Rick Rubin, music producer, and now co-Chair of Columbia Records has a very interesting interview in the NY Times, where he basically explains that the music business is pretty much screwed, and for two reasons, firstly because of the waning interest in buying a CD in the first place, mainly because even by Rubin's admission, a lot of what the business has been turning out was "radio friendly unit shifters," e.g. a pile of garbage, and people just turned away from it.
The best quote is when he says that even if he improves the company by upping the ante on the music quality, he may still be the man with the "best dinosaur." He makes a few guesses about how the business might make more money, with subscriptions and so on, but that seems to be a model that has already tried and died, e.g. the second incarnation of Napster, Sony Connect music store, and so on.
Even good old AllofMP3 has made it back out of its hastily dug grave, and will no doubt once again be a thorn in the side of the industry, even if their price point is rather higher than the other sources, such as the Pirate Bay.
Frankly, it is hard to see how anyone is going to make money in music except by touring and selling merchandise. Even then, its going to pretty marginal as an occupation.
