<human>: Condense the text into a few key points

All this SOPA stuff that seems to be spamming over r/all (and ruining my normal influx of interesting interwebs, thanks guyz lul) got me thinking... Well first I'll give you the thought processes, then the question:
My understanding is that it basically started with music sharing back in the day, when the big record companies had a group FFFUUUUU over people "stealing" their right as middleman, to extort as much out of us as they could (anyone who understands the industry knows that bands make a large portion of their money through live performances - most of their income comes from this actually, and that they only get to keep a small fraction from record sales).

So my question is: Why do we still need these greedy middle men? With the invention of the internet we now have a cheap, efficient medium with which to spread music. The artists shouldn't care because they make their money from live acts. We obviously don't care because we have a better alternative (the net). Seems like the only reason this whole situation is such a big deal (at least on the music front - I know I'm ignoring multimedia IP here) is because big record companies have become obsolete, and are trying to hold onto their cash flow... 

basically, we don't need them anymore, so why is everyone trying to support them with new these new laws? From my perspective, it seems like people are standing in the way of progress just for the sake of it...
<bot>: Internet, therefore record companies are nothing more than obsolete middle men, therefore why give them the time of day, let alone new laws protecting them?