May 07, 2008

Bill Carr, Amazon's VP of digital media, would only say that the MP3 downloads business is "going very, very well." But the music industry folks I talked to say they like what they see, both in terms of sales volume and, even more important, the way Amazon sells digital music. One exec I know at a big label, who asked to remain anonymous, says he's excited by one trend in particular: At Apple's iTunes store, two thirds of the music sold is single tracks and one third is albums. But at Amazon, two thirds of the music sold is albums and one third is tracks. "It's fantastic," he says. "We make a bunch more money from albums than if you buy one track at a time."

My friend said his label's experience with Amazon could well point to some relief for the music industry down the road: "As soon as we wise up and realize that online albums are worth about $5, the music industry will be fixed."