My post on EMI's digital sales in its DRM-free era has attracted a lot of attention. When I saw that Jupiter's Mark Mulligan referenced the stats I posted (he incorrectly assumed those stats were put out by EMI), I figured it was time to put a needle in everybody's balloon. I worry, though, that the tech media will not cover the following statistics with the same fervor with which they reported the data in my first post.

Allow me to preface the following comments by saying not enough time has passed to make a proper judgment on the effectiveness of EMI's decision to drop DRM from digital downloads. It is a long term strategy that requires a proper time period for reflection. Even so, people want to draw some kind of conclusion as soon as possible, so I'll share with you some information.

If you look just at digital sales of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, which have somehow become the standard bearer for EMI's recent digital strategy, one would have a difficult time believing the strategy is clearly working.

Digital sales of Dark Side of the Moon dropped 14% last week, which followed drops of 33% and 42%. Before dropping 42%, digital sales rose 350%. That was the week iTunes Plus launched and allowed people to upgrade to the DRM-free versions for an additional $0.30 per track. Word is that SoundScan does not count those upgrades as sales, but I am very skeptical. I suppose the peak could have been explained by consumers' lust for DRM-free music, but that demand should have lasted more than one week, right?

A one-week peak fits in with a scenario in which the most avid iTunes users upgraded to iTunes Plus as soon as it was available and then upgraded their EMI downloads. (Some did it just to experiment. Some were journalists and bloggers writing about the new technology. Some actually wanted to DRM-free music.) In the following weeks, incrementally fewer iTunes users have upgraded to the new version of iTunes and in turn upgraded their EMI downloads. What happens when iTunes Plus adoption levels off? Dark Side of the Moon digital sales will level off.

Everybody has focused on the 350% increase but has ignored what has happened since. Dark Side of the Moon's inital sales are still almost double what they were before iTunes Plus launched, but they're dropping like a rock.

Once again, more time is needed before drawing any good conclusions.