Recording industry increases sales as Apple sells more iPods

For the first time in three years, the RIAA reported an increase of sales of about 1.6% over 2003. This comes despite their continued paranoia about online music piracy.

The RIAA could conceivably claim that it is a result of their curious
lawsuit strategy that sales are back on the rise,
but folks with some common sense might conclude that demand for music *in general* has been given an enormous boost with the advent of the iPod and the iTunes Music Store. Hopefully the RIAA bigwigs will take a different tack this time, side with the common sense folks, and quit whining about the digitization of music destroying the fabric of all that is whole and good.