The recording industry is having a harder time restructuring for the digital economy than the news industry. Wherever these two industries are going, news will get there sooner than recording.
I think the reason is that music is so highly regulated. News is a more natural economy, involving things like the cost of paper and salaries for classified salespeople. When music needs more paper, or its analog to paper, it gets a law or a court judgement. These laws and judgements have created a byzantine framework. This framework is inflexible.
If the recording industry were more natural, creative destruction would make the move to the internet less wrenching.
I don’t mean to be hard hearted about the personal impact of the destruction. My thought is that there’s so much because this is not a very free market.