I wasn't defending publishers, I was defending the artists. The publishers are the (often unfair and exploitive) proxy to the artists. I wish they weren't and I wish publishing would catch up with the digital world too. That doesn't change anything about my post though.
The big elephant in the room is that distribution and maybe even production do not require publishers anymore...and so instead of changing to adapt to the market they are out cracking down on supposed pirates.
It takes a lot of ignorance of the business model of publishers to defend their status as on par with artists.