I've said that if the RIAA could get people to buy an actual piece of cow dung in the shape of a circle that cost them $2 to make, including owning the cow, and they could sell for $18, they'd get out of music and into the manure business.

I think it's an apt analogy. The RIAA wants to make money. Music is the vessel. That's, well, kinda it.

You have the option to quit and find a better job somewhere else (pretty easily I might add).

Musicians, once signed to a record company, are not so lucky.