Legitimate downloads of songs has now exceeded sales of CD singles in the United States according to this BBC News Story.
“Music fans in the US are buying almost twice as many singles in digital form over the internet as they are on CDs from stores, according to a report.
Some 7.7 million tracks were bought and downloaded since the end of June – compared with four million CD singles sold, Billboard magazine reported.
The figures show the success of new legitimate music download services.
But some say online and CD single sales cannot be compared because so few singles are now released on CD.”
A related story discusses the differences with the downloading scene in Europe and it seems the white heat of the p2p battle in the US has resulted in superior legitimate services there, compared to Europe where there is less chance of legal action against individual file swappers.
“Paul Myers, chief executive of Wippit, said the big record labels had yet to wake up to the needs of the European market.
“We are being treated as the poor relations. If it works in the US, then they think it will work in Europe. But Indiana is not Italy.”
Music can be bought online in Europe from 40 different internet retailers at a cost of about 99 pence per single track.
But different firms put different limitations on what can be done with that music, such as transfering to portable devices and copying on to CDs.
In the US the choice of music is wider, the limitations looser, and the cost lower, but Mr Smith said that reflected different markets at different stages.”
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