Topping the list is the major record labels and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for rejecting a billion dollar settlement from Napster and not finding a way to make money off file sharing services.

The report says, "The labels’ campaign to stop their music from being acquired for free across the Internet has been like trying to cork a hurricane-upward of a billion files are swapped every month on peer-to-peer networks. Since Napster closed, ‘there’s been no decline in the rate of online piracy,’ says Eric Garland of media analysts BigChampagne.

The much-loathed RIAA appears again at number five for suing single mother of two Jammie Thomas for using the P2P service Kazaa to illegally share MP3 files of 24 songs. Last October she was found guilty and ordered to pay $222,000 in fines which equals $9,250 per song. Thomas is planning to appeal.

Coming in at the number nine spot is Sony BMG for putting copy-protection software on CDs, which installed a "rootkit" on users computers along with not allowing people to make more than three copies of legally purchased CDs and making them vulnerable to viruses.

The Department of Homeland Security issued an advisory and Sony recalled 4 million CDs. The label was accused of spying on its customer’s listening habits and ordered to pay several million dollars to settle class-action lawsuits that alleged violations of spyware laws.

Landing at number 19 is the recording industry’s decision to abandon the single format and force people to buy entire albums. "Greed to force consumers to buy an album [resulted] in the loss of an entire generation of record consumers," says Billboard charts expert Joel Whitburn.

"People who could only afford to buy their favorite hit of the week were told it wasn’t available as a single. Instead, they stopped going to record shops and turned their attention to illegally downloading songs."

Actually, you can check it out for yourself on PodTech, or over on the Rocky Mountain Voices blog. (They got interviews with the people involved).

But, here’s the short version of the story.

There was a company that made industrial blenders. One day the CEO was trying to find new ways to test the blender. That gave another employee an idea “video the tests and put them on You Tube.”

Five days later their little video series (they blend things like marbles, full cans of Coke, rake handles, and other weird stuff) was viewed five million times and had 10,000 comments.

That was a month ago. Cost $50. Crazy. But I want one of those blenders. Imagine the margaritas!

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Robert Scoble is the founder of the Scobleizer blog. He works as PodTech.net’s Vice President of Media Development.

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After all, who wouldn’t want to watch a man in a lab coat and goggles drop 50 marbles, or golf balls, or a crowbar, or a rake handle, into a blender while teasing the viewer with questions about whether those things can really be blended.

And what a sublime spectacle it is to see a full, unopened can of Coke blended with a whole chicken – just in time for Thanksgiving.

Ten thousand comments later, marketers are thinking these guys are on to something.

Blendtec’s “Will it Blend?” video series has become an immediate case study for using online video to your advantage, rather than fighting with the site operators (I’m talking to you, music labels and TV producers) about the finer points of copyright law.

Writes the editors at PodTech:

Visit WillItBlend.com, and the marketing team has a slew of interesting product demonstrations divided into two categories: Try This at Home and Don’t Try This At Home. At home, those with a penchant for creative destruction can efficiently cut up credit cards, or speed up the fast food experience by pureeing their Big Mac, fries, and milkshakes.

This last one, of course, is like yelling at your microwave to hurry up with the bun-steaming.

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