My take on this is that it's a simple case where technology has made an industry redundant: vinyl and CD's etc were a physical means of distributing music, and the music industry was a way that musicians could, at a price, get themselves heard and get themselves promoted.

If the technology we have now had come before pop music, there is no way the music industry as we know it would have arised from it. In a way, I think artists being extremely rich, in hindsight, was simply artists exploiting the limitations of technology at the time.

Piracy is here to stay, and while at the moment there is a debate about it, prosecutions etc, it isn't going to disappear, and will eventually, for better or worse, be pretty much the only way in which music is distributed (apart from people who like packagaing and things)

Artists will have to tour more to make their money, simple as that
(clinteastwoodbradfield, Tue 15 Nov 2011, 11:27, 1 reply)

and a good thing that is too
as far as I'm concerned! Live music is much more fun for everybody.
(teasus likes tea, Tue 15 Nov 2011, 15:40, closed)