If you’ve followed the music biz’s uncomfortable adaptation to the online age, you’ve probably heard this one before: One segment within the industry is taking “a larger slice of a shrinking pie.” A new study from U.K.-based Juniper Research forecasts modest growth worldwide in mobile music over a five-year period, as the larger music industry continues to founder.

The report estimates that end user-generated revenue from mobile music will rise to $14.6 billion in 2013 from $11 billion in 2008, with full-song downloads and streaming services driving much of the growth. Faster networks and larger handset storage capacity are stimulating consumer interest in over-the-air downloads, which presumably cannibalize some PC sales. At the same time, however, the study shows that consumers appear to be losing interest in paid ringtones, which the study calls “less attractive when priced at a premium to full-track downloads.” (Polyphonic ringtones, which are most commonly digital simulations of familiar songs, are singled out as “last season’s wardrobe” compared with so-called truetones, which are excerpts from popular tracks, although the study says the latter’s novelty is wearing off as well.) » Read The Rest