The Legacy Of The CD: Innovation That Ate Itself

2010 was another lousy year for the music industry – and in particular, the CD. Sales of compact discs dropped last year by nearly 20% percent, according to Billboard. For a while, those shiny plastic discs lifted the fortunes of the recording industry to new heights. But the CD also contained the seeds of the industry's collapse — a collapse that's rattling more than Manhattan boardroom windows.

A Sony factory in Pittman, New Jersey, will see its last CD roll out off the assembly line at the end of this month. At its height, the plant employed 1300 people.