This whole debate has been fought and lost several times by the Record industry. They threw up a big fuss wasting money trying to hold back the new technology of the moment, be it cassettes, DATs, minidiscs, VHS, BETA, music videos, MTV and now P2P filesharing.

This link was originally posted by allenb1963

http://www.janisian.com/article-internet_debacle.html

Read this page, even if its only a quick glance, as it gives valuble insight into the motives of the RIAA in their P2P smear campaign, and some sobering facts about the hyped up damage it does to "less-established artists." My favorite quote from the page is from a spokesperson for the now ex-presedent of NARAS, the company that does the grammys:

Greene went on to say that "Many of the nominees here tonight, especially the new, less-established artists, are in immediate danger of being marginalized out of our business." Right. Any "new" artist who manages to make the Grammys has millions of dollars in record company money behind them. The "real" new artists aren't people you're going to see on national TV, or hear on most radio. They're people you'll hear because someone gave you a disc, or they opened at a show you attended, or were lucky enough to be featured on NPR or another program still open to playing records that aren't already hits.

As to artists being "marginalized out of our business," the only people being marginalized out are the employees of our Enron-minded record companies, who are being fired in droves because the higher-ups are incompetent.
The funny thing is that this is coming from an artist who had to deal first hand with the american music industry. See how disillusioned it left her!