Record sales are in decline, while more free music is readily available, and capitalism is working. Supply and demand. CD prices, for so long much too high, are weakening. So says the LA Times.

"It's a tough market, and it's a hard one to gauge when the new reality of a price range is 'free' on one end and '$20' on the other," said Pam Horovitz, president of the National Assn. of Recording Merchandisers, the trade group for music merchants.

There is too much music for consumers to select from these days. Nobody wants to pay $20 for a CD and feel like they can't buy another CD for a week or two. Music fans want to horde music. Most music fans, I believe, would prefer to own the whole package, but they also want to horde music, which is the appeal of file sharing services.

Unfortunately for the music labels, cost cutting may be too late. There is already a generation of young music fans raised on file sharing. They are unlikely to ever gain an attachment to packaged music. Still, the one hope for the music industry is to make music cheaper.