In a perfect world (from the artist point of view) bands would sell only albums. More revenue than what they get from unbundled albums. But that's not how the world works any longer.

Music Week has a report on a Music Tank panel titled "Lets Sell Recorded Music" in which renowned artist manager Peter Jenner lashed out at the changed brought by iTunes. The store, he said, has "had the disastrous effect on the record industry of debundling the album" and letting fans choose two singles instead of a full album.

That's pretty much the conclusion I came to in a quick-and-dirty Excel computation of album-for-tracks substitution. Since the launch of iTunes, the loss of every additional album (beyond the rate of loss before iTunes launched) was replaced with 1.38 track downloads.

At the same time, Jenner and others discussed the access music charge, a fee that would effectively act as a blanket license for downloading. Andrew Orlowski of The Register wrote about the discussion and has some comments. The incentives created by such a license are a hotly debated topic. I don't think creating a pool of money and then disbursing the money based on share of download would kill the industry. It might not be the best plan, but it wouldn't kill all incentive to create music. The more popular, better marketing music would be downloaded more often and, accordingly, get a greater share of the pool. Websites and services would be created to fit the likes and needs of consumers (a metal site for metal fans, something like iTunes for mainstream listeners who want a nice storefront). A voluntary fee seems more likely to create the best incentives to create and compete on behalf of the consumer. An involuntary fee could have all sorts of unintended consequences.

I do agree with Orlowski that the access music charge is a comforting idea for those in the industry eager to turn around revenues. That comfort may lead to unwise decisions. Once you go down the path toward an involuntary music tax (that's really what we're talking about), you may not be able to come back.