Fairly Symmetrical

From this article about the music industry preparing to sue individual fileswappers:

…many music executives, watching revenue sag as home compact-disc copying has soared, feel that they have little choice if they are to save their business. World-wide music sales dropped 5% last year…

:blink: Since when does a 5% drop in sales imply that the entire business is in danger? The music industry had record profits in 1999 and 2000, but when 2001 sales "slumped" 5% (a.k.a. returned to relatively normal levels) the whole business is suddenly in desperate danger? Excuse me? And here I thought that cycles of higher sales/profits and lower sales/profits were normal. It couldn't have anything to do with changing demand for the actual product, oh no.

Not that that's any surprise; the music industry has been crying that the sky is falling for years -- decades -- now. The wonder is that anyone still listens. And for the record, suing individual fileswappers is the worst idea I've ever heard.