Toys for making noise - Los Angeles Times

While the U.S. recording industry continues to slide [...], the other side of the music world businesses catering to those who create the music has nearly doubled over the last decade to become a $7.5-billion industry.

The back story here is that the music industry has generally been split 50/50 between people who sell recordings and people who sell equipment for making music. What this story is saying is that the part of the industry which caters to music makers is in rude good health. And what are all those people buying instruments doing if not making user generated content?

The [...] above originally said that "the U.S. recording industry continues to slide under pressure from illegal downloaders and file-sharers", which is too wrong for me to repeat without this qualifier: the reason the industry is in trouble is that the people who run it aren't up to the job.

They should be in the business of selling songs to singers, not singers to listeners.