You may have already seen it, but Rolling Stone has a great article on the decline of the record industry. It's part one of two, but still worth a read.

The article is full of insiders look at the industry, such as this one:

"They left billions and billions of dollars on the table by suing Napster -- that was the moment that the labels killed themselves," says Jeff Kwatinetz, CEO of management company the Firm. "The record business had an unbelievable opportunity there. They were all using the same service. It was as if everybody was listening to the same radio station. Then Napster shut down, and all those 30 or 40 million people went to other [file-sharing services]."

I've never thought of it that way, actually, but Jeff is totally right.

There is more good stuff in the article, but I'll save rewriting it here. Just head over and read it.