The industry as a whole is still down. However, this graph fails to account for merchandise sales or tour proceeds (at least I think so). The vast majority of artists make most of their money from touring and selling merchandise--the record companies are the ones that profited from CD sales. Very few artists actually recoup all of their recording and promotion costs just on record sales alone, so they do not see royalties for many years.
The industry as a whole is still down. However, this graph fails to account for merchandise sales or tour proceeds (at least I think so). The vast majority of artists make most of their money from touring and selling merchandise--the record companies are the ones that profited from CD sales. Very few artists actually recoup all of their recording and promotion costs just on record sales alone, so they do not see royalties for many years.