It is not until know that the music industry just realise how popular music download sales would become. Around 200 million downloadable tracks were sold online in 2004, 10 times the number sold in 2003. As a result, the music industry has made $330 million alone from these music download sales, accounting for 1% to 2% of their overall revenue. This figure is expected to double for this year.
Portable digital audio players are also believed to have encouraged the growth with 25 million players sold in 2004, of which 10 million alone were from the Apple's iPod series. As mobile phones with DRM audio playback features are beginning to hit the market, these are likely to boost download sales but with the music delivered directly to the user's mobile phone instead.
According to the IFPI, so far only 10% of Internet users have purchased music downloads online. However despite the success in music download shops, the IFPI still believes illegal music sites and file sharing networks to be a major threat to legal music services. They said that 870 million music tracks were illegally made available online this month, although this is down 30 million from January 2004. Around 7,000 lawsuits were filed to date in an aim to discourage consumers from illegally sharing content line. GristyMcFisty submitted the following news via our news submit:
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The global music industry has hailed the increase as a sign the digital music market has "taken off". A million songs are now available to buy on legal sites, according to an International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) report. IFPI boss John Kennedy said: "At last the threat has become the opportunity." Sound story Legal downloads from the 230 online music stores that now exist generated $330m (£175m) for the music industry in 2004. The IFPI expects that figure to double in 2005. The popularity of mobile music players such as the Apple iPod, were behind this growth said Mr Kennedy. During 2004 about 25 million portable players were sold, 10 million of which were Apple iPods. He predicted that, in 2005, mobile phones that can store lots of tracks would debut and services which stream music to mobiles would become more widespread. Read the full article here. |
As the music download sales in 2004 only accounted for up to 2% of the music industry's revenue, no wonder they are anxious to up the price per music download. It is not fully clear how they made $330 million from the 200 million tracks sold. This works out an average of $1.65 a pop and with the average music store selling tracks for $1 a pop, either some stores are seriously overcharging their tunes or some tweaking was made to make figures look more impressive before making them public. :p
Feel free to discuss and find out more about online music services on our Music Downloads, Peer-to-Peer (P2P) & Legal Issues Forum.
Source: BBC News - Music Entertainment
