Music download

They are almost always compressed using a lossy codec (usually MPEG-1 Layer 3, Windows Media, or AAC), which reduces file size and bandwidth requirements.

[7] The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) oversees about 85 percent of published music production, distribution and manufacturing in the United States.

[8] The Recording Industry Association of America launched its first lawsuits on the 8th of September 2003, against individuals who illegally downloaded music files from the Kazaa FastTrack network.

The RIAA hopes their campaign will force people to respect the copyrights of music labels and eventually minimize the number of illegal downloads.

Initially this was on condition that the song must have a physical media release at the same time; this rule was fully lifted on 1 January 2007, meaning all download sales are now eligible in the chart.

It sold 1.64 million digital copies in its first week (included preorders on the iTunes store since the release of the album's lead single "Hello" in October 2015).

[25] The most successful ringtone in Japan is Moldovan-Romanian band O-Zone's "Dragostea din tei" (2003), known locally as "Koi no Maiahi" (恋のマイアヒ), which was certified as having four million units sold.

The first was Songs for Japan (2011), a charity compilation album raising profits for the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which was certified gold for 100,000 downloads in June 2011.

[26] The second album was the Japanese language cast recording of the Frozen soundtrack, which sold 100,000 copies between its release in March 2014 and January 2015.

[32] "Roly Poly" also became the fastest-selling song in Korea's history and the first to reach more than 4 million downloads in a calendar year (within 5 months).