Reporting a 1000% increase over Q1 last year — UK-based digital music service —announced one million downloads during the first quarter of 2004. This shows signs that the music download business in Europe might be ready to take off. But nothing yet compared with US as The Register reports.
But OD2's progress pales before the 50 million songs downloaded from Apple's iTunes Music Store in the US during the store's first 11 months online. Even Napster managed five million downloads during its first three months of operating as a sing seller.
OD2 covers roughly the same population base as the US, and Europe lags behind the States in the degree to which its citizens download music from unlicensed P2P networks. Yet Europe - the UK in particular - consumes a significant portion of the world's musical output.
