[josefresco]

Not saying this is authoritative but your numbers don't jive too well with this Wikipedia quote:

"In the 21st century, consumers spent far less money on recorded music than they had in 1990s, in all formats. Total revenues for CDs, vinyl, cassettes and digital downloads in the U.S. dropped from a high of $14.6 billion in 1999 to $10.4 billion in 2008. The downward trend is expected to continue for the foreseeable future—Forrester Research predicts that by 2013, revenues will reach as low as $9.2 billion.[5] This dramatic decline in revenue has caused large scale layoffs inside the industry, driven music retailers out of business (such as Tower Records) and forced record companies, record producers, studios, recording engineers and musicians to seek new business models.[6]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_industry#2000s

[viraptor]

Both posts can be true. "music business" is not only about record sales. It's also about ads, gigs, licensing, etc. Even if direct sales are lower, the business itself can be alive and well. It's only the amount of money spent by customers that went down.