This seems about right to me:
Posted by Dr. Frank at May 11, 2011 04:08 PM | TrackBack
The CD, the cassette, the vinyl LP, are all more or less devalued below the level of the T-shirts and other dry goods that orbit the burnt-out sun of the music industry. Their relative status as fetish objects may wax and wane, but as an economic generator, the money is in the player (phone, laptop, satellite radio), not that which it plays. It’s the opposite of the printer cartridge/razor blade scam (sell them the printer or razor cheap, then inflate the prices of the ink cartridge or replacement blades). In this case, the downward pressure on the value of recordings⎯easy enough in a business with a constant influx of young musicians willing, eager, to work for free for exposure and attention⎯enables an ocean of cheap content to refill $300 iPods. And it moves that giant chunk of money from the world of music to the world of tech and manufacturing.