http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-18278037

That 3 month figure's tragic, the music industry really needs to diversify the top 40 just for a start.

I still buy almost all of my music on CD. That way I can rip it however I want and always have a physical backup. I think I've only ever bought two songs online.

Utter, utter headline failure.



Someone kill me. Kill me now. I can't take the stupidity anymore.

It's a little twisted because English is a stupid language and the sentence is ambiguous, but it's not wrong. Bear with me.

Digital is referring to the "music sales" and not to the "music".

It should perhaps read "Digital sales of music outstrip CD sales" to make it less ambiguous, but that's too long. They rely on the reader using common sense to guess the correct meaning, which is something we do all the time. Most people know exactly what it means, and won't even notice the ambiguity.

It should read "Online sales outstrip physical sales".

Trying to differentiate between different kinds of digital is idiotic

Why? We differentiate between different sorts of analogue stuff all the time.

Technically, on-line isn't the only way to make a digital purchase. They were offering an MP3 OTC service at some places, copied directly to your memory card.

I buy CDs online.

Surely the mean physical media vs downloads?

The problem is with semantics, and we can argue about this all day. You have to remember that we are a bunch of people who are:
a) active in the digital realm more than most
b) more likely to be at the bleeding edge of things
c) Borderline Aspergic, and therefore more sensitive to subtleties and prone to pedantry

The fact is that to the majority of people, digital music has come to mean downloads - MP3s, AAC, those files the kids have ripped off The Pirate Bay. CDs, whilst genuinely digital are perceived more as some kind of analogue construct because they are the natural successors to tapes and LP records. They LOOK more analogue - hell the actually MOVE over a play head of sorts.

So I am inclined to let this one slide simply because to the Man on the Clapham Omnibus, the headline is perfectly understandable.