Record Company Friend -- let's call him RCF -- hasn't been as worried as I thought he'd be. After all, RCF is working in an industry that's showing all the signs of collapse. Like other troubled industries before it, the music business has been calling on the government to enact laws that will stifle new technology and has been filing lawsuits in hopes of killing competition. Accountants at the Big 5 music company that RCF works for have been paying more attention to his expense reports in recent months, and there's always the fear that you or a trusted co-worker will get laid off. All of it is because of digital downloading, the technology that allows people to share CD-quality music files -- for free -- over the Internet. Tired of shelling out $16 for an album that contains 10 songs they don't want and one or two they do, it's no wonder music fans took to the Internet. Still, RCF is his usual, upbeat self. Despite an industry crashing around him and the Manhattan office building where he works getting more somber by the minute, RCF isn't worried. Ask him what he does for a living, and he'll say, "You know when you hear a song on the radio, over and over again, to the point where you get sick of it• I make that happen." In other words, he goes to radio stations around the country and convinces program directors that his company's records will boost ratings more than records from the other four, massive music companies. In other words, he sells music, not compact discs. RCF concedes that it will take three, four or even five years for the music industry to figure out how to sell music and musicians in the digital age. And the CD -- that high-profit margin vehicle that has allowed RCF and hundreds of other executives like him to live large -- is a dinosaur. In the future, he says, retailers such as Tower Records will have kiosks where you download the songs you want -- and only the songs you want -- onto a portable digital player. For many, the relatively small per-song price will be a lot easier than the aggravation of trying to download songs on the often unreliable peer-to-peer networks such as Kazaa and Grokster. And people like RCF will continue to thrive. For better or worse, we are a society that needs photos of Madonna kissing Britney on the front page. And the celebrities we worship didn't get that way on good looks and talent alone. You know when you see a celebrity over and over, to the point you're sick of him or her? RCF made that happen.

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