A fixture in the music industry since the mid-1990s, Bronfman led WMG during a period of profound tumult, navigating a rough transition from CD to the digital download, and grappling with a generation of younger consumers who don’t always want pay for digital music.

Onstage at D: Dive Into Media this afternoon, Bronfman reflected on the evolution of the music industry, Apple, and the fate of EMI, which is currently being pursued by Universal Music.

“It strikes me as hubris that Universal will buy EMI,” Bronfman told Peter Kafka of AllThingsD. “What it will do is create a super-major that will have far too much power. … I think when Universal goes up over 40 percent market share, I don’t see how reasonable regulators can countenance. It will impact not just labels, but artists and cultural diversity. … Warner is going to fight this tooth and nail, and I hope others will join us.”

As with today’s Neil Young session, the perceived obsolescence of the recording industry was a topic of conversation and, as you might imagine, Bronfman feels labels remain a necessity.

“Commercial success still hasn’t come to an artist that isn’t signed to a record label, he said. “There are very few artists that can succeed without the help of a record label. The role of the record label is still required, it’s still necessary.”

And not just for musicians. Consumers need labels, as well.

“I really do think consumers are busy, and trying to sort through millions and millions of artists to find the ones that they might like just requires far too much work. That’s where the labels come in.”

A few other remarks worth noting …

On mobile:
Mobile is coming. It’s still not really there. It’s on the iPhone because Apple has a content strategy, but it’s not really there on other devices. … I think the mobile platform is a massive opportunity for music. … Think about it. The iPod made music mobile, but today, how many devices do you need to walk around with? You want it on just one. And inevitably that’s going to be the phone.

On Google Music:
Google Music is an oxymoron.

On unbundling:
Any time you can give consumers more of what they want, it’s a good thing. Unbundling the album is a good thing. In the case of music — because it is content that you can slice into songs — doing that is of huge benefit to consumers.

On Apple and iTunes:
Apple from day one believed in music and content. That was the good news. The bad news is that they decided all songs where created equal, and I fought Steve on that. Ultimately, Apple got the better part of that deal. Ultimately, I wish we’d gotten more pricing flexibility.

On Spotify:
We see Spotify as incrementally positive. It’s not slowing down music sales or downloads. We would all love to make more money from Spotify, but Spotify needs to make money, too. But artists should know that it is a real and growing revenue stream.

The music companies, Sony Corp.’s Sony Music Entertainment and Access Industries Inc.’s Warner Music Group, joined in an amended complaint to a suit filed last month by Vivendi SA’s Universal Music Group in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

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In this case, it’s Madonna’s new pact with Universal Music Group. The New York Post says she’ll get around $1 million an album for a three-album deal, and music industry folks say the paper has its numbers right.

This is a very reasonable contract. Madonna is long past her music-selling peak, and the music industry is a decade past its peak, too.

Still! Reasonable contracts — especially for superstars — are still very new things for the music business. Not too many years ago, Sony handed Bruce Springsteen a reported $100 million, and that was well into the post-Napster slide. So let’s just walk through what each side gets here:

• Madonna gets the kind of money, upfront, that she would have laughed at in the past. A million bucks is what you used to give a hot “baby band” no one but a few hipsters had heard of. But the world’s biggest music company will buy her billboards, etc., and that’s still worth something. Plus, on the off chance that one of these albums does take off, the low advance means she could actually earn royalties on the sales.
• Universal gets bragging rights and one of the music industry’s few living worldwide icons, for what amounts to walking-around money. And, again, who knows? She might still sell some records, perhaps on the back of her upcoming Super Bowl appearance.
• Universal doesn’t get Madonna’s lucrative back catalog — Warner Music Group still has those songs, which it continues to sell, repackage, and sell some more. And Universal doesn’t get a piece of her lucrative touring business — concert giant Live Nation has that. (Remember when Live Nation was also going to be a big deal in the record business? What happened to that?)

But wait a minute. Why does Madonna need a record deal at all? Couldn’t she just sell her music on her own, like Prince and Radiohead and the Eagles and lots of folks?

Sure. But not everyone wants to be Louis C.K., who has just declared his direct-to-fan experiment a huge success. (To play devil’s advocate: Even though everyone who bought one of his concerts blogged about it (more than once, in some cases), he has still only reached 130,000 people — far less than would have seen him had he done an HBO deal or a Netflix deal. And those guys would almost certainly have paid him more, too. Though if you want to be a contra-contrarian, you can note that he could still do that. (Which I have!)

Some people, it turns out, are still happy to take money up front from Big Media companies and hope they can deliver the Big Reach, which the do-it-yourself Web can’t guarantee.

A replacement hasn’t been named, but one is expected before the end of January, according to a person familiar with the matter. Since May, Warner has been owned by Access Industries Inc., controlled by Russian-born billionaire Len Blavatnik. Stephen Cooper, a corporate turnaround specialist, replaced Mr. Bronfman in August as Warner Music’s chief executive.

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Disney CEO Bob Iger tapped Skipper to take over his company’s most important asset just a week ago. But Skipper, who had been ESPN’s content boss, has been a rising star there for years, hopping from print (!) to the Web to TV programming. We’ll have his first onstage interview in his new role.

At a time when the value of Big Media’s content is in flux, ESPN’s lock on sports — DVR-proof, pirate-resistant programming that draws mass eyeballs in a niche age — is more valuable than ever. Can Skipper keep it that way?

We’ll ask him in January, as he joins a lineup that includes: YouTube CEO Salar Kamangar, Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman, New Yorker editor David Remnick, Warner Music Chairman Edgar Bronfman Jr., News Corp. Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey, Clear Channel CEO Bob Pittman, Legendary Pictures head Thomas Tull and Vevo CEO Rio Caraeff.

All Things Digital’s first-ever media conference runs Jan. 30 and 31 at the Ritz-Carlton in Laguna Niguel, an hour south of Los Angeles. See you there.

If you’d like to, you can compare Google’s store and locker to Apple’s long-established iTunes store and just-launched iTunes Match locker. For instance, Google’s locker is free and lets you store 20,000 songs. Apple’s locker costs $25 a year and lets you store 25,000 songs. Warner Music Group songs aren’t available at Google’s store but are at Apple’s. Etc.

[UPDATE: Because at least one of you asked - Google's service doesn't offer the "Match" feature that Apple does, which means that users will have to upload every song they want to access from Google's locker. For a user with a decent-sized library and a conventional residential broadband connection, that process could take a very long time, perhaps several days.]

But that’s sort of missing the point, because few people will make that comparison in the real world.

Instead, real people will make a simple non-decision: If they use an Android phone, they can’t use Apple’s store or locker. So now they can use Google’s. And while it will be theoretically possible for iPhone users to use Google’s store and locker, it will involve some kludgy sidesteps that won’t appeal to mainstream users.

And that’s about it. In the end, this isn’t about helping Google “catch up to iTunes” — it’s about filling the big, gaping, musical hole in Google’s mobile business. But as market report after market report has pointed out, the lack of a music store — and a decent music player, for that matter — hasn’t hurt Android sales.

The flip side is also true: Music sales have always been a side business for Apple, and that’s even more true now in the app economy. ITunes sales grew 28 percent in the last year, but Apple says that’s primarily due to the App Store’s expansion into new territories.

The most interesting part of the rollout is the sharing feature — that’s the “twist” that Android boss Andy Rubin hinted at last month. It’s a limited-use case — you actually have to buy a song or album from the Google Store in order to share it, and most people don’t buy a whole lot of music, period — but if it does work, the chief beneficiary will be Google+, Google’s newish Facebook-fighter.

Google claims that more than 40 million people are using Google+, but I haven’t met a soul who isn’t in the tech nerd industrial complex who has used it, and I’ve been wondering how Google would convince a “normal” to sign up for another social service. Perhaps a free song will do it.

Hollywood and Google have been circling each other for years, as each side tries to figure out what to make of the other. Now they’re finally starting to link up in a serious way, via YouTube’s new “channels” strategy.

Which means it’s a perfect time to hear from YouTube CEO Salar Kamangar. And if you’re at D: Dive into Media in January, that’s what you’ll be able to do, as one of the world’s most important Googlers joins us onstage.

Getting Kamangar out of Mountain View and into the public eye would be a big deal under any circumstances, because — while he keeps a very low profile — he has enormous clout: He’s one of Larry Page’s most trusted lieutenants, a position he has earned by joining the company as hire No. 9 in 1999, then helping to build the AdWords product that has generated a vast majority of Google’s revenue.

Kamangar has been formally running YouTube for the past year, but in reality he had been overseeing the world’s largest video site for some time. Kamangar is also in charge of Google’s broader video plans, including Google TV, which is now making a second stab at inserting itself into the world’s living rooms.

So there’s going to be plenty to talk about when Kamangar joins a lineup of media heavyweights Jan. 30 and 31 at the Ritz-Carlton in Laguna Niguel, an hour south of Los Angeles. Previously announced speakers include Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman, New Yorker editor David Remnick, Warner Music Chairman Edgar Bronfman Jr., News Corp. Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey, Clear Channel CEO Bob Pittman, Legendary Pictures head Thomas Tull, and VEVO CEO Rio Caraeff.

We’ll announce more in the weeks to come. If you want to make sure you get a seat, you should sign up now.

But not so fast. Before we can get there, we need to review some history, then engage in some speculation.

First, the past: Way, way back in 2000, EMI was supposed to merge with Warner Music Group. But the deal, which would have created a company that controlled 25 percent of the world’s music market, didn’t fly with European regulators.

And since Universal is the world’s biggest music label, and the new combination will create a company with about 40 percent of the world’s music market, you’d think antitrust types would have a problem with this one, too. (Maybe even in the U.S., which has usually let most industries consolidate, but recently perked up when it came to AT&T’s proposed T-Mobile deal.)

Bear in mind that back in 2000, there were five major music labels. Since then Sony swallowed up BMG, so we’re down to four. And Universal wants to shrink it down to three.

Universal’s answer, of course, will be that today’s music business looks nothing like it did 11 years ago when Britney Spears was selling millions of CDs, Napster was a novelty, and Apple’s iTunes store didn’t exist. Most important: Back then, music sales were a $37 billion business. By the end of last year, that number was down to $16 billion.

But simply arguing that the pie is smaller won’t convince regulators. If Universal is really going to get this deal done, it’s almost certainly going to sell off some pieces, particularly in markets like Germany and France, where a combined EMI/UMG could end up with something like 80 percent of the music market.

I think it will also work very hard to convince people that even the world’s biggest music label doesn’t have any power when it comes to Apple, which controls the world’s digital music market.

That part won’t be that hard, because it’s at least partly true. But it will still be interesting to see Universal, which has longstanding ties to Apple, go out of its way to publicly complain about the relationship, without actually straining it for real.

And in any case we’re going to have quite some time to watch this one develop. EMI CEO Roger Faxon told his staff yesterday that approvals, etc., for the split-up could go “well past” March 31, 2012, when EMI’s fiscal year ends. Music industry folks assume that a realistic timetable would be closer to 12 months from now.

[Image via Jason Mrachina]

The search giant has sent out invitations to a “special event” in Los Angeles next Wednesday, (supposedly from Spinal Tap bassist [Doh! Lead guitarist, that is.]Nigel Tufnel, which is a calendar joke). Every indication is that it will be to launch Google Music — a service that’s supposed to include both a store and a limited sharing capability, tied to its Google+ social initiative.

But as of now Google hasn’t convinced all four of the big music labels to come on board.

Google has EMI Music, the smallest of the big four, locked up. And industry executives I’ve talked to believe that Universal Music Group, the world’s biggest label, is also signed up or will be very soon.

But people familiar with the labels tell me that Sony and Warner Music Group haven’t lined up deals yet, and they’re skeptical that both will be locked in by Wednesday. (Apple, meanwhile, looks like it’s finally ready to show off iTunes Match, its new $25-a-year music service.)

That runs counter to the confidence that Andy Rubin expressed last month, when he told the audience at the AsiaD conference that he was “close” to launching a music service “with a twist.” My hunch is that Google feels the invitations will be a forcing event that will speed negotiations up.

Or perhaps Google feels that some music labels are better than none, and it can add the stragglers in after it launches.

Conventional wisdom in the music business is that you can’t launch a service without three of the big four signed up (Spotify waited to lock up all four before coming to the U.S.). But Google has shown in the past that it’s quite willing to put stuff out there before it’s fully baked. Perhaps this is another one of those.

For our first-ever media conference, we’re trying to cast a wide net, so you’ll hear from movers and shakers from a range of companies. The common theme: All of them are making and distributing content during a time of unprecedented technological change. How do they adapt?

So far, we’ve announced that Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman, New York editor David Remnick, Warner Music chairman Edgar Bronfman Jr. and News Corp. chief operating officer Chase Carey will be joining us on Jan. 30 and 31 at the Ritz-Carlton in Laguna Nigel, just south of Los Angeles.

Let’s add three more to that list:

Bob Pittman helped build MTV, then AOL. And after spending several years as a full-time investor in everything from Zynga to a high-end tequila, he’s running a media company once again — this time overseeing radio and billboard giant Clear Channel. Why would you want to run a radio company when everyone’s consumed with the likes of iTunes, Pandora and Spotify? Because it’s still a growth industry, Pittman argues. And the fact that it’s the industry that gave him his start, at age 15, makes the story even more interesting.

Thomas Tull is a relative newcomer to Hollywood, but he’s moving fast. After founding Legendary Pictures in 2004, he’s produced a string of hits, including “The Hangover,” “The Dark Knight” and “300.” And if you accuse him of making dude-centric movies that appeal to “fanboys,” he won’t flinch — they’re the ones who still come out to the theaters, if you know how to get them there. Last spring, his track record helped him secure an investment from Silicon Valley heavyweight Accel Partners, which gives you a hint about where Tull thinks all of this is going.

Joint ventures formed by big media companies are a tricky proposition, but Rio Caraeff seems to be making his work. Vevo, the “Hulu for music videos,” is co-owned by Universal Music Group and Sony Music, and helped in large part by Google’s YouTube. And as of last month it was the second-biggest video site on the Web — a title that used to be held by Hulu.

Just like our flagship D: All Things Digital conference, D: Dive into Media will give you rare access to deep, smart talks with the people who matter. And we’ll be announcing more of them in the weeks to come. For now: You can find registration information here.

But those factors didn’t prevent Chelsea Clinton from landing a plum assignment: joining the board of Barry Diller’s Internet media holding company.

In her new role, the daughter of former President Bill Clinton and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be the youngest member of IAC’s board by seven years.

Fellow directors include Michael Eisner, former chief of Walt Disney Co., and Edgar Bronfman Jr., chairman of Warner Music Group.

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So is this a good time to be in media? Or a terrifying one? Both? Yes!

AllThingsD covers the media business and the way it responds to technology, every day. But in January we’re going to go really deep into this stuff, at our first D: Dive Into Media event, where we’ll focus on the people who create, finance and distribute what we listen to, read and watch. (Facebook is on to something!)

We’ll gather the most powerful, interesting and innovative leaders from a wide range of media and entertainment companies, and sit down with them for one-on-one interviews.

And just like our flagship D: All Things Digital event, we’ll also be able to give you peeks at the future, by focusing on new voices and new technology you’ll be hearing from in the months and years to come. You won’t see panel discussions with middling players here: Just deep, smart talks with the people who matter.

We’ll be announcing our speakers throughout the fall, but here’s a starter list to give you a sense of what we’ve got planned:

Philippe Dauman is CEO of Viacom, which runs one of the world’s dominant cable networks. We’ll talk to him about what that means in a universe where cord-cutting could become a reality — if it’s not already. We’ll also pick his brain about the future of his Paramount studio, and Hollywood in general.

New Yorker editor David Remnick runs one of the world’s best, most storied magazines. Coincidentally or not, it also happens to be a rarity in the iPad world — a successful magazine app. We’ll talk to the Pulitzer Prize winner about the challenge of making long, immersive content in a fast-twitch world.

Edgar Bronfman Jr. ran Warner Music Group from 2004 until earlier this summer; he’s now the company’s chairman at a pivotal time in its history. Since his resume also includes a stint running what’s now called NBCUniversal, he’ll also be able to give us an interesting perspective on the evolution of the TV and movie business.

News Corp. COO Chase Carey can talk to us about his company’s take on the movie business, the TV business, the cable business, the newspaper business and the Internet. News Corp. also owns this Web site, but that won’t prevent us from having a frank discussion about the company’s challenges and opportunities.

D: Dive Into Media will be held at the stunning Ritz-Carlton in Laguna Niguel, a little more than an hour south of Los Angeles. On behalf of Walt Mossberg, Kara Swisher and the rest of the AllThingsD staff, I’d like to invite you to join us Jan. 30 and 31.

He replaces Edgar Bronfman Jr., who has run Warner Music Group since 2004, but will remain with the company as chairman of its board.

The company also announced that it is bringing Thomas Lee back to the company’s board. Lee had previously served as a board member from 2004 through this year, when his private equity company held a large stake in the music label. His reappointment does not mean he’ll be reinvesting in the company, I’m told.

People inside the company hold out the possibility that Bronfman could return to day-to-day leadership of the company if it succeeds in buying EMI Music, a longtime would-be merger partner currently owned by Citigroup. But even if Warner wins that bidding round, regulatory approval could take a year or more, so it’s not realistic to expect him back sooner than that, if ever.

Here’s Bronfman’s internal note to his employees, followed by the press release announcing the moves.

Dear Colleagues:

As Warner Music Group begins its next chapter, well-positioned for some truly exciting and unprecedented opportunities, I am pleased to announce we are adding a new member to our management team: Steve Cooper. Effective today, Steve will be serving as WMG’s Chief Executive Officer, working out of our New York office and I will serve as Chairman of the Board of WMG, continuing to work out of both our New York and London offices. Lyor and Cameron will remain in their positions, heading up Recorded Music and Music Publishing respectively, reporting directly to Steve.

I’d like to take a moment to explain to you the rationale behind this change:

Capitalizing on the opportunities before us will require an intensive and all-consuming effort from a broad and deep management team. For this reason, following the close of the sale and the transition of WMG from a public company to a subsidiary of Access Industries, in several discussions with Len and the Access team, I conveyed my strong conviction that my energies on behalf of the company would best be directed toward transformative transactions and long-term strategy. Len was supportive of my wishes provided we could identify the executive to whom I could hand off day-to-day management responsibilities. Fortunately, in Steve Cooper we have that executive.

Steve has a long and distinguished career of service to many companies. Having worked very closely with him over the past several months, I can tell you that he is a highly effective operator who brings a wide range of skills and experience to WMG, most recently, of course, as WMG’s Chairman. And, as a longtime partner to Len, Steve knows the Access team well and will be an effective liaison between them and WMG. More information about Steve’s background can be found in the press release we are issuing today.

Now, a few thank yous are in order. First of all, I want to thank Len and Access for being amenable to my kicking myself upstairs and understanding that I came to WMG as both an investor and operator—a dual role in which I have served throughout my career. After leading the acquisition from Time Warner, transforming the company, and selling it to Access, I believe I can add greater value by addressing the challenges WMG faces on a macro scale, while handing over the day-to-day reins to Steve.

Second, I want to thank Steve for being willing to swap roles with me. After collaborating so well with him, and sensing the energy and enthusiasm he brings to operating a company, I had no doubt that Steve was serving in the role that was more natural for me at this stage in my WMG tenure, while I was in the role in which Steve could bring to bear his many talents.

But the biggest thank you I’ve saved for last. And that’s to all our amazing employees around the world. Thank you. In transforming WMG, together we’ve performed something of a miracle. Despite the industry’s complex transition and the global economic downturn, we have grown profitability, improved our competitive position, and developed new business models, all while continuing to focus intensely on our core mission: artist development. A company’s true value is the quality of its employees, and you are the finest group of employees with whom I have ever worked. None of what we have accomplished could have happened without the extraordinary talent that is the WMG team.

I’m excited for what the next chapter holds. And I look forward to writing that chapter with all of you.

Please join me in welcoming Steve to the team. As always, please email me any questions or comments you may have.

Edgar

WARNER MUSIC GROUP’S BOARD OF DIRECTORS ELECTS
EDGAR BRONFMAN, JR. AS CHAIRMAN TO FOCUS ON STRATEGY AND GROWTH OPPORTUNITIES
NEW YORK, August 19, 2011 – Warner Music Group Corp. (WMG) today announced that Edgar Bronfman, Jr., who had been serving as the company’s Chief Executive Officer, has been appointed to the position of Chairman of the company’s Board of Directors and Stephen F. Cooper, who had been serving as Chairman, has been elected to serve as WMG’s Chief Executive Officer. Bronfman will focus on the company’s strategy and growth opportunities while Cooper will be responsible for the company’s day-to-day operations. Cooper will continue to serve on the company’s Board of Directors.
Lyor Cohen, Chairman and CEO, Recorded Music and Cameron Strang, Chairman and CEO of Warner/Chappell Music, will remain in their positions, reporting directly to Cooper.
Thomas H. Lee, the Chairman and CEO of Thomas H. Lee Capital, LLC, who served as a member of WMG’s Board from March 2004 through July 2011, has been elected as a new Director of WMG. With the appointment of Lee, the size of WMG’s Board has increased from nine to 10 members.
Bronfman said, “With the Access Industries transaction closed and WMG well-positioned for its next exciting chapter, it was clear that in order to best seize the strategic opportunities before us, we needed to deploy our team in the most effective and imaginative manner possible. Given my desire to focus on growth opportunities and Steve’s extensive background in management across a wide array of companies and industries, I am grateful that Steve accepted the offer to change roles and to serve as our CEO. I look forward to continuing our successful partnership.”
Bronfman added, “I’m pleased to welcome Tom Lee to our Board. Tom and I previously served together on WMG’s Board, and his contributions were invaluable. We’re fortunate that going forward we’ll be able to benefit from his insight and his history with the company.”
In addition to his role with WMG, Cooper is a member of the Supervisory Board for LyondellBasell Industries N.V., one of the world’s largest olefins, polyolefins, chemicals and refining companies. Cooper is an advisor at Zolfo Cooper, a leading financial advisory and interim management firm, of which he was a co-founder and former Chairman. Cooper is also Managing Partner of Cooper Investment Partners, a private equity firm. He has more than 30 years of experience as a financial advisor, and has served as chairman or chief executive officer of various businesses, including Vice Chairman and member of the office of Chief Executive Officer of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. and Chief Executive Officer of Hawaiian Telcom. Cooper received a B.A. from Occidental College and an M.B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business.

In this case the check writer is LimeWire, the once-huge file-sharing operation that finally shut down last year under court order. The company handed over $12 million to Warner Music Group last quarter as part of the $105 million settlement it reached with big music labels last spring.

If you argue, as Warner Music and the other labels previously had, that LimeWire was responsible for more than $1 billion worth of damage, then the check won’t mean much. Nor does it mean much to Warner’s operations — the payout amounted to 1.7 percent of the music label’s quarterly revenue.

Still, the big content companies almost never get any satisfaction in the piracy whack-a-mole game. So we’ll go ahead and note this instance now.

While we’re noting things: Warner’s revenue was up 5 percent for the quarter, buoyed in large part by digital sales, which were up 13 percent. The label still posted a net loss of $47 million, though.

The deal ends a years-long struggle between China’s most popular website and the three big labels over a popular Baidu MP3 search service used to find links to music files around the Web, many of which were unlicensed. The music industry and the U.S. government have complained that the Baidu site was among the world’s most widely used platforms for unlicensed music downloads, with the U.S. Trade Representative listing Baidu as a “notorious” market for piracy.

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For some of you. The streaming music service, which has been trying to get to the U.S. for a couple long, grinding years, has finally done it.

All four big music labels are on board, including holdout Warner Music Group, and the service will officially open its doors tomorrow.

For now it’s invitation only, but it will open up over the coming weeks and months.

The basics: As in Europe, Spotify offers a couple different tiers of service. There’s a free, ad-supported service that lets you listen to whatever you want, as long as you’re on a computer that’s connected to the Web, and as long you don’t exceed a monthly time limit. For now, that’s 20 hours a month.

Spotify’s real goal is to get you to upgrade to its $10-a-month plan, which gives you unlimited, ad-free music, which you can also take with you via iPhone and Android apps. There’s also a $5-a-month middle step, which gives you ad-free music that’s not portable, but the Spotify guys don’t really expect much take-up there.

So go check it out, if you can.

And if you can’t, you’ve still got plenty of options. As I’ve noted many times before, Americans already have access to lots of subscription music services, like MOG, Rhapsody and Rdio. The big difference between those options and Spotify is they only offer a few days of free music before requiring you to pay up.

And of course, if you don’t want to pay at all, there’s plenty of other options, from legal services like Pandora, to grey-area services like Grooveshark and Turntable.fm, and the full-fledged piracy options which are easy enough for all of you to figure out on your own.

Related posts

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• Spotify, Gearing Up for U.S. Launch, Closes Its $1 Billion Round
• When Will Spotify Finally Come to the U.S.?
• Spotify Toots Its Own Horn: One Million Paying Subscribers
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My informed guess: Next week. Because that’s what Spotify reps have been telling U.S. label executives.

Or maybe later! Spotify is Spotify, so anyone who has paid any attention to this story will be reflexively skeptical that Spotify will show up in the U.S. until Spotify shows up in the U.S. Meanwhile, Spotify PR reps decline to comment.

While the service has agreements in place with three of the four big music labels, it still doesn’t have a signed deal with Warner Music Group, which normally would be a warning flag for this kind of guesstimating. But people I’ve talked to who are familiar with negotiations believe the two companies are close enough that a deal will be inked before the launch.

Meanwhile, if you’re in the U.S. and want to get a sense of what Spotify will look like, go check out Rdio or MOG or Rhapsody or Napster (for now — that last one may not make it much longer). Each one offers a similar service, where $10 a month gets you unlimited, ad-free, on-demand music on your PC or iPhone or Android handset.

The big difference between Spotify and its competitors is that in the past, Spotify has also offered unlimited free music, with ads, on your PC. But over time Spotify has cut back the amount of free music it offers, and now only gives away 10 hours a month in Europe.

It’s possible that some of those terms will change with the U.S. launch, but I’d expect them to stay quite similar. I also wouldn’t expect a grand PR push when Spotify does open up. Then again, they’re going to get plenty of (even more) free press on launch day.

The service still doesn’t have a pact signed with Warner Music Group, but people familiar with discussions say the two sides are closer than they have been, and are optimistic a deal will get done.

It’s possible that Spotify could open in the U.S. without Warner, but that would leave holes in the company’s catalog. And that’s a crummy way to introduce a service that CEO Daniel Ek has been promising to bring to the U.S. for two years.

Even if Warner signs next week, though, it will likely take Spotify some time to ramp up a marketing campaign and other elements it would need for a U.S. launch. I wouldn’t count on seeing anything in the States till July at the earliest.

Multiple sources tell me the Universal deal was finished this week. Spotify declined to comment; a spokesman for Universal hasn’t responded to requests for comment. Spotify signed on Sony and EMI Music Group earlier this year.

In Europe, Spotify offers a “freemium” service, where registered users can listen to a certain amount of music each month for free, and paying subscribers get unlimited music, which they can stream to their computers or phones. People familiar with the company’s plans indicate that it wants to do the same thing in the U.S., and would likely charge around $10 a month for the premium service.

Unlike Europe, however, the U.S. has several existing subscription services that also stream unlimited tunes for $10 a month, and those have yet to take off, even though the services are now compatible with popular handsets like Google’s Android and Apple’s iPhone.

During the time that Spotify has spent trying to get to the States, meanwhile, three different cloud/locker services have launched in the U.S. as well: Amazon and Google allow users to move their own music to an Internet-based server, where they can stream it to PCs and some phones.

Apple has announced its own take on the concept, which will allow users to download copies of music they own to different devices (it’s possible that version will also allow streaming at some point).

The price point for those services all range from free to a few dollars per month — much cheaper than the $10 per month Spotify will likely ask for. But they’re a different offering: Google, Amazon and Apple are all promising to give you mobile access to music you already own, while subscription services like Spotify give access to millions of tracks you don’t have.

Which is why Parker tried, unsuccessfully, to buy part of Warner Music Group this spring.

I walked through some of this when I wrote about Parker’s bid back in March, but now the billionaire investor/entrepreneur is talking about it in his own words, at the e-G8 conference in Paris. Via the FT:

I think that there is a pretty dramatic change in the way music is monetized that is on the cusp of happening. Back catalogues of record labels are going to become extremely valuable…If you believe this transformation is occurring, if you believe the broken distribution systems are on the verge of being fixed, those recordings are dramatically undervalued.

In the last 10 years we have presided over the greatest destruction in value in the history of the music industry…Assuming we can stabilize things and restore growth, it shouldn’t be that difficult to preside over the greatest increase in value in the history of the recorded music industry.

Just to spell this out: As a co-founder of Napster, Parker played a big role in the “greatest destruction in value in the history of the music industry.” So it’s even more interesting to see him call a bottom now.

That thinking also explains his interest in subscription music service Spotify, where he’s an investor and advisor. Apple’s iTunes dominates digital music today, but Parker argues that subscription services, which make it much easier to discover and listen to older songs, are creating a “dramatic paradigm shift” in consumption.

We’ve heard this pitch before, for quite some time: Subscription music services have been around for about as long as iTunes, but they’ve never taken off. Doesn’t mean they won’t one day, though.

But when Apple gets its Universal deal done, it still won’t be ready to launch.

That’s because Apple has yet to nail down terms with the big music publishers, who own a separate set of rights. And Steve Jobs will need their sign-off, too.

While Apple came to terms with Warner Music and EMI Music weeks ago, and has now struck a deal with Sony Music, industry sources tell me the company doesn’t have agreements with the labels’ associated publishing companies–Warner/Chappell, EMI Music Publishing and Sony/ATV. The deal Apple is about to sign with Universal also won’t include publishing, I’m told.

The distinction between music labels–who own the rights to music recordings–and music publishers–who own the rights to songs’ underlying compositions–seems small and technical. But it’s an important one.

The two groups each get paid when their work is used, at different rates. And while all the big music companies have both a recorded music arm and a publishing arm, the two operate in different silos, and don’t always share the rights to the same music. The Beatles’ recordings, for instance, belong to EMI Music, while the bands’ publishing rights are controlled by Sony/ATV.

The fact that ownership of a single song can be shared by lots of people is one of the reasons it’s so hard to get anything done in digital music (recall that Google and Amazon both bailed on getting any rights at all for their cloud services). But the complexity isn’t a deal killer, either.

In Apple’s case, I’m told that the company doesn’t have any theological hurdles to clear with the publishers. It simply started talking to the music labels first, and has only recently started negotiating with the publishers.

The only issue to hammer out is just how much Apple will pay for its service, which will let users move their music to Apple’s “cloud” servers and then let them stream their songs back to different devices. But the two sides are at least “engaged” over the issue, says an industry source.

In many ways, this seems like a rerun of Apple’s move to extend the length of the song samples it offers at its iTunes store. Apple planned to increase the duration of its samples from 30 seconds to 90 seconds last September. But it didn’t get clearance from the publishers, and negotiations kept it from super-sizing the samples until December.

Music industry sources I talk to think Apple wants to launch–or at least announce–the cloud service at its developers’ conference in early June. And if the hang-up is truly just about money, then that still gives dealmakers time to hammer things out. But remember that this is the music business, and simple things always take longer than they should.

But! Here’s a small data point you can add to the “maybe things are getting better, or at least less worse” argument: Nielsen Soundscan says U.S. music sales (by unit) are up 1.6 percent for the year to date. It credits the increase to a boom in digital, which had been flattening out a year ago.

Again, it’s early in the year. And even if sales do end up positive for all of 2011, that’s one year versus more than 10 years of decline. So I’d be hesitant to make too much of any of this.

Still: The numbers do sync up with an earlier report I pointed out last month, which showed sales were down a mere 1.3 percent at the time. They also align with Warner Music Group’s Q1 numbers, which showed growth, too.

I haven’t heard anyone in the music industry explain why they think digital is up dramatically so far this year. Nielsen’s chart below flags the arrival of the Beatles on Apple’s iTunes last fall, but I have a hard time believing the “Love Me Do” bump extended into March and April. Anyone want to hazard a guess?

Here’s the full data dump, for those who care. And please, please, please don’t get excited about the vinyl sales increase–even after a 14.2 percent jump this year, vinyl represents less than 2 percent of sales.

Total Albums w/TEA +1.6%

(Track Equivalent Albums)

Overall Albums -1.5%

Physical Albums -8.3%

Digital Albums +16.8%

Digital Tracks +9.6%

Physical Formats:

CDs -8.8%

Vinyl +37.0%

By Current/Catalog:

Current -7.0%

Catalog +5.4%