Of course, weak albums with only a few songs don't encourage people to pay full price for an album, they'd rather download but also, there's now DVD's and Videogames, both offer much more value for the money and also the consumer only has the same amount of money, so some of the consumer's money is now being spent on these things...
RIAA should come up with a ***** like program where people can pay a montly fee to download an unlimited amount of songs. They will never stop filesharing so they might as well get up to date with modern technology and get a piece of the action. It's their own fault when they have tried to stop evolution instead of working with it.
Anyway, to those who are interested here's a link to a very, very good and long article written by John Snyder, president of Artist House Records, a board member of the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS), and a 32-time Grammy nominee. NARAS works with the RIAA too.
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/02/01/file_trading_manifesto/index.html
It's really worth the read...but will only piss you off more.