THE SPAT OVER ONLINE MUSIC is set to continue with new projections suggesting sales will treble to be worth some $3.3 billion by 2008, when legitimate downloads will account for over a quarter of all US music spending. Analysts at Jupiter Research say however, that they have cut their forecasts from earlier in the year when they got a bit excited and suggested much faster growth for music download sales.
Analysts at the Plug.IN Conference in New York today talked up the entrance of Apple into the online music market but, in a statement, Jupiter Senior Analyst Lee Black said that while Apple had rekindled interest in digital downloads, "total digital sales - downloads and subscriptions - will not surpass $80 million this year." Jupiter recently found that some 17 per cent of adult downloaders had cut back on file swapping activities for fear of legal repercussions.