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Legal US Music Downloads Beat CD Single Sales

Posted by Hemos on from the like-a-dru, dept.

Kelly McNeill writes "I've received a lot of feedback from osViews readers (my site) asking about the music download survey that we've been conducting over the past few weeks, saying that osViews readership must be skewed in one particular direction to get the results we did. The primary reason given is not necessarily the fact that iTunes has significantly surpassed its competitors, but that the results show legal digital downloads surpassing even CD sales. I must admit that even I thought this a was a bit peculiar, but now, according to a BBC World news report, it seems the survey is correct. Digital downloads have surpassed even physical CD sales!" Update: 11/04 23:35 GMT by S : The BBC story refers to CD single sales, so Mr.McNeill maybe not be quite as right as he thinks, sadly.

4 of 304 comments (clear)

  1. Umm... by GreyWolf3000 · · Score: 0, Redundant
    Some 7.7 million tracks were bought and downloaded since the end of June - compared with four million CD singles sold, Billboard magazine reported.

    So people are buying individual songs off the internet more often than CD singles. That's great, but what about CDs themselves?

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  2. CD singles only. by Shenkerian · · Score: 0, Redundant

    This report concerns sales of singles only, which, let's be honest, have been plummeting for a good 10-20 years.

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  3. Just singles by thinmac · · Score: 1, Redundant

    The article only talks about sales of singles on CD. This is not really the same thing as surpassing CDs in general, since singles really aren't a very popular way of purchasing music these days.

    Not that it's not a big deal, just not as big a deal as the poster says. The big question I would have is, at the current rate of growth, how long until online sales surpass the number of tracks sold on CD in general?

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  4. Re:I think I speak for everyone when I say.... by jc42 · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Now if they could figure out how to deliver the liner notes along with the music.

    Some of us do like to read that stuff.

    (And the info about composer - and copyright holder - is useful too. Duh. ;-)

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