[moe]

I haven't seen any realistic alternative offered

What do you mean by "offered"?

Evolution makes no offers, it selects and extinguishes. In this case it has extinguished the record industry, at least the part that failed to adapt. It also doesn't care much about laws or the outcome of a pirate bay trial.

Time will tell which of the new models can prevail but one thing is already clear: The middleman is gone. The big monopolies that used to shove Britney Spears down our collective throats are mostly gone.

On youtube nobody cares whether you're Britney Spears. If your music is good then people might push the "donate" button. If your music sucks then you can just as well shave your head...

Yes, this will make it probably harder for individual artists to execute their god-given right of raking in millions on end. Cry me a river.