The RIAA spout forth tales of doom regarding their earnings, yet their own data seems to indicate otherwise. John Walkenbach of the J-Walk blog took those figures and graphed them (the pdf is brutal). That graph is pictured here for your analyzing pleasure. Those numbers represent millions of dollars. Note that the total units sold has risen steadily since 2003. The slide between 1999 and 2003 likely reflects the music industry's lapse in adopting the concept of online sales.The figures show CD sales dropping, but online album and single sales skyrocketing. And logically so, since most folks would find it easier to download content in the format they're most likely to use it in, such as their mp3 players etc. Yes, the value is down, but that's because the price of online content is cheaper than on physical media.
So the next time you hear sob stories about declining sales due to illegal downloads, show them this graph.
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