Spotify and Sony sign deal for the US market

Turns out that previous rumors of Spotify closing in on its first deal with a US record label were accurate as the company has signed a deal with Sony that will allow the service to access Sony’s music catalog in the US. Reports claim that the deal is pretty similar to Spotify’s European deals and would offer US users access to ad-supported streaming to a computer for free or ad-free streaming to a variety of devices for a monthly fee.

It’s worth noting that just because Spotify has signed a deal with Sony doesn’t mean that the US launch of the Spotify service is just around the corner as the company will probably need additional labels on board, which has been quite a challenge. The resistance from US labels is speculated to stem from the fear of cannibalization of CD sales and also fear of upsetting Apple, the big cheese when it comes to online music sales in the US.