i'm so old-fashioned - i still like to own music

Music industry weighs giving away music

CANNES, France - After years of fighting the Wild West of freely downloaded music, the mainstream music industry welcomed a former desperado to their annual schmoozefest Monday, highlighting the difficulty of their search for a solution to plunging CD sales.

And that solution might be: give music away legally and find another way — such as advertising — to make money.

Participation was down at the annual MIDEM music business conference at the seaside resort of Cannes, reflecting the failure of digital music sales to make up for crumbling revenues and the billions of dollars being lost to music piracy — illegal downloads outnumber the number of tracks sold by a factor of 20 to 1 according to industry body IFPI.

---
I still want to be able to hold something in my hand that has artwork, band information, etc. Of course, i'm a collector and an old guy, and i still like LPs!
Of course, downloading music has its pluses, but what if your computer crashes? I actually own everything that is on my iTunes.

Generational differences, i guess....

I have no idea how the record industry is going to stay in business like this though - they can't make any serious money with advertising that i can imagine. It sounds like this could be bad for music-making in general, but we'll see....