Does the emergence of the digital download signal the end of the music industry?

The end of the music industry will strike when people stop listening and stop spending their money. Many argue that the digital downloads' transferable ease is the industry's biggest threat, despite the previous piracy lurking in copied CD's and cassette recordings. There will always be an industry for product, however. The come back of the vinyl is evidence enough for this; people like to be able to physically hold music in their hands and not have the treat of an accidental deletion.

It has also been argued that the end of the industry is threatened by the solitary selection that people are now encouraged to make; through one track downloads, portable headsets and most dramatically silent discos.

What people should really looking at, however, is not the end of the industry but the development. The less people are paying out on recorded music, the more they are paying out on live performance. If anything this saves the industry as it brings us back to the community based way of listening that recorded music has forgotten.