I look at the chart you linked and see significant, precipitous declines where the RIAA either ignored negative feedback or outright attacked customers:

Late '70s - disco was pushed on radio, tv, everywhere, and audiophiles (LP buyers) rejected it (the sale of hissing cassettes stayed flat unti CDs came along)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disco

1990s - CD sales flatten as the loudness war gets really noticeable
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

2001 - CD sales take a nose-dive after the Napster decision (Feb. 2001)
http://gseis.ucla.edu/iclp/napster.htm

2005 - CD sales make a tiny comeback, along with digital, then both plummet as the RIAA lawsuit campaign focuses on university students and the MGM v. Grokster decision comes down
http://www.eff.org/wp/riaa-v-people-years-later

Has the RIAA finally won the war against its customers?

Thank you for that very interesting anecdote. Please repeat it each time someone argues in favor of software patents.

Pick any purely software patent, get a gang of patent lawyers to translate it to some human-comprehensible language (such as C, ADA, etc.), then have someone "skilled in the art" of programming run a program representative of the patent's claims, except run it using a group of high school math teachers with pencils and paper instead of using a "digital computer".

If it involves a GUI, just ask the nearest kindergarten class to bring crayons to mark dots on a big piece of paper on the wall.

Is this patented yet?