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Digital download
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article or discuss the issue on the talk page. |
A digital download (also known as a digital single or a paid digital download) is an official and legal music single available for purchase through an online store. Popular examples of online music stores that sell digital singles and albums include the iTunes Store and Napster and MusicGiants.
Digital downloads are often encoded with Digital Rights Management that restricts making additional copies of the music or play purchased songs on a playing device from a competing hardware manufacturer. For example, songs purchased from iTunes will only play on an iPod.
Legal music downloads have existed since 2000. Paid digital download may suffer from the development of techniques enabling the digital extraction of songs played on the radio which, although offering lower quality sound, is also legal.
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Legal music downloads were first compiled by Billboard in 2003, but they didn't gain mainstream acceptance in the United States until around February 2005, when digital sales for singles started to be included in the Billboard Hot 100 and other Billboard charts. In the year before, the Hot 100 chart was similar to the Hot 100 Airplay chart, because only minor CD-single sales affecting the chart. The inclusion of digital singles has immensely helped many songs chart and peak higher, including Jessica Simpson's cover of "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" which became her second-highest peaking Hot 100 single thanks to digital sales. Another example is Britney Spears's "Do Somethin'" which wasn't released as a radio single, but charted in 2005 due to top-fifty (number forty-nine) digital sales.
Single certifications were introduced in February 2005. Songs that sell a certain number of copies are often certified by the RIAA with the permission of the artist and the record company.
In November 2005, the record for the bestselling digital single in the United States was held by Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl", which has sold over one million downloads, making it the first song to achieve diamond download status. Since then, "Bad Day" by Daniel Powter has overcome it in terms of sales to become the bestselling digital single. The highest week sales was held by "Gold Digger" by hip-hop star Kanye West. (It is now held by "Fergalicious" by Fergie when she sold 295,000 downloads one week in January, certifing her platinum in just one week.) The single beat the previous record holder, Gwen Stefani, in the week of September 8, 2005, and has sold enough copies to be certified quadruple platinum. The song also is responsible for ending Mariah Carey's fourteen week run of her come-back single, "We Belong Together". The underground dance music scene has not been left out either with the digital download network Beatport.com hitting its one million download mark in 2005.
The UK Official Download Chart was launched on September 1, 2004, and included any Permanent Digital Download track, under 10 minutes long, being sold for a minimum price of 40p (0.4 GBP). In January 2005, downloaded tracks outsold physical singles for the first time in UK music history, prompting The Official UK Charts Company to incorporate downloads for the first time into the UK Singles Chart on April 17, 2005.
On December 16, 2006, the winner of The X Factor, Leona Lewis had her single "A Moment Like This" released for download. 50,000 tracks were downloaded in under 30 minutes, believed to be a record.[1] In October 2007, digital downloads in the UK reached an all-time high of 1.7 million downloads in a week.[2]
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Japan has the highest amount of digital downloads sold in the world. The highest selling digital single there, and the world, is Flavor Of Life by Utada Hikaru with 5.58 million paid downloads. The runner-up is Keep Tryin' also by Utada Hikaru with 2.5 million paid downloads. The third is Koi no Tsubomi by Kumi Koda with 2.3 million paid downloads.
In the computer industry, software purchased and downloaded from an online store is called a digital download. Often the download will be available immediately after the buyer's credit card has been charged. The benefit of digital downloads is thus the little time it takes to receive a desired product. The drawback is that the buyer does not get any tangible product (no disc, box or manual, for example).
- ^ Blackburn, Jen. "Leona breaks world record", The Sun, 17 December 2006. Retrieved on 2006-12-17.
- ^ "Leona helps smash download record", BBC News, 31 October 2007. Retrieved on 2007-10-31.