Electronic Commerce

Digital music downloads reached a milestone in 2008, exceeding 1 billion songs purchased online, according to a newly released report from Nielsen SoundScan, which tracks music sales. That represents a 27% gain over the previous year. But the soaring popularity of the 99-cent download is not enough to offset continued declines in CD sales, which still account for the bulk of the music industry's revenue. Physical disc sales fell nearly 20% to 362.