New statistics from the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) have revealed that 90% of all music singles are downloaded, yet 96.5% of albums continue to be purchased as a physical product (CD's etc.).

Some might expect that this would be because we can now pick and choose individual tracks, yet overall album sales topped 58m during the first half of 2007; an increase upon previous years (47m in 1997).

Part of the reason for this has been attributed to the flexibility of such products, which many people like to put on their MP3 players; something that can be done more than once, unlike most DRM infected music. It will be interesting to see whether EMI's DRM-free options help.

Digital Rights Management (DRM) restricts the number of devices a download can be used with, most frequently to just one player. This often forces people to re-purchase the same tracks every time they buy a new MP3 player.