The argument is again "responsibility".

This is an argument I actually agree with... in the case of CEOs. A CEO takes full responsibility for a company, including legal and financial responsibility. A CEO can be sued if their company goes bust and can personally lose money. A CEO can be legally responsible if their company does something illegal. A CEO cannot escape this responsibility even if they leave.

A CEO only controls a company.

A federal politician potentially has control over laws and governance that effect millions of people. However I'd argue their responsibility is lower. They can screw up over and over and over and over again and the worst that can happen is that they'll lose their job. How often are federal politicians asked to be made personally legally or financially responsible for their job?

None of this matters though. My main argument is this...

What should be included in discussions of a politians "package" are the benefits they receive when they retire, including (potentially) free flights and massive superannuation payments for life. If these were included in a "package" figure I think we'd find that MP pay is much much higher than people with "similar responsibilities" as our Prime Minister puts it.

If you have any reasons for why I'm wrong I'd love to hear them, because as per usual, I'm talking out my ass.

A Rolling Stone article full of choice quotes from artist management, record companies, tech people and music commentators and some interesting numbers detailing sales vs. music consumption. Great reading.

On Napster:

"They left billions and billions of dollars on the table by suing Napster -- that was the moment that the labels killed themselves," says Jeff Kwatinetz, CEO of management company the Firm. "The record business had an unbelievable opportunity there. They were all using the same service. It was as if everybody was listening to the same radio station. Then Napster shut down, and all those 30 or 40 million people went to other [file-sharing services]."

On listens vs. sales:

[...] according to research organization NPD Group, listenership to recorded music, whether from CDs, downloads, video games, satellite radio, terrestrial radio, online streams or other sources, has increased since 2002. The problem the business faces is how to turn that interest into money. "How is it that the people that make the product of music are going bankrupt, while the use of the product is skyrocketing?" asks the Firm's Kwatinetz. "The model is wrong."

Kwatinetz sees other, leaner kinds of companies, from management firms like his own, which now doubles as a record label, to outsiders such as Starbucks, stepping in. Paul McCartney recently abandoned his longtime relationship with EMI Records to sign with Starbucks' fledgling Hear Music. Video-game giant Electronic Arts also started a label, exploiting the promotional value of its games, and the newly revived CBS Records will sell music featured in CBS TV shows.

It's the rise in the self published "big indie" artist and the rise in the smaller record company that is as much to "blame" as anything IMO. Even those big artists that remain with the large companies are demanding more profits.

Although, the Rolling Stone article also suggests that record companies are beginning to demand a share of profits from concerts and merchandise (both of which have been on the increase), much to the dismay of artists.

I'd love to see a list of big artists who have left one of the big four record companies in the last ten years, and then a similar list of artists that have risen to replace them. I wouldn't be surprised by which list was longer. Or maybe I would...