According to this article on Ars Technica, Neilsen Ratings have shown that music sales have INCREASED in the last year, by 10%! How is this possible when the RIAA is claiming sales are down?

Well, in true “full-of-crap-evil-corporate-group” fashion, the RIAA reports sales as items shipped, while Neilsen’s Soundscan tracking system tracks actual barcode sales (how many are going from stores into listener’s hands. All the RIAA has to do with their system to show that sales are down is decide to ship less product!

If you haven’t perused DownhillBattle.org yet, do it. They’ve got plenty of information on how music should be kept alive with artists being the key. And strangely enough, it involves Peer-to-Peer and not the RIAA.