It's easy to forget, what with all the fuss over illegal music downloading among broadband ISP customers, that legal Internet alternatives have been exhibiting a consistent pattern of growth. The British Phonographic Industry (BPI), a trade association for the British record industry, has revealed that sales of music singles rose by 32.7% (total 152 million) during 2009 with 98% of those coming from downloads.

Likewise there was a 56.1% (total 16.1 million) rise in album downloads during the year, though this was outdone by a 3.5% decline in overall album sales during 2009 to 128.9 million. That's hardly surprising because consumers can now pick and choose the individual tracks they'd like to download from an album without having to buy the whole thing.

Last month a BPI survey claimed that nearly half (47%) of people who use P2P file sharing sites and software used them as a source for acquiring music on at least a weekly basis, with a third (31%) of respondents who obtain music illegally doing so on a daily basis. The user survey also reported that usage of P2P and related illegal sources would climb during 2010.

It's probably worth pointing out that legal digital downloads remain far less profitable for music companies than physical media, such as CD's.