The first part of Village Voice writer Douglas Wolk's A Void Named Sued is several pars on "don't make your hard drive's contents available to other P2P users — find a service that allows you to turn file-sharing off," etc - in other words, they're more more an excuse to use the headline than anything else.

But once he gets that out of the way, Wolk says the RIAA is now raiding Midwestern record stores that carry DJ mixes.

Mix CDs are usually sold by the DJs themselves and, "being authorized by star artists is no longer good enough".

On September 23, Berry's Music in Indianapolis, Indiana, was raided, Wolk says, going on:

"According to proprietor Alan Berry, police confiscated $10,000 worth of mix discs by the likes of DJ World and DJ Paul Bunyan. 'The record labels want the independent record stores out of the business,' Berry says. 'They'd rather deal with Target, Best Buy, Circuit City—it's consolidation, just like any other industry. The RIAA knows that mixes are an integral part of urban stores' culture and profit margin. By eliminating them, they can eliminate a lot of indie stores'."

City Music, also in Indianapolis, was raided on October 1, Wolk goes on, quoting manager Jerome Avery as saying, "They came in and took anything that was on a recordable CD. The only DJ mixes I had were behind the counter for personal listening, and they confiscated them. How can it be illegal if the artist is making them for the street? They came without a notice — no warrant, no nothing. They're making up their own laws, if you ask me."

The City Music raid happened the day Universal's new prices went into effect — "more bad news for small, independent record stores," Wolk states. "Universal's widely publicized $9.09 wholesale prices only apply to the largest retail chains, and only to stores that are willing to buy 30 copies of a disc at one time. Most smaller stores, though, deal with 'one-stop' sub-distributors that can fill orders for a disc or two quickly, and take a markup of their own. And many retailers are frustrated that customers have been coming in for weeks, asking where their $9 CDs are.

Wolk says Eric Haight of Record World in Petoskey, Michigan, notes that a new Sting album before the price drop cost the store $12.69, with a suggested retail price of $18.98. Now it costs them $10.79, with a retail price of $12.98 — the profit margin has been slashed by almost two-thirds, and Universal will no longer help them out with advertising costs.

"I think their motives are suspect," Haight states. "This won't affect the Best Buys of the world, but I can't see our store making it through 2004."