The more things change...

The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
George Orwell, 1945.

Myspace.com Artists Concerned About New Mypurchase Service

So, remember a few years ago, when the music industry suddenly noticed that everyone was ripping off their songs on p2p, and had to make a decision about what they should do? They came up with a lot of lovely soundbites, such as:

"Music itself is art, but there's a lot more to it with lyrics and cool artwork (inside the album cover)," he says. "And you get a much better sounding copy of the songs"

To try to persuade people to buy albums instead of just downloading them for free. Eventually they realised the way the market was changing and offered their songs for paid download via iTunes music store, and other such similar projects.

Well, now it looks like all of the ultra-hip indie (as in independent) myspace bands are soon to be faced with the same decisions the big labels faced a few years back, thanks to mypurchase. And given that the above quote isn't from a label, it's from one of those myspace bands, I don't think it'll be too long before all these bands sell out and start threatening p2p client providers and guitar tab websites with lawsuits. Say goodbye to the wonderful community of indie bands, where music was made just for the pleasure of making it.

Oh well, I never used myspace anyhow ;)