Music will soon be taken from the shelves at Mike's Movies and Music, 1613 B N. Atherton St.

As soon as all of the CDs have been sold, the store will cease to carry music and transition to just carrying movies, said Mike Negra, president of Mike's Video Inc.

Negra said the Atherton Street location is the last of his stores that previously sold movies and music to transition to just selling and renting movies.

Negra owns three other Mike's stores. Mike's Movies has two locations: one located at 102 E. Bishop St. in Bellefonte, and one at 210 E. Calder Way. Mike's Video, TV and Appliances is located at 1515 N. Atherton St.

Negra said there are many reasons for his decision to stop selling music at his stores. He said the decision stems from a lack of music sales and both illegal and legal downloading of songs from the Internet.

He also said burning songs to CDs from computers and a lack of musical direction in the industry contributed to his decision to stop selling CDs.

Negra said that once Mike's Movies and Music stops selling music, students would have fewer places to find less mainstream CDs.

State College is not the only place seeing this kind of shift in the music industry. Negra said that more and more, the shift is toward music from computers and MP3 players, and there is less of an emphasis on CDs.

"We lost 40 percent of our music business in August of 1999, following the inception of Napster," Negra said. He added that his music business has "been a slippery slide ever since then."

Negra also said that when you look at the revenue numbers from 2005 versus the numbers from 1999, Mike's Video lost more than 90 percent of its music business.

"Music has become less of an influence on the stability of Mike's," Negra said.

He added that movie and appliance sales are doing very well.

Negra said the transitioning of the Atherton Street location would not affect prices at any of the other Mike's locations.

He said that two to four jobs would be lost due to this decision, and one of those would be the music buyer, who has been with Mike's Movies and Music for 13 years.

Greg Gabbard, owner of City Lights, 316 E. College Ave., said he is experiencing similar problems with music sales. He said City Lights, which has been in State College for 20 years, might also have to stop selling CDs in the near future.

Gabbard said he thinks the way people acquire music has changed, and this has resulted in the loss of independent record stores in the area.

Currently, Arboria Records, 119 E. Beaver Ave., and City Lights are the last two independent record stores in State College, Gabbard said.

"People do everything on the Internet; I think it's a great loss," Gabbard said. "Record stores are a gathering place."

Gabbard also said he is upset by what he sees as an overall change in the music industry.

"It's weird the music industry allowed this to happen," he said. "They seem not to care about music stores, and they are letting this happen. They are cutting out the middle man."