Record companies shot their own selves in the foot years ago, by exploiting their customers.
By passing off total crap albums, with only one or two decent tracks, and 6 suck tracks.. then having the stones to charge top dollar for them.
When the CD was introduced, they intentionally charged more for the discs than cassettes, even tho it was much cheaper to produce the CD's.
Their reasoning was that since CD's were far less prone to damage, that customers wouldn't have to repurchase their music every few years.
The backlash was swift from consumers. Why pay $19 for a CD full of crap music and 1 or two good songs, or buy the 'single' for $6 or $7, when they could just download the tunes they wanted for free off services like Napster.
Took them a long time to understand they could just be fair about things, and charge a buck a song or so.. but now they're seeing losses from folks just buying the one or two good tracks, and leaving the crap tracks to rot.
Greed, man. That's what it's all about.
In big cities, those RIAA jackboots make bars pay for a license just to have a jukebox, and a separate fee if the bar has live bands that might play cover tunes.
Meantime, they give the majority of their artists the shaft compared to the money they make on them.