3) Then the shipbuilding industry was in trouble. The Government told them to f#@k off.
4) Then the mining industry was in trouble. The Government told them to f#@k off.
I used these as as examples against the similar whining of airport Schiphol. I believe the whining (I mean the way it's being done and who is being blamed) about declining profits shows the attitude in a company. In Schiphol as wist most businesses related to airtravel industry they have some sort of superiority complex and believe it their God-given right to annoy people with noise, not to have to pay taxes, not to have to pay sound insulation etc.
With the sound recordings there is something similar going on, they have a 'we are fantastic' attitude which is just ludicrous.
The decline of sales was already moaned about long before napster, as they have an attitude of 'enough is never enough'.
In NL, prices of CDs were high (much higher than records) when first introduced, it was said prices would go down when the cost came down. That never happened. Of course not. People like me remember that and buy little.
The music industry also reached a boom, from people who replaced their record/tape collections with CDs and the young generation with lots of money in the 1990s.
Both these sources dried up: The first had almost all what they wanted, the latter went for other stuff: Games, mobile phones, whatever.
For myself: I haven't bought music in a decade or so, I download some music, but very little. Most of what I liked, I already had (bought, loaned), so why buy anything? And yes, then sales will drop, not because of piracy but because of natural market development.