Intermediate 
Music subscription services, including Spotify and Deezer, have broken through the $1bn sales barrier worldwide, as fans choose to pay for music online.
Streaming and subscription revenues rose by more than 50% in 2013 to reach $1.1bn, and sales of recorded music in Europe grew for the  rst time in 12 years, according to  gures published in March.
While many people still listen for free, a desire for more choice is persuading more music lovers to part with their cash. In a three-year period, the number of paying subscribers rose from 8 million to 28 million, according to the 2014 digital music report from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).
Easily accessible from smartphones and tablets, subscription services are popular with people who want to try out new music without buying a download or a CD. They like this cheap, user-friendly and legal alternative to pirated downloads. It is now clear that music streaming and subscription is a mainstream model for our business, said IFPI Chief Executive, Frances Moore.
The IFPI also said that One Direction were the biggest selling artists of 2013, with 4m physical and digital sales for their Midnight Memories album. Katy Perrys Prism was the best-selling album by a female artist, in sixth place behind Eminem, Justin Timberlake, Bruno Mars and Daft Punk.
Consumer-technology companies are joining the music-streaming trend. Apple has its iTunes Radio and Google its Play Store. Smaller companies like Beats Music are also joining the trend.
In Britain and America, streaming may soon generate more revenue for the music industry than downloads from online stores such as Apples iTunes. Subscription services now account for a third of all digital sales globally, with downloads making up the rest, but the IFPI data shows that the two formats are growing at different rates.
In the US, the percentage of people using subscription services and streaming rose from 19% in 2012 to 23%, while the percentage of people downloading fell from 28% to 27%. In Britain, downloaders remained static at exactly one third, while subscribers grew from 19% to 22%. In Sweden, France and Italy, streaming is already more popular than downloading.
Digital formats now account for 39% of all music sales, or nearly 5.9bn out of 15bn, and, while sales of physical formats, such as CDs and vinyl, declined steeply in 2013, they still contribute just over half the industrys income.
Vinyl continued to make a comeback in some markets. Sales increased by 32% in America and by 101% in the UK in 2013.