From Napster’s lawsuit-prompted shutdown in 2001 to Pirate Bay’s legal battles over the past year, the decade in music has been darkened by a war of attrition between the major labels and citizen file sharers.

For every poor Paul Tenenbaum (the grad student royally screwed by a $625,000 lawsuit loss to the RIAA) there are millions of music downloaders getting their music free and then getting off scot-free.

It’s the job of record labels to stay in business and make money. The question is how to do that in an industry where the main product, recorded music, is available free to nearly 100% of customers.

Fight? Give up and roll with the changes? Both?

It’s interesting to see where artists fall in the debate.

In a recent op-ed for the New York Times, Bono writes:

A decade’s worth of music file-sharing and swiping has made clear that the people it hurts are the creators — in this case, the young, fledgling songwriters who can’t live off ticket and T-shirt sales like the least sympathetic among us — and the people this reverse Robin Hooding benefits are rich service providers, whose swollen profits perfectly mirror the lost receipts of the music business.

Further, Bono’s backing of major-label-endorsed video site Vevo would seem to put the Irish tenor in the pro-fight camp.

Others see the current climate as one full of brilliant new opportunities for creators both famous and fledgling.

Over the weekend, the Swedish band Rednex sent out a veritable manifesto in favor of file sharing.

If the name Rednex isn’t jogging your memory, ponder, for a moment, why it is you are familiar with the song “Cotton Eye Joe.” Readers of a certain demographic will remember shaking a leg to this corny, hilbilly-house song at homecoming dances in the ’90s. You know, somewhere in there between “Whoop There It Is” and “Who Let the Dogs Out”? That was Rednex.

Released in 1994, “Cotton Eye Joe” hit no. 1 on the charts in 15 countries. Rednex has had no less than a dozen top 10 hits (presumably in Europe) and has sold 10 million records. Pretty much the exact profile of a band you’d expect to be against fans’ acquiring and sharing their music for free, right?

Evidently not.

Released days ago, the band’s screed against the industry and celebration of pirates came on the heels of Rednex releasing its new single, “Devil’s on the Loose,” for free on Pirate Bay.

The compelling essay makes a strong case for artists embracing free distribution of their music, mainly because people are going to get it free anyway. And, as a result, labels as we know them are going to die. It begins:

Everybody seems to think that a fierce battle is underway between the record companies and the filesharers, but this is a naive assessment – the battle is long since over. Within 12 years the record companies will be extinct and any efforts in holding back the filesharers until then will be futile.

The moral and legal issues are no longer at play now that a new practical reality has outplayed them. While record companies must concede defeat, those with the real power associated with them need to give up their support, and new artists must invent new ways to spread their music.

For the release of Rednex’s new single, ‘Devil’s On The Loose’, we have partnered with Pirate Bay. Although seen as a villain in many eyes, they are quite the opposite and such filesharing projects are helping them to pioneer a fantastic revolution in information exchange that will grant the world an enormous range of benefits far beyond its innovative technology.

Download the mighty 28-pager as a PDF. It really is an excellent read. Right on so many points.

But along with this celebration of label demise and consumer bliss, the Nex admit that they have no idea how they’re going to make money in the future.

“Whatever you can do to support us are we happy for,” adds the band. “One way is to make donations, this can be done at our web site – rednexmusic.com – $0.30 is more than enough.”

Or…

At our website one can also get a membership. You can be a free member but also a paying member for anything between 3 to 666 Euro. For this you can get free stuff, such as a cap with a cow that says, ”I want moooore!!!” ( … We didn’t say it was funny, just that you could … ) or free downloads of music, pics and videos, chat with us, read articles and interviews, win backstage passes or even order a prank call from us to your boss in the middle of the night!

We’re sure they’ll do fine. Any band that can make a million bucks off this has got survival skills woven into its professional DNA.

But what about Bono’s fledgling songwriter? What will he do when the record industry has succumbed to Rednex’s predicted “bizocalypse”?

Tell us what you think in the comments.