I'm guessing its the record companies, not the retaillers that are the problem.

You got it, it is no Denny/Daniel situation (nice one though!).

The record companies are once again leaving he retailer out to dry. You gotta feel a bit sorry for them. Between the deliberate shrinking of the catalogue available to them through the distributors, Amazon, peer to peer, iTunes, overpricing and The Warehouse their market is about shot.

Please excuse this rant, it has been building for sometime... ever since Napster came along.

I find it astounding that the music industry has within its grasp the Holy Grail of every entrepreneur, a product that does not have to be manufactured, without the need to carry stock and has a distribution network that costs next to nothing.

What angers me the most are the retail opportunities that are being missed. The industry is forgetting that people with a decent internet connection or even a computer are in the minority. Besides, your average punter has better things to do with their time that sit around waiting for downloads, then trying to working out how to use the software to get it onto their device (look at the digital photo trade). There is the potential that everywhere you go there is somewhere that can upload what ever your heart desires to what ever device you carry. Or even burn a CD, complete with cover, if you are prepared to wait.

From a retail business stand point imagine not having to carry stock. Not having to buy 100 units at $25 per unit and only selling two, with the rest being lucky to sell for $5, let alone give away! This will give the opportunity for the small operator to come back into the market, with someone who is interested in selling the music not just the product. There should be no reason that you could not buy any song ever released!

The promotional opportunities are amazing. Once again there is an avertising medium that costs next to nothing as well. Imagine the hype that could be generated for the global simultaneous release of a song/album (god help us!).

Make it the right price, make it too easy to buy and they will come. MC Lars said it best, "Music is no longer a product, it is a service". The music industry needs to stop the attitude of why they/we shouldn't and grab hold of all the reasons why they should!

But that's a pretty different argument. Copying of PS games is a lot more difficult than just digitising your CD

An audio file is a very simple (especially compared to a PS2 game!) that is being made unduly complicated with DRM.

Checked out one of the legit sites digiRAMA to discover that not only are you restricted as to what you can do with the files but they will only work through Windows Media Player! I will not use the Evil Empires bloated piece of spyware!

If the music industry considers this an alternative to peer to peer they are dreaming.

One of the issues that is being missed is that music is collected. Who believes that their DRM embedded original files are going to work in five years time let alone two? I personally have the first single that I bought mumble years ago.

As far as the death of the album... check out the bittorrent sites, you will see albums being offered and downloaded in vast quantities. I put forward that these are being collected rather then seriously listened to, they were never sales in the first place.