Festive music downloads double

BRITS DOWNLOADED - and paid for - close to three million tunes during Christmas week, twice as many as last year.

The Official Charts Company reckons the figure is the largest one-week sales tally recorded to date in the UK.

Kids' stockings were this year bulging with music players, Ipods and rock n roll phones, it seems.

Pirate hunters at the BPI said the the "enormous choice" of music and "great value for money", combined with the "ease and convenience of downloading," means legal digital music services are becoming increasingly popular with music fans.

And they never mentioned piracy once. µ