What Alternatives to File-sharing Exist for Online Music Consumers?
Pay-Per-Download Music Services Online music services such as Puretracks, or in the US, ITunes, charge customers a small fee for each song downloaded. These services have been gaining in popularity, although are still not nearly as popular as P2P file-sharing. According to the International Federation of Phonographic Industries, the number of digital music tracks legally downloaded from the Internet almost tripled in the first half of 2005. The IFPI reported that 180 million single tracks were downloaded legally in the first six months of the year, compared to 57 million tracks in the first half of 2004 and 157 million for the whole of last year. Commercial music services offer many benefits to users. Mainly, they are easy to use, offer high quality tracks (no spoofed tracks or viruses), and have a low per-single price point (between 99 cents and $1.35 per song). Online music services have other benefits, such as providing the industry with exact data on actual music use and popularity
