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Vivendi-owned music giant Universal Music Group "shattered a music industry record, scoring a whopping 43% share of albums sold last week."

Massive sales of the heavily downloaded Eminem CD, "Encore," has Universal capturing the top three slots on the pop charts, along with six out of top ten. Toby Keith, Shania Twain, and Ja Rule were amongst the Universal best sellers — all heavily traded artists on the P2P networks.

Sayeth Universal Music Group chairman Doug Morris: "We’re winding up a very nice year. We sold 43 out of every 100 records in the country. That’s amazing."

Earlier in the month, Vivendi reported that music profits surged sevenfold to $38 million, thanks to lower costs and rising sales. When Vivendi decided against selling its music business, it was a bet on a recovery in the macro-economy, as well as the industry, despite the continued increase in file swapping.

So much for Piracy . . .

Source:
Universal dominance ^[2]
Phyllis Furman
Daily News, November 17, 2004
http://www.nydailynews.com/business/col/story/253783p-217279c.html