Global Music Sales Down Summary: Global music sales fell by 5% last yearComment: The music industry is blaming piracy, download services and copying (which I think they think are all the same thing.) The recording labels have even started putting copy protection on some CDs. That protection has gone so far as to crash computers and dork up CD-ROM drives. Fortunately for me, that protection so far has been limited to bands that make me gag like Celine Dion and ‘N Sync so it hasn’t hit home yet. Here’s a quote that leads me to my summary:

“We have the right to protect our exisitng business, and we have a moral duty to protect our artists and songwriters,” said Mr Jorgen Larsen, chief executive of Universal Music International.

Right. To translate that, technology is changing and they can’t keep up. Dinosaurs are facing extinction and they’re not happy. I like iTunes and wish I had an iPod. When cassettes and vinyl records were all we had, I used to love to mix tapes. That’s all I’m interested in and have a legal right to. Napster has been shut down for, what, two years now? I don’t think the music industry can point to copying and piracy as the problem alone. There has always been piracy and always will be. Perhaps, and I’m really going out on a limb here, perhaps $20 for a CD is just too much?