THE INTERNET:
MUSIC BIZ SAVIOR OR KILLER

A just-released report from UK-based research firm Informa Media is full of the kind of good news/bad news that makes it a joy to read things like research reports from UK-based research firms.

First, the good news, since chances are you won’t keep reading long enough to see the bad news: global internet music sales, including CDs from net retailers such as Amazon and song downloads from Buymusic.com and Apple’s iTunes, will grow to $3.9 billion worldwide by 2008. Those dollars would represent nearly 12% of all music sales. Last year sales from the net brought in $1.1 billion.

But first it giveth, then it taketh away. The report also says that lost sales because of CD-burning and P2P sharing will rise in the same timeframe to $4.7 billion. Last year, according to Informa Media, those twin evils cost the biz $2.4 billion.

Says Simon Dyson, the author of the brilliantly titled report Music on the Internet: The reason we're so downbeat is we think the peer-to-peer problem is going to only get worse.”

The report also makes note that P2P networks are popping up in Russian and Chinese languages, meaning file-sharing is already taking off in emerging markets.

Don't worry, everything is going to be fine.