Consumers weren’t spending as much money on music in the 21st century as they were before. Dropping from an estimated high of 15 billion in 1999 to 9 billion in the late 00’s.
The distribution of music via the Internet became very popular. However, it did not supplement for the amount of revenue lost because no one was purchasing CDs anymore. The major record labels refused to acknowledge and were reluctant to embrace the change in technology. In the early years of the decade, the music industry fought against illegal file sharing, successfully shutting down several illegal websites. However this did not prevent the decline in revenue and was a public relations disaster. Some academic studies have even stated that Internet downloads were not the true cause of the decline.
The turmoil in the industry changed the balance of power among all the various players. The major music-only stores such as Tower Records, who was a powerful and influential player in the game, went bankrupt, replaced by stores such as Best Buy, Target,