“Nielsen SoundScan on Wednesday reported the first increase in American album sales since 2004. Total album sales in the US for the first half of 2011 were up one percent year-to-year to hit 155.5 million. Pure digital sales were growing faster at 660 million individual tracks, up 10 percent, and 221.5 million album equivalents, a boost of 3.6 percent,” Electronista reports.
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“The increase is slight but points to the music industry turning the corner and reducing its dependency on CDs,” Electronista reports. “Some of the change has been helped by the forced closure of LimeWire, but mainstream acceptance of paid, downloaded music has been the most commonly accepted factor. iTunes currently controls about two thirds of digital music in the US and is followed by Amazon MP3.”
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