A recent analysis of credit card purchases suggests that music lovers hate digital rights management (DRM), the software that tries to limit what we can do with our music and videos. The study shows that sales of digitally-protected music is dropping while online sales of CDs is increasing by comparison--meaning that we are still buying music, but prefer CDs that we can rip without limitations.
But this article, like so many others about the music industry, ignores what I think is the elephant in the room--that there is a shortage of good music to buy, and has been for years. As just one example of the completely backward thinking of the music companies, they are lobbying the online music sites like iTunes to increase the percentage of royalties paid to the music companies and decrease the amount paid to artists--even though the record company cost of distribution is essentially zero for digital downloads. That's just crazy; ultimately, if artists don't have some financial incentive to create new music, the record companies will have nothing to sell.
I have never seen an industry so determined to hate and vilify its own customers. Music sales are down, so it must be that customers are crooks--it could not possibly have anything to do with the quality of the music. Everybody I know, young and old, complains bitterly about the lack of new and interesting music, but it must be our fault for not buying the dreck that passes for popular music. It could not possibly be incompetent record companies. Music is not going away; music is something that is part of our DNA. Every culture in the world has a rich musical tradition, so despite the best (worst) efforts of the record companies to kill music, that won't happen. But one thing that could die is the current music and marketing distribution model. And that might be all for the good.