Music Industry Blames Net for all evil
Because of the exceptional brilliance and innovation evident in today's pop offerings, discussions of dwindling consumer interest in vapid, predictable cliche products would clearly be out of place. No, the industry is doing everything right, so the only possible explanation for a loss of revenue has got to be the pestilence of Internet piracy.
Or so the RIAA and its collaborator, consulting outfit PriceWaterhouse-Coopers, have concluded: "Illegal Internet downloading is displacing sales and helping explain a seven per cent drop in CD shipments and a 69.9 per cent increase in counterfeit/pirate optical disc seizures," the organization says.