Why is the music business in this position

It is interesting what has happened in the music business on one side you have iTunes with 10% of the market on the other you have "big box retailers" with about 28% of the market and in the middle you have the artist/label.

You may ask, "So what?", well the issue is almost 40% of the music in the US is now sold through retailers that use music to sell hardware (iTune) or create foot traffic (Best Buy/Wal-Mart). On the surface this seems like a "So What?" well the issue is that all three of these retailers have reduced the value of music (iTune to $9.99/.99 the other two as low as $6.99 to increase traffic).

All this is happening as we "suggest" our indie retail partners sell the very same title for $13-$18 - this is the partner that helped really break an artist - create a local following. We need to create a balance between the two types of retailers . . . but how? Well maybe we should give our mom and pop partners an incentive in the form of touching the artist - exclusive content - well anything they want to help break our artists.