The Compact Disc is dying

If you are at all interested in music then you know that there is a bit of a revolution going on in the industry in terms of how music is delivered to the public. For about the last 25 years or so the method of choice has been the compact disc or cd but like Bob dylan said "...the times they are a changin..." especially among the very young. According to a recent survey 48% of U.S. teenagers did not buy one single cd in 2007. This number is up from 38% in 2006. At the same time the number of Americans buying music on line in 2007, (legally that is) has risen to 29 million which represents a 20% increase from 2006. If you were to estimate the number of people who are illegally downloading music through file sharing sites the number would skyrocket. Some people make the argument that the music industry got what it deserved after decades of charging people upwards of $20 for a single cd and in some cases even more. Especially in light of the fact that it costs them far less than $1 to make a cd. It is actually less than 50 cents per copy. It neglected to understand or care about the fact that the majority of its consumers were young people who were either in high school or college and lacked the funds to sustain those kinds of expenditures for music. If you insist on economically raping people for a long enough time they likely will react in ways that you may not expect, prefer, or anticipate. Such is the new situation that faces the music industry today.