Record recording company profits reported

BMI had record profits this year (BMI report):

BMI reported revenues of $673 million for the 2004 fiscal year, an increase of nearly $43 million, 6.8% over the prior year. The performing rights organization generated royalties of more than $573 million for its songwriters, composers and music publishers. Royalties increased by $40 million or 7.5% from the previous year. BMI President and CEO Frances W. Preston said both the revenues and royalty distributions were the largest in the company's history.
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BMI's performance is especially remarkable over the past 10 years, a period when market forces and technology have battered other companies in the music and copyright business. During the period 1995-2004, BMI had an average annual revenue growth rate of 9%, far higher than other copyright organizations.

I wonder what the profits of other "music and copyright businesses" are like. My impression is that they aren't making less money than in the past. Arstechnica wonders what the deal is here:

Such results are confusing when we're told every month that the industry as a whole is on the verge of destruction, mostly on account of piracy. We're told that the industry, and artists are suffering (just ask Senator Hatch). Surely, one might think, that this year is an exception, but for BMI, they've seen a 9% average growth every year for the last 10 years. The songwriters and performers represented by BMI, it would seem, are doing rather well. No one wants to say that they're doing too well or that they shouldn't be doing well. No, that misses the point. The point is very simple, and rather subtle: when the industry as a whole is posting great numbers (and sometimes trying to conceal them), and in the case of BMI they're posting record numbers, it's simply disingenuous to pretend that the threat against the industry as a whole is nearly so serious as to justify the argument that artists are actually suffering immensely.
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We have the right and responsibility to ask: why is civil law being revised when the industry as a whole is seeing all time highs? Not only has BMI posted record results, signaling strong economic stability for the artists themselves, but the record companies are making more money, too. Why is there an open and vicious attack on Fair Use when record companies are making more than ever, as are artists' representation groups?

Here Arstechnica questions whether the RIAA is skewing its sales statistics to back up its argument that the industry will go down in flames without something akin to the Induce Act. Why are we going to pass a dangerous law like IICA when we don't appear to have a true reason yet? The research on how much pirating is costing the industry is conflicting and it is clear that the music industry is starting to figure out how to harness the power of the internet for selling music anyway. Smell fishy to you too?