The IFPI has released figures showing that digital music sales worldwide doubled in 2006, climbing to 10 per cent of the entire market for music worldwide, with a value of around US$2 million. The figures were released by the industry trade body in its 2007 Digital Music Report, which presents a rosy outlook for digital sales in the coming three years, such that digital music sales will reach a quarter of total earnings by 2010.

Despite the good news for the industry the IFPI still isn't satisfied though - they're still looking for the so-called 'holy grail' an increase in digital music sales equivalent to the reduction in CD sales. IFPI Chairman John Kennedy had a bad case of sour grapes when he said that he wouldn't be happy until the digital music sales exceeded the drop in CD sales.

Given that the music industry has been suffering from declining CD sales for most of this decade and the industry has been ruthlessly cutting costs as a result so to me Kennedy's statements sound a bit cynical. The majors have been rationalizing their businesses for many years now in response to competition from DVDs, video games and pirated music so I'd expect that increases in digital revenues should be a boon. Maybe it's time to for the IFPI to stop crying wolf and start thinking about better methods of delivering music that consumers will actually want to use.