The headline rather understates the case:
Despite costly efforts to build buzz around new talent and thwart piracy, CD sales have plunged more than 20 percent this year, far outweighing any gains made by digital sales at iTunes and similar services. Aram Sinnreich, a media industry consultant at Radar Research in Los Angeles, said the CD format, introduced in the United States 24 years ago, is in its death throes. “Everyone in the industry thinks of this Christmas as the last big holiday season for CD sales,” Mr. Sinnreich said, “and then everything goes kaput.”
We all knew this was coming, that the CD was rapidly going the way of vinyl. And it's true that the major labels have done just about everything in their power to fuck up the transition to a viable 21st-century model of music-selling -- I got your Exhibit A right here -- but when the majors begin to phase out the CD, we have a problem.
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