Of course, all the lack of trust hasn't been helped by all that DRM and all those anti-P2P lawsuits the music industry keeps insisting on - though to be fair, most of the latter have actually been in the US (though American litigation no doubt contributes to bad impressions of the music business in the UK also). Talking of which, the boss of the Recording Industry Association Of America has defended all that crap at the Digital Summit in Nashville this week.
RIAA big cheese Mitch Bainwol reportedly acknowledged that record sales continued to decline despite the DRM and anti-P2P lawsuits but, according to Digital Music News, he remained optimistic for the future of the record industry, and strongly committed to the RIAA's current strategies, telling his audience: "I believe in rules. They are essential to the American way of life".
On the RIAA's current campaign against illegal file sharing on college campuses, which has had a mixed reception among senior staff at American universities, he continued: "Universities are supposed to be the defenders of intellectual thought - [by allowing illegal file sharing] students are learning exactly the wrong lesson".
On the continued use of digital rights management by some in the major label sector, he said that "DRM serves all sorts of pro-consumer purposes", and added that while DRM had caused interoperability issues for consumers in the past, that "cross-licensing DRM is the way to solve the issue". However, with EMI about to launch a DRM free catalogue, and other majors reportedly about to follow suit, Bainwol wasn't as resolute on the issue as he has been in the past, observing that "prudent, rational judgment on how to proceed on DRM" would be made in the next few months.