A usually harsh critic of the Recording Industry Ass. of America (RIAA), The Register, points out that sales of music cds are starting to come back up. Of course that means it is only a matter of time before the RIAA makes the claim that their lawsuits against their customers are working.

The recording industry will likely point to its file trader lawsuit campaign as reason for the uptick in sales at year end. While plausible, this does not seem the most likely of explanations.

The pigopolists have been fighting all year to shut down music trading services and to punish song swappers but with fairly modest success. If file trading was really at the heart of a three year slump in sales, one might expect a far more dramatic change in the data following an entire year of legal scares.

Instead, music sales seems to be following larger economic trends. Imagine that.

This is something I have been saying for years now. Even as record sales start to rise, there are still problems with the industry, which by the way recently settled a price fixing lawsuit. Take this as an example that they just don't get it:

The Big Easy Movie on DVD -- $5.99
The Big Easy Soundtrack on CD -- $15.99