] Some top artists continue to resist authorizing the
] dismantling of their albums for Internet consumption as a
] la carte singles.

] "The fear among artists is that the work of art they put
] together, the album, will become a thing of the past,"
] says attorney Fred Goldring, whose firm represents Will
] Smith and Alanis Morissette.

Of course it is. In this age of ADD, 30 second commercials that scream at you for 12 min. out of every half-hour program, and more-better-faster-now, who has the time or patience to listen to a whole album? They should have seen this coming.

] Artist representatives say a singles-oriented model means
] a significant hit to the bottom line. Instead of divvying
] the spoils of a $12-$18 CD sale, labels, artists and
] songwriters are vying for nickels and dimes from 99 cent
] downloads.

Oh what a load of BS. If I'm not particularly hungry, am I forced to buy a 7-course meal? If I only like one or two songs by a group, why should I have to buy the whole freaking album? And how is this different from CD singles? What they propose is akin to them saying, "radio stations can't play only one of our songs - you have to play the entire album in sequence."

They want me to buy the album? Fair enough. So start giving us an albums worth of good songs - not 1 or 2 decent tracks and a bunch of mediocre (at best) "filler". The shortsightedness of this is amazing.

Laughing Boy

] Artist representatives say a singles-oriented model means
] a significant hit to the bottom line. Instead of divvying
] the spoils of a $12-$18 CD sale, labels, artists and
] songwriters are vying for nickels and dimes from 99 cent
] downloads. For artists who write their own material, the
] impact is even more substantial: Rather than collecting
] songwriting royalties on as many as 14 tracks, plus an
] artist royalty on the album sale, payment is being parsed
] on a per-track basis.

Wait a fucking minute... I thought that most artists got more like $1.20 to $1.80 per CD, and not $12-$18.