All this new technology you keep talking about has provided thieves with numerous ways to acquire music without paying for it. Ever heard of youtube.com? Theft of music is absolutely the problem in the US and around the world.
The revenues and profits are there if they want them.
So, the music industry just lost almost half its revenue over ten years and they don't care? They could get the revenues and profits back "if they want them"? I guess they just don't want that other six or seven billion a years they once realized.
Lol, you really don't know what you're talking about.
Do you seriously think YouTube could get away with playing illegal music? Or Pandora, LastFM, Spotify, or any of the other streaming services that have virtually eliminated the need to purchase music on compact disc? All those services are completely legal.
What happened here was that the music industry decided to cling to a business model that was being rendered extinct by technology and instead of embracing the new technologies, they decided to fight the technology and make enemies of their own customers.