No, it's very unlikely that music will ever die - but the antics of the recording industry aren't helping it any.
I've complained before about copy-protected audio CDs, but the days of the CD may in any case be numbered. It was recently announced that there will soon be an official music download chart, which is surely the shape of things to come.
There is, however, a massive problem with buying your music online. The other day I decided to give this a whirl - there were a couple of particular tracks I've been looking for - a couple of old Blondie songs as it happens - so I bought and downloaded them from, of all places, the Coca-Cola music store.
Downloading the music wasn't any problem. Playing it back most certainly has been. I should have realised that I was heading for trouble when I saw that the format of these songs was Microsoft's WMA, rather than the ubiquitous MP3 file. When I tried to playback either song, I received an error message telling me that I had no licence for them and heard...the square root of bugger all. I've contacted the support team from the music store and, as yet, have had next to no help. Each track may only have cost me 99p, but even for that piddling little amount I'd like to think that I could listen to the music without all the jumping through hoops and general buggeration I seem to be going through.
I'm concerned that this could be the thin end of the wedge. If you can licence playback, what's to stop implementation of a system whereby you have to pay up each and every time you listen to a particular song?
From here on, if I can't actually see a physical medium carrying a piece of music, be it CD,DVD or whatever, I just won't buy it!