Legal Music Download on the Internet increasing

Perhaps, Apple should be given the credit for this achievement. The international recording industry said today that the legitimate downloading of the music tracks from the Internet has tripled in the first half of the current year. This was also helped by the increasing availability of broadband connections and hi-speed Internet around the world. The International Federation of Phonographic Industries claimed that around 180 million single tracks were downloaded legally in the first six months of the year.

This figure is an impressive improvement over 57 million tracks which were sold in the first half of 2004. The whole of 2004 saw sales of around 157 million tracks. The federation also mentioned that their has been a 13% improvement in the availability of the broadband connections in the market. Also, the various organizations around the world have taken active steps to make the user aware of the consequences of downloading illegal music from the Internet.

In comparison to these figures, there was just a 3 percent increase in illegal file sharing. The association claimed that around 900 million sound tracks were illegally downloaded in the month of July compared to 870 million at the start of the year. John Kennedy, the IFPI’s chairman said in statement: “We are now seeing real evidence that people are increasingly put off by illegal file-sharing and turning to legal ways of enjoying music online.”

However, he warned that the improving figure does not mean that they would be lessening their efforts against digital piracy. Kennedy added: “We are not there yet. Many still appear to be gripped by a bad habit they are finding hard to break. These people are now increasingly likely to face legal actions against them.”