Music sales slide despite RIAA's best efforts

2005 proved one thing. The music industry really is as dumb as you think. US CD sales in 2005 fell 3.5 per cent year-over-year, according to Nielsen Soundscan. That's quite a blow given that CD sales actually rose by 2.3 per cent in 2004. A sane person might suggest that higher energy costs throughout 2005 ate up a few of those sales or that pricey iPods left less cash to spend on albums. This logic escapes the Recording Industry Association of American (RIAA), which again attributes the fall in sales to piracy and which last year attributed the rise in sales to better anti-piracy measures.

So which is it? Are the RIAA's anti-piracy measures affecting sales or not? Well, in 2005, the RIAA filed 7,000 more lawsuits against consumers - bringing the all-time total to more than 16,000. Along with the movie crew, it also managed to shutdown many of the most popular BitTorrent hubs. In addition, the US Supreme Court handed the RIAA a convenient decision against Grokster that holds P2P sites liable for their users' actions. Last but not least, the Down Under version of the RIAA convinced a court to clamp down on Kazaa.