Music Ally

A decade after Napster arrived, no-one disagrees that digital is the future (and indeed the present) of the music business. As this timeline shows, the past ten years have seen massive changes in the music industry, most of which have been triggered by the rapid development of online and mobile music technology.

The key events of each year are highlighted below, but each year also has its own full timeline with many more developments included and described as we reported them at the time.

You can also sign up for a free trial enabling you to get access to our ten years of past reports studying the frontier of digital music. Check out our fascinating look back at the digital decade, after the jump…

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2009 has seen the rise of streaming services Spotify and Pandora (and the fall of several of their rivals); governments grappling with anti-piracy legislation; The Pirate Bay trial – and then its tragicomic sale saga; and hundreds of bright-eyed music start-ups and thousands of iPhone apps. And STILL no Yellow Submarine iPod.

We rounded up the key trends from the year for our final Music Ally Report of 2009, and the article is republished below in full. If you’re interested in our service in 2010, with its daily bulletin and fortnightly analytical report, click here for a free trial.

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In the fifth part of our series looking back at the Decade of Digital (read part one on 2000, part two on 2001, part three on 2002, part four on 2003, part five on 2004, part six on 2005, part seven on 2006 and part eight on 2007) we examine 2008.

Sign up for a free two-week trial to Music Ally and get access to all our past reports and bulletins plus a suite of research tools including market data, a deal tracker and an analyst forecast tracker. In the most recent PDF Report you can find a rundown of 2009’s big events plus an extensive timeline detailing the key digital music happenings of the past ten years.

And continue reading after the jump to take a look back at the year 2008, as we reported it at the time.

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In the eight part of our series looking back at the Decade of Digital (read part one on 2000, part two on 2001, part three on 2002, part four on 2003, part five on 2004, part six on 2005 and part seven on 2006) we examine 2007.

Sign up for a free two-week trial to Music Ally and get access to all our past reports and bulletins plus a suite of research tools including market data, a deal tracker and an analyst forecast tracker. In the most recent PDF Report you can find a rundown of 2009’s big events plus an extensive timeline detailing the key digital music happenings of the past ten years.

And continue reading after the jump to take a look back at the year 2007, as we reported it at the time.

(more…)

In the seventh part of our series looking back at the Decade of Digital (read part one on 2000, part two on 2001, part three on 2002, part four on 2003, part five on 2004 and part six on 2005 published last week) we examine 2006.

Sign up for a free two-week trial to Music Ally and get access to all our past reports and bulletins plus a suite of research tools including market data, a deal tracker and an analyst forecast tracker. In the most recent PDF Report you can find a rundown of 2009’s big events plus an extensive timeline detailing the key digital music happenings of the past ten years.

And continue reading after the jump to take a look back at the year 2006, as we reported it at the time.

(more…)

In the fifth part of our series looking back at the Decade of Digital (read part one on 2000, part two on 2001, part three on 2002, part four on 2003 and part five on 2004 published earlier this week) we examine 2005.

Sign up for a free two-week trial to Music Ally and get access to all our past reports and bulletins plus a suite of research tools including market data, a deal tracker and an analyst forecast tracker. In the most recent PDF Report you can find a rundown of 2009’s big events plus an extensive timeline detailing the key digital music happenings of the past ten years.

And continue reading after the jump to take a look back at the year 2005, as we reported it at the time.

(more…)

In the fifth part of our series looking back at the Decade of Digital (read part one on 2000, part two on 2001, part three on 2002 and part four on 2003 published earlier this week) we examine 2004.

Sign up for a free two-week trial to Music Ally and get access to all our past reports and bulletins plus a suite of research tools including market data, a deal tracker and an analyst forecast tracker. In the most recent PDF Report you can find a rundown of 2009’s big events plus an extensive timeline detailing the key digital music happenings of the past ten years.

And continue reading after the jump to take a look back at the year 2004, as we reported it at the time.

(more…)

Now, Music Ally says:

2003 was the year that every other brand on earth (from Dell to Walmart) jumped on board the digital download store bandwagon, aiming to copy Apple’s success in the a la carte model. From today’s perspective it’s quite astonishing how few brands have made any significant in-roads against Apple during the past six to seven years.

But the day’s of OD2 being perceived as a UK monopoly are long gone, OD2 having been rolled into Loudeye which in turn became part of Nokia. And while Emusic is still going strong, UK contender Wippit didn’t last the distance and Napster’s new focus on permanent-ownership downloads seems a pretty long way away from the original subscription model it first proposed.

Keep reading after the jump for the 2003 review as we wrote it at the time…

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In the fourth part of our series looking back at the Decade of Digital (read part one on 2000, part two on 2001 and part three on 2002 published earlier this week) we examine 2003: the year that US labels started legal actions against individuals and the year that the iTunes music store launched for the PC.

Sign up for a free two-week trial to Music Ally and get access to all our past reports and bulletins plus a suite of research tools including market data, a deal tracker and an analyst forecast tracker. In the most recent PDF Report you can find a rundown of 2009’s big events plus an extensive timeline detailing the key digital music happenings of the past ten years.

And continue reading after the jump to take a look back at the year 2003, as we reported it at the time.

(more…)

In the third part of our series looking back at the Decade of Digital (read part one on 2000 and part two on 2001 published earlier this week) we examine 2002: the year that the iPod launched on the Windows platform and Napster made its first, failed, attempt to go legit.

Sign up for a free two-week trial to Music Ally and get access to all our past reports and bulletins plus a suite of research tools including market data, a deal tracker and an analyst forecast tracker. In the most recent PDF Report you can find a rundown of 2009’s big events plus an extensive timeline detailing the key digital music happenings of the past ten years.

And continue reading after the jump to take a look back at the year 2002, as we reported it at the time.

(more…)