The Berkman Center for Internet and Society at the Harvard Law School and Gartner have released a report focusing on the importance of sharing to the music business.

Key Findings from the report

• Nearly one-fourth of frequent online music users say that the ability to share music with others in some fashion is an important criteria when selecting an online music service.
• One-tenth of early adopters stated that they often make music purchases based on others’ recommendations.
• One-third of early adopters of digital media surveyed by Gartner stated that they were interested in online music discovery and recommendation technology that is actually powered by their taste in music.
• Some of the most-regular users of online music services, whether free peer-to-peer (P2P) or paid services, are the most interested in consumer-generated recommendation tools.

The report also predicts that 25 percent of online music store transactions will be driven directly from consumer-to-consumer taste-sharing applications by 2010.