Sales of digital music fall. People like cheap or free downloads

According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) the year 2008 revealed 8% decline (to$18.42 billion) of global recorded music sales. While digital music sales are growing, they have failed to make up for the shortfall of compact disc sales. So the sales decline affected such world's largest recorded music companies as Vivendi's Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and EMI Group.

Global recorded music sales plummeted over the recent years due to consumers’ transition to cheaper digital song formats such as MP3s and rampant piracy in many countries.

Last year U.S. music sales fell by 19%, while Europe sales were lost just 6%. Latin America saw sales dropped by 5%. At the same time Asia was on a positive note, having sales raised slightly by 1%t. Physical music formats sales like CDs tumbled 15% globally to $13.83 billion, that led to a fall of nearly a third in U.S. physical format sales and an 11% fall in European physical sales.

Digital music sales, including song downloads, mobile music, online subscriptions and streaming via advertising supported services, surged to $3.78 billion globally revealing 24% growth. It’s not a surprise, that global digital music sales growth was led by the United States where sales increase made up 16.5% to $1.78 billion.