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A music download is the transferral of music from an Internet-facing computer or website to a user's local computer. This term encompasses both legal downloads and downloads of copyright material without permission or payment.

Popular online music stores that sell digital singles and albums include the iTunes Store, Amazon MP3, fairsharemusic, eMusic, Google Play, Kazaa, Nokia Music Store, Tune App, TuneTribe, and Zune Marketplace. Paid downloads are sometimes encoded with Digital Rights Management that restricts copying the music or playing purchased songs on certain digital audio players. They are almost always compressed using a lossy codec (usually MPEG-1 Layer 3, Windows Media, or AAC), which reduces file size and bandwidth requirements. However, this may cause an apparent loss in quality to a listener when compared to a CD, and cause compatibility issues with certain software and devices. Uncompressed files and losslessly compressed files are available at some sites. These music resources have been created as a response to expanding technology and needs of customers that wanted easy, quick access to music. Their business models respond to the "digital revolution" by making legal services attractive for users.

As of January 2011, Apple's iTunes Store alone made $1.1 billion of revenue in the first quarter of its fiscal year.^[1]

Music downloads offered by artists[link]

Some artists allow downloading their songs from their websites or an online music store, often as a short preview or low-quality sample. This replaces listening to music in a store before purchase. Others embed services in their sites that handle single or album purchases. According to research by the website TorrentFreak, 38% of Swedish artists supports file downloading and claim that it helps in early career stages. The Swedish rock group Lamont has profited from file sharing.^[2]

Challenges to legal music downloads[link]

Even legal music downloads have faced a number of challenges from artists, record labels and the Recording Industry Association of America. In July 2007, the Universal Music Group decided not to renew their long-term contracts with iTunes. This legal challenge^{[clarification needed]} was primarily based upon the issue of pricing of songs, as Universal wanted to be able to charge more or less depending on the artist, a shift away from iTunes' standard 99 cents per song pricing. Many industry leaders feel that this is only the first of many show-downs between Apple Inc. and the various record labels.^[3]

RIAA against illegal downloading[link]

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) oversees about 85% or real music production with distribution and and manufacturing in the United States. They work to protect musicians while supporting the First Amendment rights. Their stated goal is to support artists' creativity and help them not be cheated out of money by illegal downloading.^[4] The Recording Industry Association of America launched its first lawsuits on September 8, 2003, against individuals who illegally downloaded music files from the Kazaa FastTrack network. At first, the RIAA's legal campaign drew much criticism. However, two years after it began, the campaign survived at least one major legal challenge and began to pick up speed. The RIAA said it filed 750 suits in February 2006^[5] against individuals downloading music files without paying for them in hopes of putting an end to Internet music piracy. Many^[who?] say that it is unfair for the RIAA to choose certain individuals to sue out of millions, but the RIAA dismisses the charge that the suits are unfair, comparing them to those who get targeted for speeding tickets. The RIAA charged The RIAA hopes their campaign will force people to respect the copyrights of music labels and eventually minimize the number of illegal downloads that happen every day.^[6][7] Additionally, according to the newest statistics on IFPIs website, one third of music CDs sold worldwide are fake, and piracy surpass legal sales in 34 countries.^[8]

Chart inclusion[link]

United States[link]

Billboard first tracked legal music downloads in 1993^{[citation needed]}, but this monitoring and reporting did not gain mainstream acceptance in the United States until around February of 2005, when the Billboard Hot 100 and other Billboard charts began including digital single sales. The year before, the Hot 100 chart was similar to the Hot 100 Airplay chart, because it only tracked CD-single sales. Inclusion of digital singles, as seen in the Hot Digital Songs, has immensely helped many songs chart and peak higher, in some cases in the absence of a radio release.^{[citation needed]}

Single certifications were introduced in February 2005.^{[citation needed]} Songs that sell a certain number of copies are often certified by the RIAA with the permission of the artist and the record company.^{[citation needed]}

United Kingdom[link]

The ''UK Official Download Chart'' launched on September 1, 2004, and includes any permanent digital download track under 10 minutes that sells for at least 40p (0.4 GBP).^{[citation needed]} In January 2005, downloaded tracks outsold physical singles for the first time in UK music history^{[citation needed]}, prompting The Official UK Charts Company to begin to incorporate downloads for the first time into the ''UK Singles Chart'' on 17 April 2005, at which time Radio 1 stopped broadcasting the separate download chart^{[citation needed]}, although the chart is still compiled. Initially this was on condition that the song must have a physical media release at the same time; this rule was fully lifted on January 1, 2007, meaning all download sales are now eligible in the chart.^{[citation needed]}

Sales records[link]

United States[link]

In November 2005, the record for the best-selling digital single in the United States was held by Gwen Stefani's Hollaback Girl, which sold over one million downloads, making it the first song to achieve platinum download status.^{[citation needed]} As of 2011, the record for the best-selling digital single in the United States on the iTunes Store is held by The Black Eyed Peas's I Gotta Feeling, which sold over 7,500,000 downloads.^{[citation needed]} The highest weekly sales record was held by Kanye West with the single Gold Digger. Later, Lady Gaga broke the record with 484,000 downloads of Born This Way.^{[citation needed]} Overall, the most downloaded song is OneRepublic's Apologize, with 10 million legal downloads from the original and the remixed version by Timbaland.

Soon after his death in 2009, Michael Jackson became the first artist to sell over one million download songs in a week.^[9]

Digital sales records[link]

The following albums have almost passed one million downloads. They are listed in chronological order:^[10]

See also[link]

• Graduated response
• Comparison of online music stores
• On air on sale
• Open Music Model
• United States v. ASCAP

References[link]