Submitted by Alexanderthegr8

I was up surfing through the channels of my Direct TV and happened to pause on MTV's little news break and felt a huge smile grow to laughter as I heard, in 550 watts of splendor ...

"Rocker Ozzy Osbourne and his wife Sharon say goodbye to their record company and say they will release his next album as independant stating; 'We don't like record companies'."

This SHOULD send a pretty big message to all involved. Anyone alive in any of the last 30 years knows who Ozzy is. Now maybe more of the bigger acts will follow suit.

Too bad, though, that he couldn't have done this 30 years ago. The RIAA would have a few hundred million dollars less to play with now!

Just FYI all. Go Ozzy!

All f--king right! Alexanderthegr8 has a definite point here about other big-name acts hopefully doing the same.

By other artists following suit like Ozzy, the death of the RIAA is only a f--king heartbeat away...

THE F--KING PRINCE OF F--KING DARKNESS STRIKES AGAIN!!! F--KIN' A!

Just One more reason to Love 'em...

If I remember correctly, Black Sabbath (just in case anyone didn't know- Ozzy's old band)put out an album (yes album, not cd)entitled "We Sold Our Soul for Rock And Roll". Looks like maybe he's planning on taking it back. Bet the riaa ain't happy about it.

How much do you wan't to bet that Jack and Kelly Osbourne have downloaded a few songs, better watch it Ozzy the RIAA will be after you soon as well.

Unfortunately RIAA will probably be fairly unaffected. Ozzy has enough personal wealth and enough clout to say "screw the big record companies". But what the RIAA does is preys upon the thousands of smaller bands trying to "make it". They rope those groups into air tight contracts that don't pay them squat and then they force them to make cd after cd all for the benefit of the big record companies. I agree that it's a step in the right direction and I hope more of the big names end up going this route.

If enough big names go to one of the independents though...doesn't that independent become one of the "big players"? We need to fix the system so that the musicians get their fair share and the public gets to enjoy the music they want. Personally I think artists should GIVE their music away, and trust me, THOUSANDS of bands are doing just that in order to get their music heard. If they want to make money then PERFORM! How did musicians survive before Edison and the record player?! They PERFORMED! Most musicians make most of their money doing tours now anyway. I think it's silly for a band to give away cd's...until they make it. "We're famous, NOW you have to pay for it."

The powers that be have always said that this will eliminate all the creativity. I disagree. I think that if the lure of big, quick riches are taken away the only people that will make music are those that actually CARE about making music. In which case you will get better music! People don't grow up saying "I want to be an artist because I can make a ton of dough!" And yet we have WONDERFUL artists. They struggle but they still do it because they have a passion for it. We currently have every Tom, Dick and Harry trying to cut an album so, of course, 99% of the stuff out there is garbage! They could care less, however, as long as they get their bitches and their bling bling. Seriously, let's put the music back into the hands of the musicians. Wow, what a novel idea.

Way to go Ozzy, stick to what made you famous (pissing off the establishment).

Hopefully younger musicians will follow his lead. I have limited sympathy for bands that willing give away all rights and earnings to big labels just for 15 minutes of fame. It's sad to see artists' stripped of their creations.

Personally, I would rather play a song mentally over and over in my head than give one more red cent to those parasites that have driven music into and under the ground.

Glad to see the move. Unlike the artist formerly know as Prince, I believe Sharon Osbourne has the business cahoonas to make it work. Between bad publicity and breadwinning acts such as The Ozz leaving the old traditionalists to their evil ways, imho I feel this is quite a positive advance towards the continuing demise of the RIAA.

Never been a huge fan of Ozzy's, that doesn't mean I don't appreciate what he is doing. This is the step that needs to be taken by 1000's of musicians. Combine this with the public not buying their crappy, DMCA laden works and what do you have? Possibly reform within the music industry as everyone turns their backs on what is now accepted practice. What a kick off...

I mentioned this a few days ago. I don't need credit because I never posted it a news article...but didn't anyone see it? I was waiting fior some replies..cuz I think this is wonderful news. She also said it right on her show!

HAHAHAHA, SQEALLE YOU ROTTEN BASTERDS WHILE THE LIFE BLOOD WITHIN EVACUATES YOUR EVILS SHELL!!!

BTW, I like the new site.

awsome Ozzie. what I like is that it was on MTV. how many Millions of young people heard about that.

One of my favorite musicians has finally done the right thing.

I dont really like the new site, the typeface is teensy weensy, and its too white. Not enough color. .

I know this is off the subject and I'm sorry I like the new look of the site but maybe I could make a suggestion, maybe make the site able to have different size fonts and make it customizeable for personal colors otherwise very nice. and way too go ozzy and sharon she's a smart business woman.

This is great news...go Ozzy

you know I was listening to talk radio last night and they had a entertainment news break, and kelly is re-releasing her shut up cd on some indie label with different name. All the same songs.. plus a duet with her dad. At first I was kind of annoyed cause generally I tink re-releases are a bunch of crap, but after reading this it makes more sense.

I always thought ozzie was cool, but this position he's taking on a hot issue in the music biz is definetly cool..

I have to agree with droll7 about Sharon Osbourne having the cahoonas to run the business. She was probably the brains behind the whole idea. After all, she was the one who created Ozzfest also. She is definitely a lady you don't want to mess around with. She knows how to make the P2p downloading work for Ozzy, and also how not to p-off the fans.

hell ya

That's OK..... Lars will continue to lick the boots of his Masters.

Amongst all this litigation, we are loosing sight of the broader issue.. the fundamentals of why all of this is such a big issue.

The reason. MONEY. RIAA is whining because they claim they're loosing money. What they are really loosing is the stranglehold they have on the distribution of content. Before the invention of the MP3 codec, before P2P, music was still taped, copied and re-recorded. Sure, the RIAA tried to oppose those mediums, but failed miserably. They cried no more because they figured out with the CD, they could release high "quality" music whenever they damn well felt like it, thereby price-fixing their costs and controlling the cartel.

What they failed to understand was the meaning of digital.

When something is digital, you can replicate something as many times as you please with negligible loss in "quality". It was inevetable that CD's would wind up costing more, but meanwhile customers growing increasingly dissatisfied with the packaging of 75% garbage with 25% what you wanted to hear.

That's why mp3 and P2P were so successful.

If any of the half-wits had any form of respect for technology, they would have realized that their plan to control the market would fail because of "1's" and "0's". Instead, they reasoned that no one could copy CD's, and maintained that reasoning when it was blatantly obvious that that's where technology was headed.

So the RIAA cries foul now because they are loosing their cartel. So Fuck!ing what. The RIAA's loss will be some innovator's gain. Hence is capitalism.

I think it is wrong for the RIAA to argue copyright-infringement with it's proximity to it's loss of profit argument.

You cannot PROVE in a COURT of LAW that P2P is a DIRECT cause of loss of profit.
Any politican in DC who supports that RATIONALE will swiftly be met with opposition in the form of my lack of voting for them, as well as inspiring my other fellow Americans not to support them.

RIAA, while you're publishing propaganda that sharing ruin's the lives of your artists, also show how it's improving the exposure of good artists I support by attending concerts and sending donations to.

What the RIAA is also loosing respect for, is that while they are all over high-tech distribution of mp3, low-tech solutions for mp3 distribution will ultimately prevail. What will prevent me from TAPING a song off the radio, or a webcast, or a "legit" mp3 from Musicmatch, recording it onto my pc as a wav file, and simply digizing and compressing it into an mp3 that I can rename as a .doc file or whatever the hell I want and burining 120 of those onto 100 CD's and passing them out to my friends?

Fact is, you cant stop it, RIAA. So rather than fight and make yourself look stupid, try innovation for a change, respecting the customer.

Or has the mighty dollar blinded you so much, that you're willing to get the US government involved in protecting your pockets, creating a negative PR light on yourself causing your inevetable failure to happen even faster.

I shall CONTINUE to BOYCOTT.

I shall CONTINUE to DOWNLOAD AND SHARE

I shall CONTINUE to support indie

and I shall CONTINUE to salute the RIAA with the UNIVERSAL SIGN of INSULT.. my middle finger!

Like I said before. RIAA.. adapt or die.