The IFPI, an organization that represents the mainstream music industry worldwide, has released its take on the state of digital music 2008.

According to the report, digital music is booming and the music industry is further along in the transition to digital than other industries. The industry appears to be more focused on P2P file sharing, though, than building on its booming digital business. The IFPI even wants to get your ISP to police file-sharing services.

Digital Music Is Booming

Highlights of the report include:

• Avril Lavigne is leading the digital music boom. She tops the first-ever global music download sales chart, having sold 7.3 million track downloads of her song Girlfriend across the world in 2007
• Global digital music sales are estimated at approximately US$2.9 billion in 2007, a roughly 40% increase on 2006 (US$2.1 billion)
• Single track downloads grew by 53% to 1.7 billion (including those on digital albums)
• Digital sales now account for an estimated 15% of the global music market, up from 11% in 2006 and zero in 2003. In the world‚Äôs biggest digital music market, the US, online and mobile sales now account for 30% of all revenues
• The music industry is more advanced in terms of digital revenues than any other creative or entertainment industry except games. Its digital share is more than twice that of newspapers (7%), films (3%) and books (2%)
• There are more than 500 legitimate digital music services worldwide, offering over 6 million tracks ‚Äì over four times the stock of a music megastore

Despite Success In Digital Music, Industry Sees Threats Looming

Despite the fact that digital music grew tremendously in 2007, especially from P2P file sharing. The IFPI wants to force ISP to start policing the use of file-sharing services.

“ISP cooperation, via systematic disconnection of infringers and the use of filtering technologies, is the most effective way copyright theft can be controlled.” according to the report.

Here are industry risks that they highlight in the report:

• Tens of billions of illegal files were swapped in 2007. The ratio of unlicensed tracks downloaded to legal tracks sold is about 20 to 1
• Progress in the digital music market is being hampered by lack of interoperability between services and devices, and lack of investment in marketing of new services
• The growth rate of around 40% in digital sales did not offset the sharp fall in CD sales globally, meaning that the overall market for the year will be down on 2006