Linkin Park, T-Pain, and Justin Bieber Usher Record Labels Into Apps Biz

It's a dark time for the music industry. And that's not just because of the Black Eyed Peas' latest album.

Global record sales dropped 7.2% last year, due largely to huge declines in some of the world's biggest markets--the U.S. (down 10.7%) and Japan (down 10.8%). Physical sales around the globe plummeted 12.7%, somewhat expectedly. And digital sales, which rose 9.2% in 2009, still aren't enough to stop the bleeding (many say even digital sales are starting to slow, or worse,