In any case it occurred to me that in terms of human history AND the nature of music as a creative force/item/art, the "music industry" is a rather short-lived and unusual phenomena. It's been around in the hard core marketing industry sense since radio and recording media became common is my guess (idle speculation without research here) - and to be sloppily generous with my time-frame I'll stretch the definition all the way back to hand-copied manuscript commissions to favored musicians from kings and courts and such.
So the music industry as I see it is 40-70 years old if we are talking about folks squawking about digital piracy destroying music as we know it, which is of course nonsense. Even if it destroys the music industry as we know it, people will go on making and sharing music like they always have. Which leads me to my second batch of thoughts...
