UK legal downloads off to a good start

June 4, 2004

GristyMcFisty used our news submit to tell us
that the legal download business has just topped the half million
mark. These figures come from the Official UK Chart Company (OCC) the
British Association of Record Dealers and the BPI (British Phonographic
Industry) work togetether to provide this information.

Top seller was Coldplay"s 2,000 miles and at number two OutKast"s Hey Ya. The download chart is in the final stages of testing before launching later this summer. It collects data from various sources including Oxfam"s bignoisemusic.com.

Napster will join the service
soon. Peter Jamieson, BPI chairman, said: "We have yet another milestone
in the development of this exciting new market for music. Invesotrare are
showing confidence in the future of music... This is shaping up to be a
breakthrough year for the music industry."The OCC launched a chart for
mobile ringtones earlier this week.

This shows once again that people like the
convenience of a legal download service and they also like to buy their music a
track at a time. The critical thing is that the public isn't gouged for these
lossy DRM files. The distribution is inexpensive and the user has to do all the
work.

Source: The Register