Basically there’s more and more money being spent on live shows and, consequently, more money going to artists themselves. At the same time the labels are being squeezed out of the equation because sales of recorded music are falling.

The Times adds:

It’s interesting too that, overall, industry revenues have grown in the period—though admittedly not by much—which arguably adds strength to the notion that, when the BPI releases its annual report claiming how much ‘the music industry’ has suffered from the growth in illegal file-sharing, what it perhaps should be saying is how much the record labels have suffered. For other people in the industry, not least artists, the future arguably holds more promise.

Indeed. With the exception of Lars from Metallica and a few others, you don’t get the sense that musicians are the ones leading the charge against file sharing.

Via PSFK.

A quick update: GOOD now has a profile on StumbleUpon, the internet exploration site. We’ve found it to be pretty useful (and fun). Our profile, in case you want to have a look at it, is here.

If the same crisis was happening in the United States, it would be on every news broadcast, blog-reel, and Twitter feed in the country. Yet for the last 17 years, the only hope the Ecuadorian people have had lies in a protracted legal battle—chronicled masterfully by the director Joe Berlinger in the documentary Crude. It’s a case that the plaintiffs could potentially prolong indefinitely, and the indigenous people need help now.

Fortunately, Ethos Alliance is stepping up to the plate. A new group of citizen, civic, and business leaders that “acts as a platform of participation to ensure that corporations abide by their social and ethical responsibilities,” Ethos Alliance was founded by Richie Goldman with the goal of publicizing big problems and mobilizing people around them. In this case, they’ve embarked on a massive publicity campaign called 30 Days, which you can follow here, that sees members traveling via the above RV to college campuses all across the country—attempting to inform, through each student’s own social network—as many people as possible. The journey commenced at Chevron’s headquarters in San Ramon, California, on November 1; the final seven days will be spent in Ecuador.

They’ve developed a three pronged attack to deliver assistance to the Ecuadorian people, $5 at a time. By creating funds to provide clean drinking water, deliver medical care, and recover land near Lago Agrigo, the organization can change people’s lives for the better—and offer “humanitarian relief that is not” as they write on their site, “contingent upon a resolution to the ongoing, 17-year old lawsuit.

“We all, in this country, have benefited from cheap oil. But that lower price has its cost, and we all have some responsibility here,” says Goldman, whose goal goes beyond simply indicting oil companies. “Ultimately, we want to deliver in a way that actually gets clean water for these people and helps them reclaim their land, while also engaging Chevron and bringing them back to the table. That would be the real win win.”

Photo: program coordinators Erin Connery (left) and Oscar Quintero embark on the journey.

It’s a compelling homage, if not a list per se, and it lacks the depth of something like the strangely fun retrospective You Aught to Remember.

As far as evaluations go, Times Online’s boldly erratic 100 Best Films of the Decade makes for some great—if bizarrely ranked—reading. Pitchfork’s annoyingly well assembled best of the decade material is also worth poring over, though over at LargeHeartedBoy, there’s a ridiculously comprehensive compilation of best music of the decade lists.

What other 2000s retrospectives and lists should we be reading?

I think they hit all the most important points. Keep up the good work, guys.

Via Boing Boing.