The music industry got some amazing news today when the NPD Group revealed that illegal downloads done through file sharing websites has dropped down below 10 percent - that's the lowest it's been in years. The average number of tracks downloaded by each user was 35 in 2007.That's the equivalent of three or four albums.
"At the ripe age of 28, Jon Zimmer is sort of an old fogey," writes Joseph Plambeck in an article that appeared in the New York Times on Sunday. "That is, he is obsessive about the sound quality of his music."
Apple announced today that their iTunes music store has eclipsed ten billion song downloads. If there was any doubt of who gets the mantle of “World’s Biggest Music Retailer,” there isn’t any longer. Ten billion downloads is an amazing milestone to hit.
The folks that brought you the MP3 music format have created something new that they’re calling Music DNA. It’s got a bit of competition, but smaller labels are already lining up to use Music DNA files. The idea behind Music DNA is similar to that of the iTunes LP. Bands and labels will be able to encode more than just music into one of the files.
In a study released by the NPD Group this week, it was determined that iTunes makes up one fourth of the entire music market in the United States. Physical media in the form of compact discs still comprise the majority of the share, 64 percent. This percentage has been falling steadily over the past few years proportionally to the rise in digital music sales.
