No Rock And Roll Fun

NOT IN MY NAME: Delighted to come across this piece by (yes, that) Janis Ian, questioning just what the RIAA means when they say their battle to stop music downloads is in her best finanical interests. Whereas we can only sit here and gesticulate at figures, Janis is able to argue with her pocketbook and accounts:
Let's take it from my personal experience. My site (www.janisian.com ) gets an average of 75,000 hits a year. Not bad for someone whose last hit record was in 1975. When Napster was running full-tilt, we received about 100 hits a month from people who'd downloaded Society's Child or At Seventeen for free, then decided they wanted more information. Of those 100 people (and these are only the ones who let us know how they'd found the site), 15 bought CDs. Not huge sales, right? No record company is interested in 180 extra sales a year. But… that translates into $2700, which is a lot of money in my book. And that doesn't include the ones who bought the CDs in stores, or who came to my shows.