In the wake of an industry turned upside down, everyone is twiddling his or her thumbs, impatiently awaiting music's next featured product. As Steve Job's steers and extends the Apple Company over and through the market, industry consultants are pondering over ideas that could potentially rival the current digital music explosion. The digital music market has become more relevant in 2007 than ever before. With a 47% increase this year, digital sales have contributed almost 75% of the market value to Apple's iTunes store. This increase in digital sales has provided a little more stability to the music industry. However, it is well noted that the industry has a long way to go in order to totally recuperate from the loss of physical retail sales. For in the month of October 2007, physical retail has seen a 27% decline in comparison to its prior year.
As a catalyst to music's growing digital music market, The Recording Industry Association of America, known as the RIAA, has also had a busy year. Representing the recording industry of the United States, this trade group consists of a large number of private corporate entities such as record labels, and distributors who create and distribute about 90% of the recorded music sold in the U.S. The RIAA is also responsible for the collection, administration and distribution of music licenses and royalties. It is due to the nature of their business that they have waged war on illegal distributors and downloader's of digital music. Their mission to preserve both the copyrights of the physical recording as well as the publishing rights. They have left nobody unprotected from their wrath. Even iTunes, (the worlds number one online store of recorded music) has come under fire from the RlAA for it's low nonnegotiable pricing methods, despite its growing contribution to the music industry's overall economic gross.