As much as I love technology and especially the Net, the idea keeps nagging at me that the Internet will be blamed as the great Dust Bowl of the Nothings.

Most of you, on some level, have probably bought in to the idea that the entire industry is on the brink of collapse, which is technically true, unless you take into account, you know, how much money actual artists are bringing home. According to the Times over in the U.K., a study of the numbers in the last five years shows that not only have individual artists managed to survive in a world where a hefty chunk of the planet downloads without paying; they’re actually making more than ever.

How? Live revenue off concerts, mainly, which has exceeded artist loss to the point that it’s about to overtake it as the main way your favourite touring bands pay for their fancy clothes. And if you’re cross about how much concert tickets cost now, at least factor in how much, in the old days, you might have spent on physical recorded music.

Not that I’m anxious to defend exorbitant gouges from dead crammers like The Police, but living indie bands that can charge a little and make demands on promoters like (smog), M.I.A., Bonnie “Prince” Billy, or even QOTSA all fall within safe economic parameters, even if no one drops huge dimes on their aluminum or Bit Che mashes.

Smaller bands, like the ones we all know and love around here, will sadly as always remain fucked and generally get paid shit by too many local venues (a breakdown of this soon). So do be a sport and pick up their discs and merch whenever possible, will you? Think of it as an easy tip if nothing else, to help those who make music for primary reasons of love over money.

Here’s David Byrne in the same vein, off his blog recently: “The Internet, the World Wide Web, as much of a boon as it has been, has left an awful lot of wreckage in its wake, beyond just the elimination of those formats we thought of as eternal and the industries that produced and delivered them.... You can’t have efficient search algorithms, cloud computing and digitized everything and anything and expect to retain the anonymity of the past.

“Security races to keep up, but I wonder if the dream of unlimited access and personal and corporate data security aren’t simply incompatible. Maybe we just can’t have them both. Maybe we need to throw up our hands and give in. Stop resisting and surrender. Live totally and completely in public. The world would truly be the village that McLuhan predicted — a small town where everyone does know your business. Maybe that would keep us honest, and push the realization that as custodians of the planet we really are all in this together.”