Digital Timeline
1991 Fraunhofer Institute invents MP3 file compression format
1997 MP3.com launches
1998 First handheld MP3 player arrives (developed by Diamond Multimedia)
eMusic founded
1999 Napster launches
2000 KaZaA and Gnutella launch
2001 Napster shut down by 9th US Circuit Court of Appeal
First wave of legal subscription services (including Rhapsody, Pressplay
and MusicNet)
Mobile music recognition service Shazam launches
2002 Launch of iPod
Last.fm launches
Warp launches its Bleep download store
2003 iTunes Music Store launches in US
Napster 2.0 launches legally
2004 MySpace debuts
MyCokeMusic comes to UK and kicks off legal download market
Napster comes to UK
iTunes Music Store comes to UK
First Official UK Download chart announced. Westlife are first digital number 1
with ‘Flying Without Wings’
High Court rules ISPs must identify 26 individuals accused of serial uploading to
file-sharing networks
Average of 250,000 downloads sold each week in UK; digital single sales surpass
physical single sales
Sony’s SingStar karaoke videogame released
2005 Apple sells 500 million tracks through iTunes and 30 million iPods globally
HMV and Virgin Megastores both launch their own download services
iPod Shuffle arrives
iTunes sells three million video downloads
Guitar Hero game is released
2006 Digital makes up 78% of all single tracks sold
Microsoft launches Zune in US
eMusic announces sales of 100 million tracks
2007 Chart rules changed to remove the need for a physical format to be released in
order to be chart-eligible
iPhone launches; 270,000 are sold in first two days
Universal launches its Classics & Jazz download service
Orange (in partnership with Musiwave) launches its full-track download service
iTunes offers DRM-free option
Napster subscribers stand at 830,000
A total of 982,713 digital albums sold in UK in first three months of 2007
Arrival of ad-funded download services We7, SpiralFrog and Qtrax
40% of mobile phones in UK are music-enabled
Radiohead release In Rainbows as a pay-what-you-like download
eMusic has 350,000 subscribers and sells 165 million downloads
5% of UK album sales now digital; digital makes up 8% of UK labels’ income
500 million music phones and 200 million MP3 players shipped globally in 2007
Shazam has 11 million unique users
Rock Band videogame is launched
2008 UK rights holders and ISPs sign Memorandum Of Understanding to help stem
file-sharing
MySpace Music launches in US
Nokia debuts Comes With Music in UK
Launch of iPhone 3G and App Store; 1 million iPhones sold in opening weekend
Amazon MP3 download store launches in UK
7digital becomes first store in Europe to get content from all four majors stripped of
DRM
Majors license DRM-free to a variety of services
Universal launches Lost Tunes (its obscurities download store)
Domino launches its own download store
Apple announces 6 billion tracks sales through iTunes and 300 millions apps
2 million downloads sold each week in UK
20% of all radios sold in UK are now DAB
Spotify launches in beta
Apple announces 174 million iPods sold to date; it has 65 million iTunes customer
accounts
2009 iTunes announces full transition to DRM-free and variable pricing
Apple launches new store features such as iTunes Pass and iTunes LP
Spotify officially launches in the UK; 7m users globally by the end of the year
Both We7 and Spotify launch paying, ad-free subscription tiers
UK launches include:
MySpace Music (audio streaming)
Sky Songs (music subscription)
Muzu (video streaming)
Music Apps such as Shazam, I Am T-Pain and Tap Tap Revenge among most
downloaded
Sales of Guitar Hero III top $1 billion
The Beatles - Rock Band launches in September, with downloadable tracks for
use in the game to follow
Several acquisitions take place, including:
iLike and Imeem (by MySpace)
Lala (by Apple)
7Digital (50% stake by HMV)
Digital accounts for 98% of singles sales in 2009 and 12.5% in the albums market
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