Author Topic: Legal music downloads take off (Read 1390 times)

Clive · « **on:** November 15, 2005, 14:26 »

November 15, 2005
Veronique De Freitas

Music lovers are increasingly turning to legal music download services to get their favourite music online, according to new figures.

The International Federation of Phonographic Industries (IFPI) announced today that single track downloads in the US, the UK, Germany and France rose to 180 million in the first half of 2005.

According to the IFPI, this latest figure compares to 57 million downloads in the first half of 2004 and the 157 million for the whole of 2004.

In the UK, music lovers downloaded 16.9 million single tracks from the internet in the first nine months of this year, up from 2.7 million in the same period last year.

The IFPI also said that illegal music downloads on the internet were down 10 per cent between June 2003 and July 2005, from 1.1 billion to 900 million.

Separately, the record industry announced the extension of its action against illegal file-sharers to countries in Europe, South America, and Asia. For the first time, file-sharers in Sweden, Switzerland, Argentina, Hong Kong and Singapore run the risk of criminal penalties and payment of damages.

sam · « **Reply #1 on:** November 15, 2005, 21:51 »

...no!!!

Simon · « **Reply #2 on:** November 15, 2005, 21:58 »

Spoil sports! :angry:

What they seem to be forgetting is that a large majority of 'illegal' downloaders, do so to try out, and subsequently buy the music they have downloaded. I have bought hundreds of CDs following hearing a few tracks I have previously downloaded. I would not otherwise have bought these CDs, without first listening to parts of them, so the industry will lose all those sales, if they eventually manage to eliminate P2P entirely.

sam · « **Reply #3 on:** November 15, 2005, 22:27 »

totally agree with you simon, there is no way I would own this much diverse music if it wasnt from P2P programs!

Reno · « **Reply #4 on:** November 19, 2005, 15:02 »

agreed

sam · « **Reply #5 on:** November 19, 2005, 15:07 »

...and they will never truley stop p2p programs. Also the ISPs would not be too happy, one of the main factors driving the demand for ever faster connections is the ability to download music - well it is in my circle of friends (oh and of course to play games)!

Reno · « **Reply #6 on:** November 19, 2005, 15:30 »

http://lsr.internet2.edu/

Quote

an average rate of 5.58 gigabits per second

Just imagine the possibilities. When i bought my 250gig it was filled under 2 months with just my dsl connection.

sam · « **Reply #7 on:** November 20, 2005, 00:30 »

excellent....and yes it is so easy to fill hard disks these days...at least they are cheap.... and so are dvds to burn off all the random crap we download! :-)