Industry Watch

>>>The Association Of Independent Music Publishers is presenting a panel (6/14) to introduce itself to the Nashville publishing community. Representatives from the AIMP National Board of Directors will be on hand before and after the panel to discuss the formation of a local Nashville chapter. The panel called, Music Supervision: Tips On Getting Songs Placed In Film & TV will feature Gary Calamar (True Blood), Andrea von Foerster (OC, Grey’s Anatomy, 500 Days of Summer), Tony Von Pervieux (TV Music/ABC Entertainment Group), Jace Everett, (Theme For True Blood) and Michelle Belcher, Moderator (District 9). The event takes place June 14, 6-8 p.m. at the Embassy Suites at Vanderbilt (commodore A&B). Click here to register…

>>>Billboard’s Ed Christman pulls back the curtain concerning Amazon’s recent GaGa 99¢ sale and the effect it’s having on physical retailers. While there were many positive results from Amazon’s marketing move, it seemed to catch Universal Music Group Distribution by surprise. According to the article, UMGD shipped 2.1 million units. With today’s inventory efficiencies, stores aim to sell about half the shipment in the first week. Since so many of the GaGa sales were digital, stores sold less than a quarter of the total shipment. Result: UMGD is facing returns liability…. For Christman’s complete analysis [Billboard]

>>>All Things Digital reports that European music service Spotify has signed a deal with Universal giving it three of the four major U.S. labels in its deal folder. Warner is the sole holdout. Spotify has been attempting to cross the Atlantic for amost two years and pundits are now speculating that it may actually happen later this summer. The space has been heating up of late, with Apple, Amazon and Google all tossing up cloud systems and Pandora uppin the price for its upcoming IPO.