• Album sales rose 4% last week but were 10% lower than the same week last year. For the year, album sales are down 14%. Digital track sales rose 1% last week and were 42% higher than the same week last year. For the year, digital tracks are up 48%. Last week, digital albums comprised about 11% of all albums sold.

• For the first time since 1997, consumers spent less time with media in 2006 than they did in the prior year. Veronis Suhler Stevenson, a private equity firm that specializes in media and communications, found that media usage per person declined 0.5% to 3,530 hours "due to changing consumer behaviors and digital media efficiencies." Part of the drop is explained by a shift toward digital alternatives for news and entertainment (online clips are shorter than broadcast shows). In addition, consumers are migrating toward consumer-supported platforms (like video games and cable TV) and away from ad-supported platforms (like broadcast TV and newspapers). (Radio Ink)

• Yowza. The first leg of The Police tour grossed $107 million. That number does not include Bonnaroo or last weekend's V Fest. (Billboard.biz)

• 1720 Entertainment inked an exclusive physical and digital distribution agreement with Koch Entertainment. (Music Row)

• The EFF is backing an eBay seller who has been sued by Universal Music Group for selling promo CDs. UMG, as do all labels that send out promos, claims the CD is for promotional use only and remains the property of UMG. With CD sales plunging, I assume labels are more worried than ever that sales of promo CDs are cannibalizing sales of new CDs. The practice of selling promo CDs -- and promo cassettes back in the day -- is very common, though, and has been for years. Rare is the used bin without some kind of promo CD. (EFF, via Digital Music News)

• MyLifeBrand, a social networking site, has partnered with Delicious Vinyl to create artist-specific communities. (Press release)

• The RIAA spent $685,000 lobbying the federal government in the first half of 2007. That might sound like a lot of money -- probably part of the reason it was reported in the first place -- but the insurance lobby spent $893 million last year, according to OpenSecrets.org. Check out the dollars spent by the Internet and telecom industries in 2006. eBay went in for almost $2 million and Cingular spent $4.7 million. Time Warner spent nearly $3.8 million in 2006. (AP)

• David at Digital Audio Insider has a post on sending out promo CDs, shipping costs and the value of online alternatives. "I don't -- in any way -- want to disparage the influence of college radio or the DJs and music directors ... But I'm starting to wonder if a blurb and a link on a well-read mp3 blog is more valuable to small indie band than modest airplay on a small- or mid-size college station. Ideally, you'd want both, but these new postal rates make me slightly less inclined to send out 400 copies of our next album to college radio." (Digital Audio Insider)

• Thank you to all who have donated during Coolfer's August pledge drive. We might just make the goal of 100 donations by the end of the month. Here's more information on what difference levels of donations will get you.