MUSIC BUSINESS NEWS

Nielsen SoundScan: Album Sales Grew In First Half Of 2011 Nielsen SoundScan this week reported that U.S. album sales through the first half of 2011 grew 1%, the first time the recording industry has seen any sort of increase in album sales for the period since 2004. The total number of albums sold in the U.S. was 155.5 million, vs. 153.9 million albums sold during the first half of 2010. Digital track sales also grew, with more than 660 million units sold, a 10% increase vs. 1H 2010. Overall, music sales for the first half of this year rose 8.5% over the same period last year, with digital album sales jumping 19% and the sale of vinyl albums soaring 41%. Noting that the increase in music sales likely came from multiple sources, David Bakula, Nielsen's music analyst, said labels were more aggressive in pricing, packaging, and promoting catalog albums via compilations and collections, resulting in a 7% increase in catalog albums sales. Overall sales reportedly were fueled by Adele's "21" album, Lady Gaga's "Born This Way," and Mumford & Sons' "Sigh No More." [Full story: CNET Los Angeles Times]

"Spotify Is Coming To The U.S."...But Will It Include WMG? Spotify today [July 7] confirmed that it is expanding its digital music platform to U.S. shores "in the imminent future," posting the news on itswebsite that "The award-winning music service that's taken Europe by storm will soon be landing on U.S. shores. Millions of tracks ready to play instantly, on your computer and your phone. Any track, any time, anywhere. And it's free!" Still, the company doesn't give a timeline for its U.S. launch, and the website simply invites those who are interested to sign up for a free email invitation to sample it once it is up and running. It's no secret that Spotify executives believed they needed to secure content licenses from at least three of the four major label catalogs in order to gain significant traction among American consumers. They recently achieved that goal, with Warner Music Group - which was just acquired by Access Industries - remaining the sole holdout. Additionally, there's no word on how closely an American version of Spotify will resemble its European counterpart, since U.S. record labels reportedly have pressured the firm to abandon its current free content approach in favor of a guaranteed revenue model. [Full story: Fierce Mobile Content]

Spotify Signs Deal With Virgin Media In U.K. In tandem with the announcement this week that Spotify's arrival on U.S. shores is "imminent," the company revealed it had signed a deal with Virgin Media that will significantly expand its reach in Great Britain. Virgin, which provides broadband Internet access and cable television access to four million British customers, will become the only U.K. digital media provider to offer Spotify directly through its pipeline. As most digital music consumers now know, Spotify is a "cloud" music subscription service that allows its 10 million users to stream songs free - with advertising - from an extensive library of tracks. One million additional users pay a monthly fee of about $12 to $15 for an upgraded version of the service, with access through mobile devices and without advertising. [Full service: New York Times]

iTunes Match Could Be Used To Track Down Music Pirates Will Apple's iTunes Match service be used to identify who has pirated music in their collections? That's a question Ars Technica posed to its online readers this week, noting that Apple's recently announced iCloud music service for Macs and iOS devices includes two iTunes-related services: free access to previously purchased songs via any authorized device, as well as a $25 per year option to store up to 25,000 songs in iCloud. It's this second feature - known as iTunes Match - that will scan a user's library and give immediate iCloud access to any song that "matches" a corresponding track in the iTunes Store library. Songs that don't match will be uploaded to a user's iCloud storage. Since Apple will be incorporating metadata identification technology to "match" a user's music, could Apple reliably identify pirated music - and, if so, what would it do with that information? Ars Technica says the answer to the first half of that question is "yes," since digital music retailers do, in fact, embed information in the IDv3 tags of song files. In fact, even something like an embedded hashed time stamp could be used to identify the original purchaser, which means that if iTunes Match finds 1,000 copies of a track with an identical time stamp hash, it would be evidence of illegal copying or file sharing. [Full story: Ars Technica]

AARP Launches 18 Channels Of Digital Online Music AARP - formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons - has jumped into the Internet radio arena by launching 18 channels of music designed to appeal to the organization's over-50 membership. Programmed by Concord Music Group, the free

service features such channels as "Coffeehouse," Classic R&B, Classic Rock, Oldies, Jazz, Vocal Standards, Modern Hits, Country, Latin, and many more. "We've always been trying to reach this audience, because we know that boomers are so passionate about music," Hugh Delehanty, editor in chef of AARP's publications, told the New York Times. "We also feel that because of changes in format and whatnot, a lot of them have gotten lost in terms of how to find their music." A recent NPD Group study indicates that approximately 60% of CD sales revenue comes from consumers aged 36 and older, a demographic that is less comfortable with digital music services than younger consumers. While baby boomers represent the world's largest generation, they consume very little digital music compared to younger generations. [Full story: Fast Company]

Warner Shareholders Approve  $3.3 Billion Sale  To Access Industries

At a special meeting held yesterday, Warner Music Group announced that the sale of the company to Access Industries was approved by its shareholders. Under the terms of the sale, the company's stockholders receive $8.25 per share in cash at the closing of the transaction, which is expected sometime in the third quarter of this year. Officially, the acquisition was approved by holders of 145,819,757 shares of WMG common stock, vs. 165,810 shares that were voted against the deal. The $3.3 billion acquisition of WMG by Access Industries, controlled by billionaire Len Blavatnik, was announced in May. [Full story: All Access]