Talking of download type shenanigans, only legal this time, a new report reckons that pay-as-you-go downloads will earn the music biz some $2 billion a year by 2010, although that will only account for a third of all music sales coming from the net. Some $3 billion a year will come from mail order CD sales from the likes of Amazon, while a further $1.5 billion will be generated by subscription services like Napster. Well, that's what the number junkies at the Informa Media Group reckon, and who are we to argue?
Of course what record label execs are really interested in is whether the growth in online sales will be fast enough to compensate for the ongoing decline in worldwide CD sales - are the two closely linked so that overall music sales will stay as they are (with, perhaps, a short term boost while consumers repurchase back catalogue in a digital form) or will the industry come out of the physical-to-digital transition period somewhat worse off year on year? Time will tell I guess.