The RIAA doesn't think there's any real demand for legal digital music, at least that was their stance for years. Their view was that people who actually wanted to purchase music would want the CD.

Um.... a CD IS 'digital music'...

Ahh... correcting post.

The thing what trubbles me about the downloadable music is that an album cost the same as it would on CD. Now with a CD I get something physical, and the bitrate of a CD is normally about 192Kbs, and sometimes you get bonus content. When you download an album you get nothing but the songs and they are usually at a lower bitrate. That doesn't add up for me.
All my CD's is put on my computer. I use it as my stereo system. I'd love to download my music without buying the CD's, 'cause I don't need them. But I won't buy it something which features less for the same price. If the price is the same I'm gonna buy the CD. At least I get a physical backup and often a interesting CD cover.

Funny, for every 1 of these articles that come out claiming the sales are up there will be 2 from the RIAA claiming their losing more and more.

and the bitrate of a CD is normally about 192Kbs

I thought CDs were @ 1411 kbbs
I rip at 320 kbps and also have all my CDs on my computer (actually a Maxtor external) I agree with Thomassen......if I'm gonna have to spend the same amount of money for a download then I'll stick with CDs. Very few download sites provide high bitrate downloads. Now if they decide to cut the download price significantly and increase quality, I can live without CDs.

"Within the Internet culture of unlicensed use, theft of intellectual property is rampant. The music business and its artists are the biggest victims, and ultimately consumers suffer also. Unauthorized Internet music archive sites (using multiple formats, such as .wav files, or MP3 files) provide illegal sound recordings online to anyone with a personal computer. Music can be downloaded and played indefinitely, without authorization of or compensation to the artists. Other music pirates use the Internet to peddle illegal CDs."
- Source, RIAA, Link: WWW Link

MP3s are bad, WAV files are bad and the internet is clearly the devil's playground. I don't know about you, but I am going to put a 78 on the old Victrola and listen to it by the light of a candle.

I thought CDs were @ 1411 kbbs

Hm... perhaps, it was just what something I picked up in a CD ripping software I think. It could be completely wrong.

Music can be downloaded and played indefinitely, without authorization of or compensation to the artists.

Because CD's can't be shared indefinitely between people?
Only difference is the convenience.

Yes and lets remember the whole "home taping is killing music" When i was teenager i had huge collection of albums on tape that friends had copyed for me , just like i would copy any new original albums i bought for friends, so correct me if i'm wrong did the music industry go into recession in the 80s/90s ? LOL
As usual the people with no artistic input into art be it music or image are usually the ones that defend their ability to take a "cut".The real truth is the RIAA will have a real membership (power) problem in 5-10 years time since recording artists will record on home systems and upload to the likes of iTunes automatically all the money men and bean counters will have to go back into banking