“The last time music was a growth business was 1999 — back when people bought millions of Britney Spears CDs, and GeoCities was the third-most popular Web property in the world,” Peter Kafka reports for AllThingsD. “You know what’s happened since then.”

“But music’s slide may have finally stopped,” Kafka reports. “Last year, recorded-music sales inched up 0.3 percent worldwide, to $16.5 billion, according to industry trade group IFPI. That’s the first time global sales have increased since the Napster era, and it echoes bumps we’ve seen earlier in the U.S. and other markets.”

Read more in the full article here.

Related articles:
Nielsen: More U.S. teens listen to music via YouTube than iTunes, CDs, or radio – August 14, 2012
Gartner says worldwide online music revenue on record pace in 2011 – November 9, 2011
Jon Bon Jovi: ‘Steve Jobs is personally responsible for killing the music business’ – March 14, 2011