THE MUSIC INDUSTRY IS FLOURISHING - SO WHY THE LAWSUITS?

The BPI defends its lawsuits against individuals as the only thing that will keep the wolf from it's members doors. The leeching of free music is bringing it to its knees.

But that's just not true: artists albums (the non-compilation sort) rose year-on-year to a massive 126.2million units in 2005. Pretty good by any standards.

Compilations saw their sales slip, but with many of the key compilation markets moving into purchasing electronically, that's only to be expected, and more than off set by a 48 per cent rise in single sales, 26.4 million downloads sold in the year as a whole, a million of which came in the last week.

A pretty healthy year - many other sectors would have chewed their arms off for performance like that (we tried to get the fancy goods market to chew its arm off in return for a 48% rise in hair doodads sales, and they were halfway through to the bone before we told them we were only using a figure of speech.)

They try to mutter about how piracy is hurting them, but they can't stop themselves from grinning:

BPI Chairman Peter Jamieson said, "A rich crop of albums from both debut and established acts meant that 2005 will be remembered as yet another great year for British music, and helped us record the best year ever for artist album sales."

Let's remember those cheerful words the next time they send off solicitor's letters pleading they're on their knees.

music bpi record sales