Here are some factors I attribute to the decline in the music industry:
- Artists are locked into contracts with RIAA labels
- Most artists still looking for the best deal. Label can provide advances and recording studios. Even big name artists speaking out against P2P.
- CDs, which were once the dominant format are now being marginalized, but only slowly. The equipment is still around and goes through a replacement cycle by users. Handheld and car players have taken time to be developed and purchased.
- Ogg and FLAC have only slowly risen in popularity, with MP3 a royalty imbuing format and yet the most prevalent.
- ISP bandwith costs for streaming have had to come down.
- Too many music sites competing for the same small-to-medium sized bands. No unified charts that could theoretically be created.
- Not enough umbrella organizations for non-RIAA sites and artists: does SoundExhange have an independent competitor?
- MusicBrainz (music metadata) not universal enough
- Micropayments not mainstream
- song-profiling, listener-profiling only a recent development, and proprietary
- Listeners still very much in love with old songs (RIAA back catalogue) with new music often of short-term quality
- Massive RIAA lobbying for home internet streaming laws, and legal action against P2P users.
- Semantic web features still in early phases to make audio and video a "free-floating" entity
- Home sound recording and production technology still improving to studio quality levels
- Ticketing and gig tracking sites: no clear cut destination.
- Does iTunes provide enough price differences between RIAA and non-RIAA content?
The internet is an unstoppable force