When I think of the music industry, I think of 2 great works of literature: “El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha” written by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra and “A Confederacy of Dunces” by John Kennedy Toole. Like Ignatius and Don Quijote, I feel that many of the events, cultural phenomenon, human frailties and technological advances around the music industry are imagined windmills brought by what we are led to believe or just blindly accept as fact.

The truth is all of us have the capacity to change great things. I have witnessed the overthrow of a supposed invincible imperial and ruthless dictator by “mobs of nuns and priests, parents wheeling kids on strollers and university students”. I also remember quotes like: “Who would ever need a computer in their homes?”, “Why would we ever need more than 640K in RAM?” and “Illegal file sharing would never happen”.

The fact is we have the capacity to lead change. It does not take a Steve Jobs to tell us that DRM is wrong or that DRM never really prevented illegal file sharing. To focus on DRM as one of the fundamental problems of the music industry is short sighted. Jonathan Swift seemed to be talking about the music industry when he said: “When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.” I believe that the true genius is in the wisdom of the masses and the dunces are those who continue to confederate to thwart the inevitable sea change in the music industry.

On a self promotion note, I am the CEO and founder of GoodStorm.com. Our tagline is: “Capitalism Done Right” . In the spirit of GoodStorm, we will be unveiling new business models that we hope will positively affect the future of the music industry. I invite all of you to watch our launch during SXSW music week. Because you’re all part of genius of the masses, you’ll be able read between the lines in our current website: http://goodstorm.com . I think the dunces will not be amused.

This will be a great discussion. Stay tuned.