What you're noticing is commonly referred to as a 'long tail' phenomenon. As economic scarcity begins to disappear, (or in the case of the internet, the economic scarcity of data vanished nearly overnight), people begin to migrate from the more popular content (the 'head' of the curve), to less popular niche content that more accurately reflects their own tastes (the 'tail' of the curve). The death of the recording giants as they were in the 70's and 80's was truly sewn when the customers' available selection went up by several orders of magnitude as it did when many of us began to get our music on the internet (legally or not), rather than small record stores. These record companies will all continue to lose business and capital as more and more artists begin to produce and publish their own music. If these companies want to continue doing business, they're going to have to take a good hard look at what's really happening, and adjust their business model accordingly.

Of course, no business really wants to downsize, people lose their jobs, maybe even their retirement. It's an ugly prospect in several ways. The truth is though, that the recording industry isn't necessary like it once was. Nearly everything that 30 years ago required an army of professionals and factories full of equipment can now be done by an amateur with a few dollars and a little skill and ambition. The result is that as these recording giants begin to die off, they exhibit many of the characteristics of a dying wild animal, which is to say that they're hurting people in their misguided attempts to stay alive, and largely unwilling to face the ugly truth of the situation.