artists make most of their money out of concerts rather than record sales anyway !!! But I never see ticket prices dropping.

Richard, Slough, Berks

The music industry execs are getting their just desserts after years of fleecing the public and music artistes. If they had refrained from over inflating the price of CD's etc in order to line their own greedy pockets this situation would not be what it is today, so boo hoo to you!

Any bands / singers with real talent know they can earn plenty of money from touring and live shows, they just might have to do them a bit more often to maintain the 'star' lifestyles they have become accustomed to rather than sitting back whilst the recording royalties roll on in, and the public aren't going to complain about that if it means they get to see their fav bands play live more frequently.

Sarah Hosking, Leigh, UK

90% of the CD's that I have bought this year I've got from amazon - used, so not one penny has gone to the record companys or the artists for that matter, should that be made illegal. most bands will make 30-40p out of the price of a £10 CD, I think thats your crime.....I remember as a kid, girlfriends who's whole album collections were 100s of tapes and maybe 6 or so CD's .....Criminals all of them.....they must be stopped before our whole way of life burns in a pit of hellfire....they are dirty and must be put to death....oh sorry I don't know what came over me....I am the criminal for not paying retail....I now know what I must do....goodbye ....oh hold on first I must make a will out leaving all my estate to the IFPI .

jay, manchester, England

Shame, the poor music companies. They no longer squeeze huge profits out of both artics and consumers as their legacy sales channels of music stores and huge investment in CD's is no longer required. The internet is killing off the middle man, and that's all that the music giants are. People will pay for music (as iTunes shows), so why not have artiists making their own MP3's, selling them on the internet, and cutting out the music companies completely ?

Tom, London,

why would i want to buy a CD?? i do not believe i own a CD player anymore.. The world is changing...fast, those companies that can be flexible and adapt will succeed, the rest will get left behind.

charlie smith, CA,

The music industry mafia is getting its comeuppance at last. The genie is out of the bottle. People now realise that they have been paying an arm and a leg for media that costs pennies to make. The music industry mafia has bullied the public for far too long. It's time its enormous power (especially in the UK where it preys on newspapers and magazines with libel suits, using whoreish libel laws) was destroyed.
Not one person on Planet Earth outside the industry has any sympathy with the music industry's predicament. It's time the fat cat music execs and their hitmen corporate lawyers got the jobs they deserve - mopping the floors of abbattoirs.

James Trubshaw, Düsseldorf, Germany

The music industry has long been over charging us for music and I'm afraid this is the consequence. Until prices are lowered there will always be a method and motive to download media for free. Perhaps if the music industry stopped over paying its artists and artists started living a much more real lifestyle without splashing money left right and centre, the costs to the industry and thus the consumer would be greatly reduced.

Steve Powell, Lydney, Gloucestershire, UK

The idea thatdownloading hits small bands more is a myth, in fact it can if used correctly bolster sales by allowing them access to customers who wouldn't usually hear of them.

If a band is small it by definition has less people who listen to them and own cds so therefore there are less peers to download from where a large band will have mny download sources. In other words the variance is linear suggesting that the loss would be a constant percentage of sales ad in the benefit of having advertising for small bands (big companies can fund this themselves) it gives them a competitive edge if anything.

craig, london,

Simple cure?

Music industry cuts prices to what production costs plus a small percentage, NOT to what they think they can get away with, piracy suddenly becomes uneconomical, problem solved.

greed has been your undoing.

the gravy train has reached its final destination

Dave, York, UK

Suing ISPs because of copyright infringement is like suing the M1 because of speeding drivers. This all smacks of desperation.

Warren, Shanghai,

These music industries r full of it. I haven't payed for a song download in months. Me and my friends just use spiralfrog and download the music for free! This music u can put on your computer and portable mp3 player. And its perfectly legal.
I really cant see the difference between this and sharing music as far as the music industries profits go. Either way the person getting the music is not paying other than having to renew his membership each month, which is free, is far easier than paying.
Thanks!

Sterling, lexington, North Carolina

The music industry chiefs are completely out of touch with reality. instead of thinking outside the box and embracing the new digital era of music, they harass their customers, other businesses and now ISPs. What a bunch of clowns...

Clearly an indication of the death of the big labels that refuse to join the new world of music. They look to blame everyone else. Its their greed that is pushing a faction of listeners to download illegally. They sell their CDs at $15. you can download the same for $9. Their greed is evident...

They forget that the economics of scale say that if they priced their downloads at $6, they would sell more music and in the long run sell more to more people and the price would be low enough to discourage the casual downloader.

To All of you BIG EXECs in the recording industry... Your days are numbered, you better start looking for new jobs. you are being replaced by computers and the internet and savy shoppers...

GOOD RIDDENCE

Ed, Essex, CT