Tech Crunch, the definitive Web 2.0 site, says compact disc sales have declined 19 percent since 2001, but online music sales are booming. Legal downloads now account for about 6% of record companies’ revenues, up from practically zero two years ago.
According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, digital music sales almost tripled last year, to $1.1 billion. Apple’s iTunes accounted for over 85 percent of the single song downloads, but Apple is not alone in the online music space.
In Part 1, TechCrunch compares the pay-per-download services (iTunes and its competitors) (below).
There are eleven total sites that sell downloadable, CD-burnable music. However, two of these sites, AOL Music Now and Virgin Digital, require a paid subscription to their all-you-can-eat service in order to download songs (downloads cost an additional $0.99 each on both services). We’ve therefore left them out of the comparison chart (above).
In Part 2 (below), they compare the all-you-can-eat subscription services.
All of the services (above) require the download and use of a special player, except AOL, which uses a web based approach along with the Windows Media Player.
