Online music market is booming

IFPI released now figures on legal music downloads and reports the market tripled in the first half of this year. Sales in 1H 2005 in the UK, France and Germany accounted for 180 million tracks, compared to only 157 million during the entire last year.

IFPI chairman John Kennedy concludes people are increasingly stepping away from illegal filesharing services and are spending money on the Web to download songs. Although he still warns the battle against pirates isn't over yet..

He claims P2P networks account for 900 million illegally copied tracks, a three percent rise on last year. More details at VNU Net.