Why the record industry don't work.

I recently read a thread in a music forum, complaining over allofmp3.com, arguing that the artists are loosing big bucks in royalites. Triggered by that statement, I just had to write an answer, and just had to write an answer.

The record industry (primarily the copyright owners) have themselves created an environment where allofmp3 can flourish. It is not the artists that makes a new cd cost $20+, and they only get a small fraction of that price. Most artists make their living on tours and concerts anyways, while the record industry is earning big bucks on the purchased cds.

Having record companies earning money off a cd-purchase might be acceptable, since it actually costs a litte to produce cd:s, but what about music purchased from the net? There ought to be close to zero material costs, bandwidth today is cheap, and server hardware isn't very expensive either. (You'll get a decent server for just over $100). So where in this lies the record-companies indisputable rights to their (very BIG) slice of the pie?

For examples:

http://www.negativland.com/albini.html <- (figures at the bottom for the impatient)
http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/music-royalties6.htm
http://www.oreillynet.com/digitalmedia/blog/2005/12/

Anyone, please give me a service where I can buy an album, that is not over 2 years old, for under $10. Let me choose the desired format and quality, and play it on any player I choose, and I'll use it.

Property owners, be it record companies or the Hollywood giants, have always been quite comfortable where they are, earnings millions. They have always been scared by new technologies, such as the tape cassettes, the cd-recorder, the VCR etc. But somehow the ones embracing the new technologies always ended up even better than before. And somehow, DRM have never prevailed.