It would be interesting to know where they went for their info. Was it to the big online retailers such as itunes and so on or did they also consider specialist/niche retailers? I get a lot of my downloads from outfits like eMusic who have very few big name acts and labels and seem to specialise in the more esoteric. I also used to regularly buy from the late lamented folk music download site, Woven Wheat Whispers before it shut up shop (happy new year, Mark, by the way, if you're reading this!). I also wonder if they included CD Baby?

It probably stands to reason that most download sales are by the heavily promoted beneficiaries of media saturation rather than by independent artists on small labels doing relatively unpopular music on a low budget... in fact it would be weird if it was any different.

I suppose the fact that two thirds of a million different songs were sold at least once as a download from the sources included in the survey means it wasn't wall-to-wall Britney and Coldplay, though. Which is worth something...