The tide is turning as sales of physical media dwindle while online music sales skyrocket; 7digital.com is the latest to reveal that music downloads are literally flying off their virtual shelves.
Since the online music store introduced music tracks from major music labels Warner and EMI, without any digital rights management system, sales have increased by 300 percent and propelled 7digital to a well deserved second place, behind Apple's iTunes.
Vivendi's Universal Music and Sony BMG are also tipped to release DRM-free MP3 tracks by the end of the year.
More than three million sound tracks from 7Digital's four million song catalog are available for download without DRM which means that they can be used on virtually any portable music player on the market.
The iTunes rival also registered a 130 percent increase over the past six months with the number of visits reaching almost two million.
7digital CEO Ben Drury said that “High-quality, DRM-free MP3 downloads have really sparked a new wave of digital music take up”.
