Does the emergence of the digital download signal the end for the music industry?

A similar question has been asked with the technological advancement of each audio medium, Ever since the emergence of the first recordable medium, the cassette this has been a lingering thought in the Music Industry’s mind and although it those day it was just the odd person copying there favourite song or making a Mixtape for a friend or potential partner, The Industry has fought hard against what it believes is Unauthorized sharing of copyrighted music. Now originally realising it was too hard to monitor things so they placed a levy on cassettes but with the advancement of technology, so came nthe advancement of the battle. With the emergence of the MP3 and the progression Internet the birth of P2P (peer to Peer) software such as Napster and Kazaa which many predicted would be the fall of the industry, but if such numbers were true there would be 100% drop in sale and applications like Itunes wouldn’t have a sales record of 10 billon tracks worldwide (Feb 2010) Though the rate of piracy has increased so has the range of audience, giving people an opportunity to sample music before they buy it, find music that is no longer on sale and access none copyrighted music