I'm still confused how you can be a source of illegal music when there is no music on the site. From a semantical point of view that's just plain incorrect.

I would argue the 30 percent lost sales has little to do with pirating and more to do with the fact these labels keep churning out crap.
Consumers are becoming less interested in cookie-cutter copies of whoever had a No. 1 the week prior and are choosing not to buy-in to these prefabricated artists, which is something the music industry can't fathom: people can just choose not to buy an album without downloading it.

^^^

That's the kind of fresh, opinionated attitude we need. I would like to offer you a job in Music.

No, 18.99 list price for a CD had nothing to do with that decline at all. No sir.

Even without the ipod, anyone with half a brain can see that you can buy a spindle of blank cds for a few bucks. They charge almost 20 bucks for one, and you know it only costs them a few cents each to make, and the artists are only getting maybe a dollar out of that 18.99.I buy most of my Cds at shows, so I know that the band is at least getting some money, and it isn't all going to some talentless sleazebag in a corner office.

For me to pay 18.99 for one CD, I have to be damn sure that every track on the album is worth paying for. Therefore, I only buy a handful of Cds a year now. If CDs were a substantially lower price, impulse buys would surge. People would only need to know one or two tracks to make a CD worth the purchase price. Sure you would make less per unit, but that would be made up for in volume by a large amount.

Another intersting note is that the current way that music is produced in the studio makes us lesslikely to attach ourselves to it emotionally. most albums now are produced to be the same volume throughout most f the tracks. There is no dynamics. It is engineered to be heard in restaurants and shopping malls. There are no peaks and valleys. Peaks and Valleys are what makes music interesting to your brain. Without those peaks and valleys music becomes boring. People are less likely to buy it. Back in the day, if you were a producer, and you allowed a recording to clip anywhere, you pretty much failed. Now many albums clip almost constantly. FAIL.

Now give me my vocoder and some computerized beats.

the Music section of Borders?

i buy music on a weekly basis, just very rarely from emi, sony, universal, or warner. they've missed the boat; people who would pay for their product are not interested in the product they are trying to sell.

Do I buy fewer CDs than I did before music pirating existed?
Yes, absolutely.

Do I see more live music than I did before music pirating existed?
Yes, absolutely.

Do I purchase merchandise and music from shows more than at retailers than I did before music pirating existed?
Yes, absolutely.

Does music pirating therefore circumvent the need for (major) labels?
Probably not, but in this case more of my money goes directly to the artist than it did under 1990s levels.