TheBigA said:In my view, the collapse of the American recording business began with the sales of the labels to foreign companies. Their approach was very different from American owners.
I'd disagree and say that the problems of the recording industry have more to do with management resisting for years the consumer's desire to avoid brick and mortar retail outlets and to buy by the song and not by the album.
Instead, the record biz insisted on supporting the brick and mortar outlets and the album mode. They resisted making all their libraries being made available online, blaming piracy.
Consumers, unable to get music in the format they wanted, was often driven to illegal downloads. Only when songs are available easily and on demand do consumers buy them. But if songs are not available online, consumers look for any available copy. Or if only the album, but not the individual songs, is available, consumers object to paying for 8 to 10 songs they don't want just to get one or two they do want.
And this is not a thing that has national lines of demarcation... it's just the stupidity of the the labels and the inability to adapt to new consumer preferences,