Mp3 blogs: nobody cares about the law

About five years ago, the Recording Industry of American Artists (RIAA) took great measures to shut down a file sharing network that threatened to topple them off their thrown. Today, free music is shared illegally in plain sight of lawyers everywhere, and the culprits are all getting away with it. Welcome to the age of the mp3 blog. "It's technically illegal, but the artists and record companies definitely see the value of the positive word of mouth," said Matthew Perpetua, founder of Fluxblog.org, which provides reviews of underground artists and posts their mp3s. He added that the labels react to the sites by "either encourage the activity by promoting directly to bloggers or simply looking the other way." Blogging in general has exploded in recent years, and mp3 blogs are no exception. All one has to do is find a single site and suddenly there's so much music available that it's hard to wade through it all. One can find everything from the Rolling Stones to Sly and the Family Stone to unsigned artists, to music from the 1920s-all in about five minutes. "Mp3 blogs exist in a legal grey area where grassroots enthusiasm and practical marketing meet," Perpetua said. Nobody really makes any money off of this, with the possible exception of the artists themselves, because they get free exposure and a chance to be heard anywhere

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