Music fans who download songs from the internet go on to buy more albums, a survey has suggested. The survey's findings oppose the music industry's long-standing argument that internet downloading is responsible for a slump in CD sales, with album sales falling 5% in the last year. Market research company Music Programming Ltd (MPL) said 87% of its respondents who downloaded music admitted they bought albums after hearing tracks through the internet. An MPL spokesperson said: "Downloading is actually a 'try before you buy' tool for a significant amount of people. Read more... "It allows people to sample new music and decide whether or not to buy it - it is not necessarily a replacement for purchase." However, downloading tracks did lead to a significant drop in the number of singles being bought, with just 13% of the 500 people surveyed saying they went on to buy singles in shops after getting them on the internet. The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) told BBC News Online there was "an element of truth" in the survey's findings, but that it was "disingenuous" to suggest downloading could boost album sales. Rancho*: Let me figure... The record industry is a multi billion dollar market. Now file sharing is a contemporary, convenient and easy to use system. It's been around for at least four years now and it's here to stay. Period. Why hasn't the record industry come up with a well designed internet distribution channel? That shouldn't be much of a problem, looking at the (financial) and creative potential of the record industry. But instead taking some innovative steps the global players have taken their politics in the wrong direction with the development of copy protections that won't let you play the $15 CD in your car stereo... What's so difficult to set up a subscription or pay-per-download system? $0.50 to $1 buck for a song depending on the encoding quality and format isn't too way off. Now add a preview function and a "create-your-custom-CD" service, that get's shipped to your home for an additional $2 bucks, to the mix and you would have a money machine beyond compare. Just my 2 cents...