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Since 2000, the amount of revenue created from selling or streaming music in America has been cut in half, from $14.3 billion to $7 billion, according to that most despised trade organization, the Recording Industry Association of America, or RIAA . And yet listeners have more access to music than ever, and there’s nothing to suggest that demand for music is down.

Is it Apple’s fault for launching iTunes and forever severing songs from albums? Is it the record executives’ fault who, facing this shift from $17 albums to $0.99 singles, continued to rely on old, byzantine licensing and sales models, even as their industry hemorrhaged money before their eyes? Is Internet piracy to blame, with Napster forever changing the way we find and consume music, and BitTorrent bringing about the record industry’s worst nightmare? What about Internet radio stations? Are the rock-bottom royalty payments the result of corporate greed or government meddling? Do we blame Spotify and other music streaming services for striking opaque, unsustainable deals with record labels? And what about the unchecked proliferation of copyrighted material on YouTube and other platforms?

For this explainer, we looked to identify and unravel the complex network of industry stakeholders -- the rightsholders, including performers, songwriters, record labels, publishers, and licensing agencies, all of whom play a part in the process of making music, and all of whom expect a cut of the proceeds. There are the digital music sellers like iTunes and Amazon, which have supplanted brick-and-mortar stores and play by a different set of rules. And finally, the webcasters and streaming services, which struggle to achieve profitability even though they only pay artists fractions of pennies per song per play.

Follow us on a trip through recent music history as we try and figure out how we got here, where we’re headed, and whether today’s industry slump is a disruptive dip or the new normal.

Where do we go now?

With so many stakeholders and distribution channels, it’s difficult to predict what the music industry will look like even a year from now. Maybe major record labels will absorb groups like INDMUSIC in an attempt to shore up influence and revenue (Martinez says such an exit for his company is not out-of-the-question). Or maybe the majors will move in the opposite direction, becoming even more obsolete -- glorified distributors for independently-managed artists. Meanwhile, Spotify is growing fast, but many streaming competitors lie in wait, including one from Apple. And if you look at the past ten years of music history, it’s never wise to bet against Apple.

Back to the original question: Who do we blame?

Is it the record labels? Like newspapers, they survived for decades making massive profits driven by a scarcity of content and supported by decades-old deals with distributors and licensers. And although iTunes torpedoed the industry’s revenues, consumers were more than happy to adopt Apple’s brave new world. The shift was inevitable.Meanwhile, shareholders and VCs will eventually lose patience with Pandora and Spotify if they continue to post losses, but that won’t help the record companies. Users will find other ways to listen to the music they love, either on YouTube or by stealing it. And while the back catalogs of thousands of beloved musicians are still under the control of the old guard, newcomers will continue to go the independent route if it means they get to keep more of their royalties.It all spells D-Day for the record labels. Perhaps the only hope is for the majors to make another act of desperation like in 2003 when they let Steve Jobs take control of their pricing and distribution. And if the major labels’ distribution channels go out of business, and their talent goes it alone, they may have no choice.