Legal downloads sell by the truckload

The record industry has revealed a massive explosion in the legal downloading of music in the last year. Among the eye-opening facts:

• There are now more than 230 online stores flogging their wares - a fourfold increase over 2003
  
• Paid-for downloads leapt ten-fold to more than 200 million
  

The only answer to these dramatic figures is What took the record industry so long? If the stupid buggers had stopped stalling, playing silly beggars and suing people, then they wouldn't have lost so much revenue to the filesharers.

Now 200 million songs sold is still small change beside the CD, etc, formats, but think where everyone would be if the music muppets had woken up to the possibilities at the start of the century and authorised legal downloads sooner.

Granted, player technology such as the iPod has really only just hit the mass-market consciousness in the last 18 months but that was in part related to the difficulty involved with downloading songs legally.

Apple's iTunes store - which opened only in April 2003 in the US - has been a key driver in the sale of iPods because the two cooperate so seamlessly. Thanks to this (and Apple's trendy marketing) iTunes has also sewn up the lion's share of the download market (up to 90%, by some estimates - which leaves the other 230-odd stores scrabbling for small change).

You can read the full report from the IFPI - which represents the recording industry worldwide - here (2MB PDF).