'Sales of recorded music and music videos in the U.S. plunged 4.1% to $13.7 billion last year

'The music industry has fallen into the worst sales slump in at least a decade.'

'RIAA officials also said shipments of music products plummeted 10.3% in 2001, compared with a decline of 7% a year earlier.'

Hillary Rosen: 'We cannot ignore the impact on the marketplace.'

Pulled from a LA Times story.

For the last 7 years the record labels have been afraid to take the plunge into digital music for fear they'd canabilize their traditional offerings. I hope that they begin to realize that if they don't canabililze their existing offerings others will. Members of the RIAA, it's time to step off the cliff.
5:57:14 PM   []

The tech kids are moving much faster than we are by the time we agree on anything, it's already seven years old.

If I were in charge, I would put viruses everywhere on these services. That would stop Little Johnny from stealing this stuff.

They're whining about kids trading full albums, so maybe albums aren't dead, (basically ZIP collections of MP3s (time to start the war on multi-purpose compression tools! Soon tarring will be illegal!)) on Morpheous and the like. Read more in the NY Times article A Boxed Set in One File? Online Music Finds a Way.

How can record execs still have their heads in the sand?? They're so clueless.
10:05:38 AM   []