The IFPI reported legal music downloads in US, UK, Germany, and France tripled in the first half of 2005 to 180 million. Of course they couldn't avoid taking the obligatory potshot at file sharing and have a warped view of cause and effect.

In any case, I'll focus on the positive and true. The press release says there are over 300 digital sites worldwide, also triple from a year ago. I assume this is online music stores and services that have licensed RIAA/IFPI member tracks. After many years it is encouraging to see the major labels resolve the legal issues and start to gain licensing momentum.

PR spin aside, this is terrific news. We already know consumers buy CDs despite P2P. The explosion in legal downloads similarly indicates thats consumers also will buy online music if there are consumer acceptable options. Consumers, especially those in the rebellious US, do not respond well to the stick. Bring on the carrots!

Marc Freedman
RazorPop, developer of TrustyFiles, the leading multiple network P2P file sharing software
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