More than 200m songs were downloaded from legal online music stores around the world last year – a 900 per cent increase over 2003’s total, the music industry organisation IFPI said today.By our estimation, based on Apple’s publicly provided figures, Apple accounted for 90-95 per cent of the market.
Click HereWelcoming the brave new world of digital downloads and DRM restrictions, IFPI released its Digital Music Report 2005 today. Its conclusion: digital music is proliferating, but plenty more needs to be done to raise awareness of legal download services and to stamp on unauthorised ones.
According to the IFPI, 2004 was a watershed in online sales. By the end of the year, some 230 legal download services were operating in 30 countries, compared to around 50 at the end of 2003.
The recording companies saw their first significant revenues from the digital market, “running into several hundred million dollars”. IFPI cited market watcher Jupiter’s estimation of the value of the digital music market in 2004: $330m. If the recording companies are getting more than “several hundred million dollars” of this, it leaves little to share among 230 legal download companies.
Still, Jupiter estimates 2005’s total will be more than double 2004’s, as more punters choose to buy downloads rather than CDs or pinch stuff from the likes of Kazaa and Grokster. Is there really a move away from free downloads? It’s hard to say, but a survey conducted in the six biggest European music markets on IFPI’s behalf, show that 31 per cent of music downloaders claim they will buy from legal services in 2005, up from almost one in five (22 per cent) this time last year.
This despite the fact that the RIAA sets ridiculously high royalties on legal music obtained from Internet services. If only the RIAA had fully-embraced the income potential of the Internet rather than suing off anyone who uses it, that %31 figure might of been even higher.