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Warner Music and EMI Set to Merge
morn writes "After the AOL-Time Warner merger, it's now being reported by BBC News, amongst others, that EMI and Warner Music are planning a merger too. How large can a 'media' company get?" I don't know, but I think we're going to find out.
lol thats fricken awesome. hav a website for your projects?
Moron Moderator strikes again!
What you wrote:
Until the general populous learns to think critically and make evaluations for themselves, then Corporate Mediocrity will continue to dominate the landscape.
What I read:
Corporate Mediocrity will continue to dominate the landscape for eternity, resistance is futile.
A Well established [Detroit Techno] based record label 'Underground Resistance' has had one of their records 'ripped off' by some people in frankfurt, the major labels (SONY EUROPE] and [BMG] are doing a good job of hiding behind corporate offices and pretending not to notice, meanwhile people are going into stores and acually destroying the cover versions!, scratching the vinyl rendering them unplayable, email, fax and online battles are currently in progress!! - I am posting this message here in the hope that more people will take notice and stop this from happening.
here is a part of a quote from UR.
some more info.. http://www.egroups.com/GroupMembersPage?listName=u r-records http://www.fyi.net/~frisket/ http://www.submerge.com http://www.hyperreal.org/music/lists/313/labels/ur /ur.html http://www.sci.fi/~phinnweb/links/artists/ur/disco graphy/
What Steve Wozniak built was made up out of LSI integrated circuits that came straight out of big-company corporate development. Without the Microprocessor which was not the development of ye little hobbiest dwarves none of the garage shop computers of the era (none of which were made by IBM, and all of which were 'hurt' more by the Apple computer than anything which IBM produced at the time), none of the "revolution" would have been possible.
Sorry for shattering the illustion of "garage engineering" as anti-corporate rebel behavior.
The truth is never as simple as fairy tales that fulfill fantasies.
If schools were run properly 95% would get A's
This can be achieved by proper learning and giving each person their own time, nomore stupid exams once a year, take the exam when you are ready. This current system is so archaic, its fucked.
If everyone learns at their own speed and gets rewarded by it from age 4. Then we would get 99% A students, but then ofcourse weres the tiered hirachy of loosers? none, thats what the system wants to make, which is dumb. Everyone has the potential to get all A's in their choosen subjects. All it takes is encouragement and deciplin, and not a fucked social structure that promotes stupidity.
alatvista.com linux - 6.6 million windows - 10.8 million macintosh/mac - 5 million sex - 18 million love - 8 million hate - 450 thousand beos - 460 thousand hot grits - 267
1st - 1-100 2nd - 101-200 ... 20th - 1901 - 2000 21st - 2001 - 2100 So the conglomerates evidently will rule for the rest of the year...
1st - 1-100
2nd - 101-200
...
20th - 1901 - 2000
21st - 2001 - 2100
So the conglomerates evidently will rule for the rest of the year...
its a word play that makes sense if you actually read the original post.
im not for BEOS, and im not for LINUX......im just saying that open-source software isn't going last that much longer........
RimShot!
except they didn't even bother to create a cheesy cover version. sony taiwan just up and used "no remorse" for a camcorder advert without bothering to asked them.
more info here
(and yeah, i admit this is kinda offtopic)
I remember the irony everybody appreciated when Pink Floyd, who put the song "Money" (with attendant cash register sound effects, etc.) purchased in it's entirety Lloyd's of London.
Keep on being tuFF, little rebel boy.
Not like they weren't already a huge cash cow.
Not yet. But maybe if a few more people submit documents.
Submit them to http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=trolltalk so I don't miss them!!
CNN Entertainment Story here Don Knots plays hacker Emmanuel Goldstein in the soon to be released movie.
I work for a large corporation that is the product of many mergers and acquisitions. Every merger or major acquisition has resulted in large scale layoffs of those determined to be redundant. Bad news if you work at the corporate headquarters of the smaller company.
What the hell has this got to do with anything? 'News for nerds, Stuff that matters' it says. That bullshit. Seems like /. will use any old rubbish to fill the site. Enough already /. Mr Very Angry Right Now
In case you hadn't noticed, we already buy content for 30% more than we should be paying. They aren't lowering prices anytime soon. This industry is in virtual ologopoly regarding prices.
Well, the ball is in AOL's court. They could start to push digital media. Or they could bury it (or munge it to obscurity).. Whatever is worth more $$$.
And freeware players/non-pay-per-play music aren't those.
I know this is a little off-topic, but can anyone provide a percentage-wise breakdown of who gets what when you purchase a CD produced under a major label in the store? I think this information may be useful in gaining a clear picture of the role of record companies and how they fit into the economic picture between artists and consumers.
that is one of the best posts i've ever read on slashdot.
Errrm, but don't mega-mergers mean fewer jobs due to that wonderful term 'economies of scale' which means that production increases and costs (including staff) go down. Therefore the more mergers we have, the fewer jobs we have, and at some point it's not slashdotters that will be complaining on the internet, but scrapped people smashing shop windows.
sympathetic goals? only if your a heartless greedy bastard who worships money.
The Telegraph is nothing but a right-wing mouthpiece, so can be considered to be an outpost of the American empire (just like the UK is). I suggest you try reading Irish newspapers for more balanced opinions, or better still mainland European ones. These countries are far more suspicious of being dominated by unelected foreigners (not surprisingly).
hmmm...it seems that noone cares about this monopoly, but if it's microsoft, it's a different story....I think it's because the linux community is scared......
one more thing to...now that BEOS OS is free, NOT open source, and is gaining more support every day, the linux users are going to have another enemy to contend with!!!!
Microsoft is still the largest public company in America (the world, probably). Market capital hovers around 600,000 MILLION dollars, which is 3 times bigger than AOL/Time warner 177K million. Microsoft has a LOT of purchasing power - don't discount them yet!
this is OT, but one of my pet peeves is the cliched use of ^H. It's not original. Please state what you mean to say and try to be funny in other original ways. I see you have adopted the moniker aozilla, which I assume is supposed to be a cute takeoff of the fact the the mozilla developers who formerly worked for Netscape now work for AOL. That is not very original either.
The MP3 and the rest of the MPEG standard was deisgned by a corporate consortium.
There's already quite a few MP3 'labels' out there. Just do a search on Google with 'mp3 label' and see how many hits you get, but let's see how soon they get consumed by Mediazilla.
"The Red Album"? Huh?
The Beatles released a number of albums between the period 1962-1966. None of them were double CD's. I have one of their first US Albums. It's a monophonic pressing on vinyl.
There's no such thing as "The Red Album" unless it's also appropriate to say all of their CD releases should be called "The Silver CD."
All the fear and loathing dropped away on this post. I remember exactly the same gag-gun being fired at IBM 10 years ago. Be not afraid my children, at some time in the future, the monolith will crumble.
What they are doing is trading grossly inflated stock for real IP. Recordings, movies, artists, all can be sold over the web, not to mention cable infrastructure and subscribers. The movie theaters can be blown off. TW has $18 billion in debt, that can be blown off by trading for a little more stock.
It's the TW shareholders who got hosed with an undervalued stock.
They were invented in a capitalist country - but with the assistance of a great deal of government money. They're hardly good examples of superior technological development under capitalism.
Wether or not GM has much sales in Europe they are still one the worlds largest corporations with 178 billion dollars in annual revenues ... second only to Exxon-Mobil (182 billion).
i do not need their stuff... 99% it doestn even have any relation to me, my life, my feelings, my ancestors, etc. at least we have places like slashdot... oh wait slashdot is part of a conglomerate too (andover.net)
Aren't you proving the point?
No, he was talking about price competition.
More importantly: what, if anything, can we do to bring about the end of this media merger maddness before MS/AOL/GE/Disney happens?
I want to cancel my Time/Warner cable subscription, but I get my cable internet access through them, and there's no other high-speed alternative here. I would love to not use microsoft products, but 100% of my clients do.
I'm trying to be optimistic about the potential of the internet to democratize communication...but I wonder if we (actual people) have already lost. The truth now is that dramatic action is needed to bring a stop to this. I started re-reading Media Monopoly (by Ben Bagdikian) the day the AOL/Time Warner merger was announced. The most recent edition was released in 1997, when the puny merger of Disney and ABC/Cap Cities ($19 billion) was still the largest media merger in history. At that time, 10 corporations controled over 50% of the media.
Er, your logic here?
The tiny Nullsoft is owned by AOL. Nullsoft likes mp3s. Therefore they will make AOL like mp3s. And therefore the massive record companies, producing far more profit for the conglomorate than Nullsoft does (er... considering Winamp is FREEware now, that wouldnt be difficult), are going to ditch their current profitable methods to use mp3 distribution.
Methinks you have that whole chain backwards.
The powerful and profitable Time-Warner record company people complain to the AOL people that mp3s are ruining their business and cutting their profits. AOL stamps on the tiny dependent known as Nullsoft. Nullsoft (fucks up / stops developing / adds anti-piracy features to) winamp.
does the government matter now? aren't they owned by the corporations already? haven't people already lost democracy? look around. turn on your TV sometime, it's all consumerist propaganda. we live in a fascist state. owned by transnational megacorporations.
A vertically integrated media monopoly could create and enforce proprietary "standards". This is economy of a sort, but (as with Microsoft standards) it's economy at the expense of the consumer. Want Time/Warner content? Gotta use the AOL standard it comes in. Want online music? Gotta use copy-protected streaming media "standards" that are proprietary trade secrets, and charge you per-play.
Why do you think AOL was so rabid about the instant messaging war? They're not making any money off it; they want to control it all so they can leverage it later. If these mergers go through, they will be ideally positioned to do so.
yup.
Why should we grade 7 year olds on arithematic quizes differently. What happens when in a class of 30 second graders everyone get between 98 and 100 percent correct? Or worse when the entire class scores less than 35%? Sometimes you want to convey inforamtion that the normalized score loses.
Another good example is the
Nestle flap over infant formula- to the corporate officers, giving third world nursing mothers infant formula (until they stop lactating at which
point the infant formula stops being free) wasn't even a choice- the crime was ill-defined and not technically illegal, and the profitability was
obvious.
and because they have such shitty water quality in the 3rd world countries 10's of thousands of babies died. don't forget to tell people that part. nestle are some evil fuckers.
The day I see AOL/TimeWarner/EMI Announces Merger with the Federal Government is the day I join the local militia!
Good troll, Esperandi!
IBM got big, they missed the boat on the PC. Xerox got big, they missed the boat on the invention of air
and also:
very virtuous and noble pursuit if it is done MORALLY, ie, on merit. Not on ideaology like Linux is attempting to do
pretty funny reading considering its already at 2.
I thought he made some good points. I guess some stupid, worthless motherfucker just can't handle someone with a opinion that differs from his own.
deals are always done on the weekend when markets are closed - lawyers, investment bankers and executive vp's sleep on the floor instead of at their desks - and then when it is all over they tell themselves how important they are and how they really work harder than anybody else. And how much they really deserve that compensation and the stock...
Does anyone besides me think it's really strange when business news gets announced on weekends, especially sunday? Somehow I can't picture executives working on the weekend...
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2B1ASK1
I've been censored!!! where's the post button!!!
for up to date stats visit: http://mckinney.co.nz/linux/
>Personally, I WANT the music industry to go so completely stale that it's a scandal.
Yeah, riiight. Like the RIAA is going to go the way of ye village blacksmith anytime this century.
>I want it to get worse and worse until even the regular person in the street thinks, 'What's up with that?' and goes in search of other avenues, other channels to get what they want.
Hmmmm...in 1976, punk & hip-hop were things that were very different than the standard fare. Both of 'em, in fact, faced great resistance from the mainstream, (the regular person in the street was definatly saying 'What's up with that?') and the only reason they're popular now is because they've been so co-opted over the years (hello, media exposure!) that their original significance has all been been bled away.Once they're in that condition, it becomes much more easy for middle-of-the-road acceptance and stadium venue or pop stars to gain public attention through things like crossover mixes and tie-in merchandise..
It's already scary how much old people in suits get to decide what's "cool" or not. If the execs don't like you for some reason, you never get your band off the ground, no matter HOW good you are. This certainly won't help. Now instead of MTV deciding what the newest trend is going to be (god damn them for bringing us "Mambo Number Five"...), we have CNN doing it. I don't know which scares me more. I think I'll stick to my Guns N' Roses, Clapton, and Pink Floyd, thanks...
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Just lurking, thanks!
ROFL
s/you didn't like them/they didn't like you/
HTH, HAND
It's not the military-industrial complex we need to be afraid of any more...
Thank you for this.
Time Warner/AOL don't care about or really want EMI. What they want is the music catalogue.
Once they have that, they'll rip every track to an MP3 (or proprietary format if they can), stick it on a web site and fire the entire staff of EMI. Same for the rest of the Time Warner music division.
The EMI executives must be off their nuts.
The resulting "mega corporation" will have fewer people than now. You'll have a team of marketing droids, a few studios, a single sysadmin and a dozen ftp/http servers.
Deleted
Corporations do not steal 40% of my paycheck.
I'll take a wild guess: corporations steal 60% of your paycheck, right?
Brian
However, I do claim some competition is better than none by definition. How much, like the optimum size for a company, constantly changes from time to time and industry to industry. My problem is with those who think the market can do no wrong, and therefore if it consolidates inexorably, it's for the best. This view ignores the issue of the power consolidation brings -- power to shape both the political and economic field to the wielder's advantage.
Kythe
(Remove "x"'s from
Kythe
For example, it seems to me a company has little incentive to invest in a new process that would save the company less money than putting the investment elsewhere, even though the process would result in substantial improvements to the economy's productivity if many companies then used the development. Capitalism can be rather short-sighted this way.
Robert Kuttner's "Everything for Sale" had a number of good tidbits on this.
Kythe
(Remove "x"'s from
Kythe
Heh. It's only good if the savings created by cutting out the middlemen get passed on to consumers. If you think that's going to happen, I've got a stable MS OS I can sell you...
~luge
IAAL,BIANLY
I read the article, and thought "and then there were 4" and went to post the comment, and ... bah. Stop thinking like me. :)
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FWIW, On the back of the Red Album (The Beatles 1962-1966 double CD) exactly:
The copyright in these sound recordings is owned by EMI Records Ltd.
(c)1993 The copyright in this compilation is owned by EMI Records Ltd.
(c)1993 Apple Corps Ltd. under exclusive license to EMI Records Ltd.
So as you can see EMI owns Apple Corps Ltd., the Beatles recording company. Details are at http://www.abbeyroadstudios.com/.
Well, unless you're inferring that the Japanese killed the "manufacturing" side of things in these foreign countries by buying them all out, I'm not sure I see where you're going with this. Does competition not exist in these developing countries? It would seem to me that putting the "manufacturing" (which in this example means livestock / breeding) into 3rd world countries you could cut costs - both in terms of production/feeding and land value. How does this destroy the local economies there? The company is effectively utilizing resources that otherwise would go unused, and the workers get an economic incentive (money!) that otherwise wouldn't have been injected into the local economy.
Unless you plan to buy the others, too.
The media industry has become very consolidated, and a few more big, big deals could unite a large portion of it.
Any TV networks for sale? If AOL still has the stock price to do it, they could be shopping.
I mentioned this in another reply, but it is worth repeated.
Any of the other companies you mention could be on each others' shopping lists. It's only a matter of time before these behemoths realize they would be even strong together than apart.
Buy from independent labels! Listen to the bands on mp3.com! Encourage musical diversity!
Scuttlemonkey is a troll
Wasn't Farenheit 451 about firemen that burnt books?
Its been a while since i've read it, and thats the only thing that stands out. So, are you saying that in the near future AOL will burn down libraries? Thats kind of like the reverse of what I do, burn the 50,000 odd AOL cds and disks I recieve in the mail. AOL Canada is almost as bad.. why the hell don't they call it COL anyways..
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Insert Witty Sig Here
Be that as it may, the large corps are also striving to become bigger and unseat the competition in many (often illegal, and usually inappropriate) ways. They have to get the competition out of the way if they are going to be successful in screwing the consumer.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Hmm... you think "America" has been trademarked yet? Let's see who'll be the first to file trademark papers on Monday :)
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GroundAndPound.com News and info for martial artists of all styles.
Hmm... so you would trust Microsoft or AOL to guard your privacy, to protect your constitutional rights?
I wouldn't.
Do you get to vote for the CEO in a corporate capitalism? Of course not! This is like dictatorship. Not much different from the communism. In Russia they had politburo, here we'll have chairmen of the board. Same thing, different name.
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GroundAndPound.com News and info for martial artists of all styles.
hmm, soon they will all merge and implode so
I'll take corporations over government any day of the week. Corporations do not steal 40% of may paycheck. Corporations have very easy to identitify and largely sympathetic goals. Corportations do not engage in touchy-feely social engineering.
Hopefully the FTC does their job and stays the hell out of the way of this.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
I'd like to agree with you there, so I will. Time-Warner-AOL-Other-Entirely-Too-Large companies can merge and partner all they want. How much will being so bloody big matter when some 19 year old kid working in his bedroom comes up with MP3 for video and open sources it? It won't matter a bit, in fact, the stockholders of those companies are going to suffer because such big companies are extremely vulnerable to quick technological shifts.
I'd like to see some stats (prolly won't be available for a couple of years) about how the invention of MP3 has influenced CD sales. It probably hasn't put a big dent in the number, but I'll bet it's killed growth. The RIAA is more pissed off that MP3 is killing a portion of their market, i.e. the dumbasses like myself who buy CD's again because they've lost or scratched one to hell. Well, the RIAA can eat my shorts, and I will dance on their grave when they go bankrupt!
You've missed my point. Garage engineering is still possible. Remember how Steve Wozniak built an IBM threatening technology? That's what I'm talking about.
How is mozilla going to survive all of this craziness? How high is it on Steve Case's list?
Which is actually pretty ironic. From what I understand, AOL bought Netscape for Netcenter, which was popular so quickly because it was the default page in Communicator. If the Netscape browsers fade into obscurity due to malnutrition, Netcenter would likely do the same.
- Scott
------
Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
...almost aas funny as the guyy named Brian who was a cashier at Burger King and had his nametag spelling his name as Brain.
He's not trying to be funny, he plans to take over the WORLD!
JMR
(sorry, I can't help myself sometimes)
Try e-gold - (contact me). I'm NOT e-
I don't understand. In what way is the merger between Warner Music and EMI vertical? I may be completely wrong, but I've always understood it as that they're both record companies, and thus competitors in the same market.
I agree. Even if they weren't competitors (I'll admit I honestly don't know), I wouldn't care if this is "vertical merging." All it is is the forming of a monolith which will churn out whatever it wants because it's so big no one can beat it up. Perhaps I'm taking the paranoic/narrow-minded view of merging, but the way merging has been going (at least, the mergers I've heard of), it's been the absorption of company into company in what seems to be an effort to have one company that offers everything. I don't like that. Some people in this world may, and I know some people in this world won't. I like having the option of having a dozen or more or more places to go to get what I want. The more competition there is, the more selection there is for the customer (as we all know) because each of those stores/companies is trying to get you to buy their product, yaddy ya.
So, what's my point? My point is, is there nothing that can be done to stop this kind of thing? Do we honestly like it? (IMHO, no) Why won't they stop being so darned greedy and settle for what they've got?
Insert mind here.
Not so bright difference indeed :-|
:-)
Well, all I can do is to highly recommend visitting this link for all people with (somewhat) critical minds:
http://www.instinct.org/fravia/realicra.htm
Oh! Please don't slashdot the server
Better bookmark it for later exploration instead...
Oh no, look out, the end is near, the ever omnippotent "they" are taking over "our" music...8 976&rtmo=quuxpKL9&atmo=99999999&pg=/et/00/ 1/23/cnemi23.html
...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=00011483290
Yes, the story is from the British media so it must be perfect and without bias
Time(AOL) is taking over EMI, probably with some of the imaginary money AOL used to take over Time (see
http://www.theonion.com). Once "they" do that our ears will only be allowed to hear what "they" send to "us"!
(am I getting this hysterical style working yet?)
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Dopey! You can't just say "Oh it's a vertical monopoly, not horizontal". The point is that a company this big will have too much power and control. This is BAD in the respective industries that they control. Conventional media is much different from the Internet, although conventional media is trying to move into the Internet. But anyway, this will be a company with control over a lot of conventional media and a lot of the Internet. One would argue that the merging of Netscape and Winamp with EMI and Warner Music alone would be significant enough to online music that it could be a very bad thing. And producing at a lower rate does not mean selling at a lower rate. It means they make more money to buy other companies with. Sheesh.
I would say it has more to do with that fact that "dumbed down people" (whatever those are) are more easily convinced that they have needs that don't really exist..
part of what its about is creating needs and wants that didn't exist previously and then stepping in to provide the products and services..
People don't know what they want, which is why they have other people tell them.
If there is one giant monopoly, it controls what people want, and so of course people want them.
As a wise man once said, the game hasn't ever changed, just the costumes and funny hats.
"The record companies take control until a long haired music lover finds a Rio and realizes that all music should be free."
The only question is: Will this end the same way?
-- soldack
You have a point there. MS has 600 billion ways to win. The could buy all of their competition so that even if they lose, they win. They already have a piece of Apple. Of course, that is part of what the anti-trust case is all about: MS is too big and has used its massive amount of power in an illegal manner. Imagine if there were no anti-trust laws. MS would own it all. Even our beloved slashDot. Now there is a scary thought!
-- soldack
What? a la "The Coorporation" in Aliens, or "The Corporation" in cyberpunk novels?
Yes, but it was also about the persaviness of the media, and how it effected society and the fabric of humanity (adversely).
I'm just as frightened by the mass consumption of mindless dribble as I am by the lack of production of meaningful thought.
Slashdot is one of those rare islands where the meaningless dribble manages to filter itself out, and the interesting (meaningful) if sometimes repetitive thought comes out.
Fahrenheit 451 is just less about the burning of books, and more about the pacification of the mind.. Equality of thought! (How frightening!)
I dont mind Aol and time warner merging, its just the implimentation of it all. If the products from micro-crap didn't suck so bad, I would not care if they had a monoply. However, they do and so does AOL's implementation. Every way I have seen Aol impliment content has been pitiful. When I click on a main story I have to sort through 3 separate screens to get to the story I want. I just thank God for Television. Time warner was somwhat unadulterated till aol came in.
"If a man watches 3 football games in a row he should be declared leagaly dead" - A
DULLES, VA--In the largest merger of imaginary assets in corporate history, Internet giant America Online last week acquired media megacorp Time-Warner for an unprecedented $161 billion in pretend money. "This merger will revolutionize the way invisible amounts of non-existent cash are transferred," said Steve Case of AOL, a company whose actual revenues are a tiny fraction of its make-believe valuation. In an effort to keep pace with AOL, website blairwitchproject.com is expected to acquire General Motors sometime later this week.
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"Rex unto my cleeb, and thou shalt have everlasting blort." - Zorp 3:16
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
In a stunning move today, BFC (Big F*#@ing Corparation) Inc. merged with Rest-Of-The-World Technologies to form one corperation, Omni-Corp.
"This is no small success," newly appointed CEO of Omni-Corp, "This joining of forces will allow us to shift the paradigm as we feel that the slav, oops, consumers need to be."
A sole dissenter, a former employee of BFC Inc. stated, "They're gonna try and keep all the money from ourselves." This man was later taken to an Omni-Corp mental faclity and treated with electric-pulse-therapy. He was later quoted as saying "Pretty colors! Ohh!"
Plans are already in the works to buy out the US goverment. With a profit last year larger than the GNP of England, Germany, Japan, and France combined, Omni-Corp's stocks look to be big hits on Wall Street. After all, they are the only ones to buy.
This has been Sam Donaldson of MSNBC-Omni-Corp, signing off.
Apologies to The Onion for stealing the Omni-Corp name.
Dan
No. They won't do things that don't make a profit. Things like:
border patrol
national defense
subsidized postal system
safety and health enforcement (like EPA, FDA etc)
Some may argue there's profit in these, but only because a captive tax base pays the overpriced bill.
Today's radio news (in Germany) said that Betrelsmann is still competing with Time/Warner for the EMI gulp. This might just be nationally biased coverage. Anyone knows about this?
"If I could kill without guilt or sin, there'd soon be a few less record executives"
;-)
Come on everyone, join in with your favourite anti-record-company song lyric!
[TMB]
No.. I ripped all of my beatles CDs a few months ago, so I don't look at the case each time I play the music
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The shareholder is always right.
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The shareholder is always right.
He is refering to a compilation album that was very popular for a while.
The double disk "Red Album" covered the years 62-66 and the companion "Blue Album" covered the other years.
Yoink. No kidding. On the non-crap side, I do think that EMI was the Beatles' original label, before they started their own Apple Records (now defunct).
While I'm sure that GM's power in North America cannot be overstressed their reach in Europe (which is actually a slightly larger market) is small (sub 10%). With the exception of Opel, it's European, Japanese and Korean car companies that run the show here. Opel has aprox. 5-25% of the market, depending on the country and I seriously doubt that GM imports have more than 2% of the market in any european country.
Jay
This scares me much more than Y2K ever did. Oh, well...at least I still have my bottled water and chemical toilet and for good reason.. :*~*:._.:*~*:._.
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ASCII art?? I thought it was a REGULAR expression
Sorry for the offtopic, but Roadrunner did some
"upgrades" and now My SuSE 6.1 box which I was using for a gateway pulls a 192.x.x.x IP which isn't even on their network. When I plug the cable into my mac and set it for DHCP it works fine.
Anyone else have this problem?
Oh and I'm in San Diego.
Thanks
---CONFLICT!!---
In a capitalist system, dumbing down of the consumers cannot happen. You see, in capitalism the "dumbed" people would soon find out that they can't get a job. They can't earn money. They can't consume.
Only if you subsidize their consumerism do you allow them to be dumbed down and survive.
Esperandi
There is no such thing as a consumer. Everyone is either a producer or not.
He doesn't understand that in capitalism, dumbed down people don't get any money. Only in a socialist economy do you get "paid" (well, you at least get a check which was stolen from a productive person under penalty of imprisonment) for sitting around and getting nice and dumbed down do your "consumerism" is subsidized...
Esperandi
"If schools were run properly 95% would get A's"
Incorrect. 95% of people are of average intelligence giving a margin of one standard deviation. A school where 95% of the children get As means that the curriculum has been dumbed down so that the "average" students can master it and the students on the high end are wasted just so the average kids can feel good about themselves.
Take your exams when you're ready? You've never had a job, have you? You don't pick your deadlines, and its not just regurgitation. There's a reason why 95% of people aren't brain surgeons. 95% of people do not have the mental ability to DO these things. Letting them do them on their own time does not give them an advantage.
I think you almost hit on something when you said everyone has potential for As in "their chosen subjects"... yes, school should be specialized. Liberal arts education is poison. But again, there are people who do not have the mental ability to achieve "high ranks".
If everyone was taught from an early age to do the best, do what they're best at, and don't feel guilty about not being able to fit pipe or program a computer or make a fire in the woods. As well, don't feel bad when you get paid less as a janitor than a doctor does. Why can't people simply sit back and realize that they're being treated justly when they are? They always seem to want more. I'll tell you why, because they're not taught that justice is getting what you've earned, they're taught its about everyone getting the same amount.
Esperandi
People are profiting and doing something useful with their lives - this is offensive to most slashdotters. If you're not working a day job and doing the coding you love for less than slave wages in your "free time" (wake up people, your time is YOU, there's none that is free), you're doing something wrong. So when they see that these people are doing something, getting PAID for it, and making an impact on the world, they must shout "NO!" at the top of their lungs. Just watch some of the responses to this post, its gonna be a hoot. Half of the people won't even understand that in the corporate world, Company 1 + Company 2 = Company 1.25, not Company 3.
Esperandi
Let's see...
Warner Music and EMI.
Which of the above is AOL or an Internet company?
Esperandi
Because its capitalism. The company would not be one giant monopoly because they had guns and a lot of "love your brother" preaching, it would be a giant monopoly because people paid them to do that. People wanted it. Also, if there was only one company, if you didn't like them you wouldn't buy from them. Capitalism makes it that simple. There is always a choice.
In communism, there is always a gun.
Esperandi
You have never been forced to purchase or use any product in your entire life.
Ahh, but Marx was wrong... well, he was right about rapid growth of capitalism, because it allows freedom and it allows the geniuses in a society to rise as far as people support them. It allows everyone to rise on their merits. But he was wrong about the dumbing down of the consumer. Why do you think the consumer has been dumbed down? Because things have been made easy and efficient? Well, screw me, but I like the mundane parts of my life to be easy and efficient so I can do more important things with my time.
But let's see, has society been dumbed down in capitalist countries? The Internet came from a capitalist country. Computers were invented in a capitalist country. Every form of communication in use today was invented in a capitalist country (excepting the written word). (radio, TV, telegraph, etc, etc) You see, the fact of humanity if a bell curve. If schools were run properly, 65% of people in school should be getting Cs, and only 2.35% should be getting As. Only 2.35% should be getting Fs too...
All dumbing down of society that has ever been performed was in the name of socialism. "Self-esteem" based schools, welfare that pays for cable TV, all that jazz, its all socialism. Capitalism means you get credit for what you do and if you don't do anything, you get what you've earned too - nothing.
Esperandi
You have never been forced to purchase or use a product in your entire life.
While this probably won't have that much affect on Popular music, it marks the death knell of EMI's great Classical back Catalog. EMI grew from HMV, English Columbia and American Capitol. It has some of the richest and best performances of Classical music in its archives. Though it has pretty much kissed off Classical, this merger will result in the futher lack of releases, the continued rehashing of the same old releases and a continued dumbing down of the catalog that exists. How many Charlotte Church cds are we to be subjected to in the name of expediency, how many "themed" collection will the giant spew out while allowing a great back catalog to languish? Oh well, that's my rant.
> But the number of Classical relases from the majors has been going down for years, and the majority of releases are from the back catalog and have been paid for years ago. The same goes for jazz. Meanwhile small, adventous companies, like Hyperion, Bis and Naxos are able to produce new releases and make money. Why? Because they sell what the record buyer wants, new and largely unrecorded repertorie made with smaller groups and unknown orchestras, while the majors release cds made by "Stars." The Majors continue to release the same old thing time and time again. How many Beethoven 5ths do we need when there is a vast amount of great music that will never see the light of day. There is a demand for this music as the small companies that I've mentioned fill. The giants can't see it and continue to give us the same old, same old with their new stars while leaving some of the best of their back catalog in the dust. We get more Charlotte Church, Three Tenors and Titanic soundtracks, which do make money and less of the music the public wants. Anyone who wants can read rec.music.classical-recordings and read the articles for an eyeopening view.
I thought EMI was owned by Capitol Records. Hmmph. Guess I'm out of the loop.
spam, spam, spam, spam, e-mail, news and spam.
Will we have public tv? These are the guys who are continually asking you for money just to bring you the shows they do. How many public tv stations do you think will be able to afford to upgrade to digital, when all the big companies switch?
--Arcum
So congradulations on being thouroughly useless in that post. I'm sure you are very proud.
There's no reason for a sig here.
Would you mind explaining exactly what "content" they are producing/distributing? To me it seems like AOL's "online service" is on its last leg as internet access is getting more reliable and just as easy by other means.
There's no reason for a sig here.
Coded, copy protected, "pay per view" Video and Audio on the net is the media giants wet dream.
Until now it has not been possible, since there open standards, that makes proprieatary ones a second choise. *BUT* when you have a large bulk of content(TW/EMI), a large customer base (AOL) and control of the client (Netscape), you can actually dictate a new standard and get end users for it.
Think of a "secure audio format" (SAF). Encrypted and closed source, naturally. Everything from EMI/TW gets released online in SAF. You can enjoy it via a Netscape plugin, that by the way makes those awful pirated Mp3's bounce off your browser.
Of course somebody will crack it, but since this is all online, a new encryption is easily pushed out.
The CD is gone, but the record label still controls the distribution, just like in the good old pre-net times.
All opinions are my own - until criticized
Considering the race for megamergers such as this one, you'd think somebody at one of the business schools would've told half these CEOs & investment strategists about the original Dutch East India Trading Company. By the end of its days, the DETC had inevitably cracked under its own weight, as the new merger will undoubtedly will, should it actually be allowed to transact.
EMI, or rather, THORN/EMI as they're known in Europe (& Toshiba/EMI Entertainment in Japan, due to their broadcast and distribution arrangement for Asia), already owns a considerable piece of pie. Mixed with Time Warner without AOL's involvement would've been trouble enough by itself. Unless the international courts pounce upon this one, the markets are sure to stagnate, resulting in another "Dutch East" scenario.
And let's not forget, the DEITC was considered a "PRE-industrial revoloution" monopoly. Any progress that will occur in IS will do so in spite of the growth of AOL and its subsidies.
Too many people had the
Too many people support us
An unlimited amount
Too many outlets in and out
Who?
E-M-I!!!!
bun-fhuinneog agam!
I don't know what anyone else thinks, but all these mergers are starting to get really big and really ugly. Is there any end in sight?
---
--- I think, therefore I exist, anything outside of that is uncertain.
The largest and most ruthless trusts in the late 1800's and early 1900's were vertical, with explicit end-to-end control. This is a very real threat to the industry! It forces all of the competitors to do something similar to 'stay-alive'. And now there is no way to enter the market unless you are a multi-billion dollar organization -- stifling competition in every related market from design, to manufacturing, to promotion, to distribution, etc.
I'm re-reading Virtual Light and, since I'm such a slow-mo, I hit on a sort of parallel from Gibson's 'DatAmerica' in the second trilogy to the current trend of big media companies forming into giant multi-headed organisms.. So what's next? Sense/Net-like multimedia? Maybe CBS, the WB, and some start-up VR company. Personally, I wouldn't mind living in a few episodes of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. *wink wink nudge nudge*
:)
Seriously, though, is this trend going to continue until we've got a couple huge media/banking/software/goat-monkey-farming companies? I'm really not keen on working for a Johnny Zaibatsu. Where'll all the geek jobs go if Time Warner/AOL-zilla eat Silicon Valley, and all the other areas that are primarily habitated by small start-ups?
Anyway, I just thought it was sort of an interesting idea, and I'm all for a Gibson plug if I can manage it.
harb.
tried to save myself but myself keeps slipping away.
I love listening to music. Many of my friends are musicians, some of whom are in bands trying to "make it." Seeing how controlled the music industry is scares me. This is why I hope MP3 takes off in a way no one expects. Artists need a way to break free from the record labels and still be able to share their music. (maybe even make some money) Not that these companies need to be abolished, but they need to be kept honest. If something like MP3 was a viable option, I would worry less about these mergers.
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"Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief."
What? EMI independent? Give me a break. They have a huge illustrious history. They had/have the Beatles and Pink Floyd. You know the dog and the grammophone? That is called His Master's Voice. It is the logo for EMI in everywhere but North America where RCA held the trademark. His Master's Voice is nicely abbreviated HMV, an international record chain. EMI can hardly be called independent.
I seriously question whether a company that calls describes itself as a group can be considered small.
Every time I see these giant mergers I am reminded of the plotline of that old game, Syndicate. Giant globe spanning companies controling every aspect of peoples lives, and able to backdoor into their brains at the drop of a hat.
bend like the reed
AOL doens't need another company to spend $$$ on. They need to get their R&D department together and build some decent (and anti monopolistic) software. If they are so great, then why do they need to mess with the competition like they did with 5.0 software? If they had decent R&D, then it wouldn't crash boxes like it reportedly did. They are going cheap on the R&D and trying to get glitz and fluff. This is where Microsoft went wrong. They have a candy-apple shell, but on the inside there is little but blackened leftovers. No matter what people say, there were some decent versions of Windows untill Microsoft got greedy, like they did in the windows 98 "Integration" of IE. AOL is soon to have the candyapple shell too, and by then it'll be too late. Stability has gone down the drain for glitz and fluff.
Don't call my crazy, that's what they called me back in the home!
Is it? I suppose the question is how to define learning or intelligence. Perhaps society wants to define that by how fast someone can learn as well as how well.
You also have to consider the administrative overhead of letting everyone "take the test when they're ready." You realize that, of course, teachers would have to make different versions of the tests for almost every student. There is no way you couldn't trust students not to share these things. :) Such a system would require immense resources, at least if they were implimented in the elementary school/high school level. It sometimes -sounds- nice, but how are you going to realistically impliment it?
Why wouldn't they want a national defense? A national defense isn't too far removed from a national offense, and we know they'd want one of those. }:>
With all these mergers, soon we'll have one microso-- err, monopoly to deal with. Not cool.
no matter how large one company becomes, the united states strives on small business. Without the little guys, everything goes to crap, so i wouldn't worry to much.
No, they're taught that it's getting as much as possible - even when they don't need it. "Greed is good", remember?
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It's life Jim, but not as w
Yes, I agree. It's all about power.
I I remember my Economics studies aright, there isn't a capatalist country in the world. Pure capatalism is the abscence of Government intervention in markets - that means, no regulation, no grants, no intervention of any kind. Supply and Demand set prices and determine availability of utility. Obviously, this state of affairs doesn't exist anywhere in the world.
Capatalism = Anachary
WOOOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOO UNCLE ARRY!!!!-------------------------------------------------
It's life Jim, but not as w
Hmmm....yes, more power = greater control, certainly, but how large is the "internet" market? What defines it? Who are the consumers? In conventional media, at least one of the barriers to entry is the limited availability of channels (be it literally televisual channels, radio frequencies, or print media sales channels). How many "channels" to consumers are there on the "internet"? How many ways of reaching consumers? Can a single corporate entity become large enough to assert control over all those channels?
I say "no" it can't! Especially in a new market place which the corporate doesn't understand. They may well define their own space and assert control over that, but I think it will be difficult to define and control an entire means of communication.
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It's life Jim, but not as w
Resistance is futile, prepare to be assimilated.
(reminder DO NOT elect these people, or their cronys, to public office)
Nothing to say here... move along
This merger could be stopped, or at least hampered if enough countries stand against it.
Australian? Join EFA
Exactly! Past a certain point, interlocking directorates within industry and government create a de facto command economy. It is conceivable that the west is no longer a group of capitalist states, but a totalitarian state that idealizes capitalism.
I do not necessarily hold this view, nor do feel that such mergers are inherently evil. What I am sure of, is this: All organisms seek to maximise control of their environments; governments and corporations will do no less.
I agree with a lot of what you say, but:
;^)
"Corporations do not steal 40% of may paycheck."
What do you get for that 40%? Also, what happens to the rest of it?...assuming you're not living on a self-sufficient compound in the wilderness.
"Corportations do not engage in touchy-feely social engineering."
Yes they do, but never for their own sake. Look at Kaiser Shipyards, who founded Kaiser Permanente upon the shocking discovery that workers are more productive if they're healthy. Look at Ford Motors, who used factory jobs and affordable housing (as well as cars) to assimilate immigrant workers into the american working class. There are others.
Still, I do agree with the bulk of what you say. I'm not certain that corporate oligarchy will leave us any worse off than control by any other central authority.
Yeah, Steve Case will pioneer online music distribution just like Microsoft pioneered home computers. An internet radio in every house, at every bus stop, in every toaster, all running AOL. "Welcome home Bob, You've Got Mail".
Not that I care, as a filthy capitalist pig^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H NSCP (now AOL) shareholder, I've got myself covered either way.
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
i have and i haven't heard anything that wasn't utterly pants yet
The fact that they control the content and the medium by which it is delivered is the most dangerous thing. There was an example mentioned in a previous discussion about how AOL used it's power to block delivery of a mailing list with some anti AOL content.
As anther example of why this is bad take the British film industry, Warner owns the studios (in the US) as well as the distrubution channels and the cinemas (in the UK), is it any wonder that british made films only ever see light of day in a few art house theatres?
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D BREAK - CONT repeats
Of the five remaining before the TW/EMI deal, EMI was the only one that didn't belong to some media conglomerate. I think that's quite a loss.
--
Play Match-It.
"In a capitalist system, dumbing down of the consumers cannot happen."
So we apparently do not live in a capitalist system then 'eh? Or perhaps you are just out of touch with reality...
"You see, in capitalism the "dumbed" people would soon find out that they can't get a job"
No I do not see. Why can't dumb people get jobs? Has it been decided that corporations will now only emply people who are not dumb? I apparently missed that one, along with the millions of dumb people who have jobs in this country. Tell me Esperandi, do you have a job?
"Ahh, but Marx was wrong... well, he was right about rapid growth of capitalism, because it allows freedom and it allows the geniuses in a
society to rise as far as people support them. It allows everyone to rise on their merits."
Tell that to any non-white or poor person. No matter how much of a genius you are, it is still more difficult for you to rise than it is for some rich kid. Capitalism allows only it's favorite children to rise on their merits. It beats it's redheaded step-children down whenever it can. It exploits those who can't defend themselves.
"But let's see, has society been dumbed down in capitalist countries? The Internet came from a capitalist country. Computers were invented in
a capitalist country. Every form of communication in use today was invented in a capitalist country (excepting the written word). (radio, TV, telegraph, etc, etc)"
I doubt this has anything to do with the superiority of capitalism. In fact Russia had a very advanced space program and they are considered by many to have been a communist country. I personally do not believe a true communist nation has ever been created.
"You see, the fact of humanity if a bell curve. If schools were run properly, 65% of people in school should be getting Cs, and only 2.35% should be getting As. Only 2.35% should be getting Fs too..."
That is dependent on how you view the grading system as well as your beliefs on the intelligence of the average person. In my experience everyone is intelligent enough to get A's in school, however some kids lack the motivation. Probably because the American school system acts more as a brainwashing factory/minimum security prison than as a place where actual education takes place.
"All dumbing down of society that has ever been performed was in the name of socialism. "Self-esteem" based schools, welfare that pays for
cable TV, all that jazz, its all socialism. Capitalism means you get credit for what you do and if you don't do anything, you get what you've
earned too - nothing."
It sounds like Rush Limbaugh taught you about Socialism. Almost all the dumbing down of society in America hasn't been done in the name of Socialism, indeed some of it could be interpreted as being somewhat socialistic, but in fact most of it is Consumerism in action. The fact is our country is run by money. The drive for profit. Dumbed down people spend more money than those who think for themselves. They are the perfect consumers. Capitalisms model citizens. It is inevitable that in a system controlled by corporations, designed to maximize their profits, society will be reshaped to suit their needs.
What you're essentially advocating is two or three corporations running the entire entertainment/media/internet business.
I don't think any of these companies are dumb enough to try to create dinaosaurs that big. Their shareholders would punish them severely with a massive sell-off.
AOL shareholders certainly don't want to see Time/Warner-like share price growth (i.e. tepid price growth), which is most likely what they are going to get.
Added to all of this is the everpresent threat of antitrust action, which could definitely be a possibility if AOL made another huge acqiusition.
Lastly, I don't think your supposition, they would be even strong together than apart, is true. At some point, size hinders growth as opposed to aiding it.
Find out what your organization's goal is - and bulk up only insofar as that goal is promoted. AOL is a content distributor. Buying one content provider precludes using others. This is why AOL's strategy is unwise.
Isn't this the 21st Century? ;)
Wow, this guy is asking to be moderated ;)
First, CBS attempted to push the CopyCode system - which would have put an audible frequency notch in all prerecorded CD albums. New tape recorders (of either the analog or digital type) would be forced to check for the notch and break the RECORD button if it was detected.
That system bombed (failing a series of tests that were ordered by Congress), but somewhere along the way, Sony bought CBS/Columbia's records operation.
OK, so now that Sony had taken over control of one of the companies that was trying to make life hard for them, you'd think Sony would dictate CBS's new policy - right? Not exactly ... at least not judging by the fact that we got SCMS and recorder/media taxes then, and that Sony is heavily involved in audio & video copy protection now.
"In today's plan, we will get AOL to merge with Time-Warner, the owner of ACME Labs. Then we'll use AOL's mass-mailings of CDs to install copies of 'Emperor Brain Knows Best' everywhere! After enough people run the program, they will beg me, the Brain, to rule the world!" 'That's nice ... NARF!"
With all of these media mergers, eventually one or two companies will control every media outlet and the content it provides. No more discrepancies in the news, everything will agree, nothing bad happened today. THa tlittle war over in Africa, it isn't "good" news, so who needs to know? Want to hear what is really goging on, go those subversive, low budget, non-flashy blink tag free "independent" outlets, such as NPR, which is almost broke, or PBS, which is also strapped for cash. Already, the mainstream media only reports a small fraction of what is really happening out there in places other than TVLand, so take that one step further. Don't worry, be happy, those 13 million dead (insert non-white, poor, non-christian, far away) group here weren't on your buddy list....
"Life's funny sometimes." "And sometimes it isn't." --Cat's Cradle
E-mail the FTC at antitrust@ftc.gov and ask them to not allow this anti-competitive merger.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
AOL Acquires Time-Warner In Largest-Ever Expenditure Of Pretend Internet Money
You should never take life too seriously - You'll never get out of it alive.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Think about it. AOL already uses exclusively MS technologies and their largest userbase is emphatically MS users. Time Warner would get to add MSNBC to the roster and whatever MSN has to offer. It's really dead obvious and logical. Do you think that their fighting about instant messaging would concern them one tiny bit if there is profit and control in merging with each other?
Besides, MS needs to own more media conglomerates to help control its image :)
*evilgrin* I'm serious. Think about it. Wouldn't that be a logical move?
The band from 7-11 that can only sell 20,000 copies gets say a $2000 advance. Maybe $10,000 if you insist on assuming a benevolent record company which aches to throw money at needy artists ;P
That lamer band STILL has to pay for all its recording and its tour out of that lamer advance, plus the label only _presses_ 20,000 copies and does absolutely squat to support the act. The act could sell out its pathetic little pressing and still not be noticed by the label it is in fact signed to. At which point they go back to 7-11, having mostly recouped the advance they've long since spent on the album (even $10,000 only goes so far, and frankly that seems high for a loser band with no business team), and having wasted years of their lives. Their role was no more than the industry's scratch ticket- in case they got lucky, the industry owns anything they record for the next ten years and rights to the publishing. All for a few grand that doesn't even buy them a professionally produced album- and then people like you come around thinking they got a quarter of a million dollars, just because they are a band signed to a major label! What?
Regarding the classical CDs- gee, maybe that's part of the reason why the consumers _and_ the bands get hosed so badly. It doesn't justify it. Are you suggesting that in spite of this, loser rock acts get big advances (albeit earmarked for recording the album and paying for the tour) even when they only expect to move 20,000 copies? And when the industry expects you'll move 20,000 copies, they only _press_ 20,000 copies, and getting more pressed isn't just a matter of selling the first ones- you have to convince the label that you're going to do that much better that it's worth going back to the pressing plant and churning out more, and that might not be the easiest thing to do...
Well previously we had 5 companies each signing 1 artist a year, hence the wonderful selection of music we've seen. Now we'll have 4 companies each signing 1 artist. The upside of this age of scientific management is that they know exactly the one artist who will sell the most CDs so instead of 5 new CDs they only have to print 1. It also means you have songs staying on the top ten longer than ever before. The last time I listened to the radio, the #1 song was there for 20 weeks. Of course, I haven't paid much attention to the music business since they stopped signing new artists. The downside is of course, with the speed information gets around, the artists get signed when they're 16 and retire when they're 17. Sometimes it's better to not get discovered until you've developed a foundation for a longer career. Nowadays you're either employed or a bum before you graduate highschool.
EMI was the last of the big independent labels, and it will be sad to see it subsumed into AOL/TW. However, it would have been worse to see it devoured by BMG.
They call BMG the Big Mean German, and not without reason. They're nasty. They have a history of aggressively suing people for copying long-deleted records to an extent that the others don't. And then there is that Bertelsmann Foundation's think-tank looking for means of regulating Internet content.
Also, in this deal, EMI does not merge with AOL/TW outright; no shares change hands. From what I understand, EMI's music division and AOL/TW's pool their asset portfolios and create a jointly-held (though TW/AOL-controlled) company to manage them. It's a far cry from, say, the way PolyGram was subsumed into Universal (i.e., its assets were basically stripped and transferred to the new owner); had BMG bought EMI, we would probably have seen a recurrence of this.
Apparently BMG were
on the verge of buying either EMI or Sony Music.
Now that EMI seems to be taken, they may have to talk to Sony. Though if Microsoft is split up, I imagine Sony may be interested in buying one of the Windows companies; as such they may be interested in offloading part or all of their music division to an eager BMG.
Despite the media spin about how efficient and "good for the consumer" these mergers are, that's not why they merge. They merge because their accumulated power gives them the ability to shape the political/economic landscape. It allows them to set up roadblocks to entry into the market, and avoid competition. It enables them to shut down the kind of threats you envision -- exactly as the RIAA is attempting to do right now (with no small success).
Furthermore, while it may be true that any one monopoly/conglomerate won't last forever, I hardly think this is a comfort. Using the same logic, dictators and tyrants are no big deal, since they won't last forever. either. As has been said so eloquently, "in the long run, we're all dead". We have a vested interest in maintaining competition and curbing corporate power right now.
This is the whole reason we have antitrust laws. For goodness' sake, if mergers are "natural" and less competition is better, why not just scrap capitalism entirely, and set up an aristocratic command economy? We might as well save ourselves the trouble of getting there.
I really don't know what the Feds are thinking, but I'm hoping someone will wake up soon and start saying "no" to the Robber Barons of the 2000's.
Sorry about my rant; I know you probably didn't mean to imply much of what I responded to. I'm just dreadfully tired of hearing about how whatever happens in capitalism is right by definition. We have a capitalistic system for good reasons. When those reasons are subverted, the system ain't working.
Kythe
(Remove "x"'s from
Kythe
They will control a vast portion of the music channel. From signing,recording,promotion,music videos and such, you can get it all in one stop: AOL/TW/EMI. Want news on that? Easy! Turn to Your AOL Cable and see it on CNN! Watch as CNN's "clear" and "unbiased" reporting tells of the big new trend. Want to get online and see more? Easy! Fire up the computer and get on AOL via the Cable Modem you have and go to keyword (whatever).
Want an alternative view? It won't exist.
If AOL owns 2 of the big record companies (keep in mind who's "on top" in the AOL-TW merger), that could mean good things in terms of putting the smack down on RIAA. Consider this: 2 of the RIAA's big member companies will be owned by the makers of an MP3 player (AOL owns Nullsoft Winamp/Macamp). That's gotta make Hilary Rosen nervous.
Will Steve Case have the savvy to pioneer online music distribution? He's in the right position now - he has the content, he's got the websites, and he even has player software. Stay tuned...
Ooooh, scary thought: Merger of Microsoft and Seagrams International. They're both big enough that one couldn't swallow the other, but ya never know.
There will be a difference - in a communistic model, everything is decided by The Board Of People. In a monopolistic capitalistic model, everything will be decided by The Board Of Share Holders. But, in the communistic model, The Board have to pretend, at least, to care about the best of the citizens. The Board Of Share holders only have to, and onlys hould, care about the share holders.
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
Remember what happens whenever 2 companies, large or small, merge: huge numbers of people get fired. These are usually the people who *actually* do the work, but are seen as redundant and not worth keeping on board.
Inevitably, the company in question loses efficiency because it has fewer people to do more work. Ironic, because the people fired usually are in order "to be more efficient."
What a crock of shit is the MBA program, which teaches that all workers are easily replacable and all that matters is the bottom line.
My 2 Euros.
Pope
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
It's not so much as killed as depressed. Basic economics indicate that given an informed market, prices tend towards their market clearing level but if the production structure is distorted when certain intermediate participants essentially price at cost (or below) then it drags the rest of the system with it. So a supermarket wholesale buyer would insist on getting the same (depressed) price as the Japanese exporter is nominally pricing which forces many marginal farmers to the wall, reducing diversity in the system as the only profitable source are ultra large agribusiness with the scale to insist on better treatment. While it's good for the shoppers (if the supermarket passes on the savings) it reduces the diversity in the rural base and thins out business activity through reduced spending. This has direct consequences and the stressed social fabric leads to increased mental health problems forcing greater demand on government services in a region where the population density is too low to be economically viable for commercial support. So rather than tackle the root causes, govrnments take the easy way out and directly subsidises the sector (the US lamb farming industry is a case in point) which persists the distortions leading to long-run uncompetitiveness, not to mention the lack of moral authority in the global scene on lobbying for reforms to world trade when you have a rather embarassing home counter-example of vested interests. Would a market system be better? Perhaps the farmers could export directly to Japan (analogous to the Finnish guy selling directly to US). Maybe in theory but in practice, there can be significant non-tarrif barriers (language, controlled distribution system, quarentine standards). So while the farmer would dearly love to sell directly to Japanese shoppers (capturing some of the distorted profit) the Japanese refuse access to their transportation/distribution chains, thus freezing out more efficient competitors. So the big screw over the small players yet again.
... yes ... equitable or sustainable? You think about what is best for the wider industry and the implications for supporting players (why hire outside independent production contractors when you can do it in-house and control the price and thus transfer the profits?). This is not something unique, but just how the world has shifted based on market and technological forces. As an aside, the really scary player is Sony as they hold everything from the production tools, to the consumer players and content and now they're buying their own bank. With a strong brand, high technical quality and the ability to control prices from the capital goods (production tools) down to distribution, they will be a major force.
Now, if you want to bring this back to the music industry, the US has a comparative advantage in technology (1-2 years head start) and the incredible financial resources allow companies to rapidly penetrate the largest (and thus most profitable) market in the world. By capturing ALL the access points to the consumer, then can force the rest of the world to come knocking at their door instead of actually being using and going out to find, promote and foster talent. So all the profits flow into a small stable of (tightly controlled) stars while everyone else is left with the scraps (the European market is fragmented by language, the Asia market is probably seen as Sony's stomping ground, and the 3rd world can't afford to buy their next meal, much less music). Profitable
The problems can be fixed as international trade is not a zero-sum game. By removing distortions/barriers and giving farmers fair market value, they can get the foreign currency to buy DVD players and Japanese can get cheaper shushi. Every producer and consumer wins except for the companies trying to play silly buggers. The universe runs on enlightend self-interest and its just a matter of waving the cluebat (plus lining up some off-scene heavy artillery as Napolean famously remarked that God is on the side with the biggest guns). It's going to be one nasty knock-down mud-slinging scrap in the next decade as the full implications of the IT change of economic force (massive minaturisation and connectivity) really flow through to the consumers.
If you want back up facts, just search for vertical integration on the web and trying to map that onto the distribution of bits instead of beef. And if you're still unconvinced, contact me further.
LL
I _could_ have just moderated this down, but I thought this needed a more mature response. Your selfishness and arrogance are simply appalling.
The music industry isn't what makes this world go round. Musicians aren't gods. Accountants aren't inferior people. People losing their jobs are sad people. They're to pity because they lose their jobs.
Your argument centers around money. You may not even realise it yourself, but your anger stems from the fact you, or bands you like, cannot profit from the succes of others. Well, wake up! The music industry is just that. An industry. As alternative bands don't have an audience big enough, they're laid off. Their job is making records that sell. If they're not good at their jobs ther're fired. Just like accountants.
If these fired musicians make music you like, hire them, enjoy them, but please, don't demand charity from your neighbours, like you're doing now.
----------------------------------------------
the pun is mightier than the sword
If schools were run properly, 65% of people in school should be getting Cs, and only 2.35% should be getting As. Only 2.35% should be getting Fs too...
That actually tends to happen when tests are graded properly, where instead of getting a grade based on your percent of questions answered correctly, you are graded on what percent of the class you did better than. Kinda like standardized testing.
Opinionated Law Student Strikes Again!
The problem that I have with what you describe would be about the same as the problem that I would have if Microsoft only had 30% of the Operating Systems market, but owned the largest chain of retail stores AND PC manufacturers!
AOL/Time/Warner/EMI will have the ability to dictate HOW THEIR COMPETITION SELLS if they aply any competent management to the integration of these companies... Of course the word competent is definitely the rub....
(http://theonion.com/onion3322/si xcorporations.html)
NEW YORK--MCI-WorldCom and Bank One-Chase Manhattan merged in a blockbuster $112 billion deal Monday, forming the world's largest telecommunications/banking company and reducing the number of existing corporations to six.
"This is an exciting move for both companies," said Donald Cosgrove, CEO of MCI-WorldCom, whose subsidiaries include SBC-Ameritech, Bell Atlantic-NYNEX and McDonnell Douglas. "As a result of this historic merger, we should be in much better position to consolidate vast amounts of wealth and power in the coming years."
The other five remaining corporations are Daimler-Chrysler, Monsanto-American Home Products,
Shearson-Lehman-Chemical-Citicorp-Travelers Group, Paramount-Viacom-ABC-Disney, and Lockheed-Northrop-Boeing-Pepsico.
According to Forbes managing editor Russell Belanger, at the current rate of mergers, there will be only one corporation in the world by 2000.
"The six remaining corporations have shown great interest in merging with each other," Belanger said. "Clearly, the stage is being set for the long-discussed creation of UniCorp, a $92 trillion corporation that produces every product on earth, from canned yams to basketballs to poison gas."
Belanger said mergers are desirable because they give corporations "synergy," enabling them to better sell their products. "Take Paramount-Viacom-ABC-Disney, for example," he said. "Disney makes the movie, Joel Siegel of Paramount-owned ABC-TV gives the movie a rave review, and Disney subsidiaries Blockbuster and McDonald's promote the video release of the movie in their respective stores with mail-in rebates and Happy Meal action figures. It's a win-win scenario."
Bill Clinton, chief executive of U.S. Government, a division of MCI-WorldCom, praised Monday's merger as "an excellent move."
A spokesperson for the newly formed Bank One-Chase Manhattan-MCI-WorldCom said the company plans to cut 92,000 jobs this month.
© Copyright 2000 Onion, Inc., All rights reserved. http://www.theonion.com/
-- Be alert. The world needs more lerts.
In communism, the state has a monopoly on power and wealth. In monopolistic capitalism, private shareholders or public share holder represented by a board hold monoplies on power and wealth. Marx warned about such things aaas the inevitability of rapant growth of capitalism. He also warned that the average consumer would get dumber. Ever gone to MacDonalds and seen the cash registers? They have pictures or words for the menu items on them. YOU DON"T EVEN NEED A THINKING HUMAN! I hope the governemnts involved force them to divest parts of the company to foster competition especiall since the new conglamerate will own at least 6 major record lables.
Romanes eunt domus? People called Romanes, they go the 'ouse? It says Romans go home. No it doesn't. What's Latin fo
When *all* the companies will merge into one Giant Monopoly how different will it be from centralized communistic system?
AOL has been a rival of MS ever since MSN first opened its virtual doors. MS pointed to AOL buying Netscape as proof of a real threat to their dominance. Now they can point to the largest merger in history and the largest merger in the history of the music business (#4 and #5 merger to become #1). Don't forget MCI-WorldCom (#2) trying to merge with Sprint (#3) to become a bigger #2 to compete with still super big #1, AT&T. Side note: How in the world (no pun intended) did WorldCom go from a dinky little business long distance provider to owning over half of the physical Internet in a few short years? Even without Sprint their reach is BIG. As Ma Bell calls all her children back under one happy home, Standard Oil is becoming the standard again. Big drug companies are eyeing each other. It will not be long before a mjor computer company makes a big purchase.
With all of this craziness of the big getting bigger...does MS matter? I think so but will the government? I think the US government has been too quick to rubber stamp these deals. Usually it is Europe that holds these deals up and it is usually Europe that forces companies to give up bits that would otherwise lead to too much power in certain sectors of the economy. If it takes the government this long to handle one giant (Microsoft) how will it handle AOL-TimeWarner, the new MCI (I believe that is the name for MCI-WorldCom-Sprint), etc. ? I don't think they can, at least not in the short term. That means more mergers and more centralized power.
Someone wrote in asking if this was like communism. More accurately, it is more like greedy, dirty, communism where the only concern of the central power is gaining more power and money. (Of course, have we ever seen another form of communsim?)
The idea that this is a form communsim is a stretch, though. It really is pure, uncontrolled capitalism at its best. A merger allows for greater efficiency and higher profit margins. Capitalism's one and true goal is more profit and at higher rates of growth.
Luckily, if history holds out this could all just be a cycle and the pendulum of power could swing the other way again. Who knows?
-- soldack
I don't know about that one. Steve Case and Bill Gates have no love for each other. Then again, money can do great things to solve that problem. The way MS would do it is if they feel they can not win with MSN/MSNBC and all the MS owned web sites. There seems to be a lot of overlap, which WallStreet hates. MS would never do anything to jeopardize their stock. I don't think is one is going to happen but then again, I have been wrong before.
-- soldack
At the very least we still have public TV for variety, hmm?
(Ever notice that we get the most variety of shows from public TV+BBC?)
I'm slightly afraid of these media companies getting to big.
In more than a few ways they wield more power than any other entity in this country (and indeed, in just about any "free" (as in speech) country).
Anyone who has read Fahrenheit 451 realizes how powerful a media entity that doesn't have sufficient competition becomes.
On the other hand, perhaps they will do well for us.(But, my fears remain.)
Producing/selling at a lower rate, making it difficult for anyone who doesn't do the same to compete..
Direct result: Anyone who isn't at least "their size" has difficulty competing in the market..
Making it (more) difficult for new companies to enter the market.
Vertical monopolies are not always bad (in many cases, they can be very beneficial), however this is a special case- This organization has great sway over the political life of this country, and as a result is subject to regulation (FCC, etc).
The vertical monopoly in "material" industries is less dangerous. Though they might be able to force a single automobile model on us (or something else, "hypothetical"), they cannot force a single THOUGHT on us. This is why a media company is more dangerous.
I don't care about the size of the company, or its monopoly status (there are good monopolies), rather I care about the effect any competition on the paucity of ideas that exist.
Any corporation that effectively removes (or threatens, or has a great potential to do either) the possibility of independant thought from the marketplace I will oppose.
I, for one, will carefully watch this one.. You should do the same.
If you're not working a day job and doing the coding you love for less than slave wages in your "free time" (wake up people, your time is YOU, there's none that is free), you're doing something wrong
If you can afford to quit your day job and do the thing you love, what's wrong with that?
Trees can't go dancing
So do them a big favor
Pretend dancing stinks!
"Producing/selling at a lower rate, making it difficult for anyone who doesn't do the same to compete"
Complete joke. Prices aren't changing any time soon. We're talking about an industry that takes 3 - 5 dollar profit margins on every stage. The producer can sell the cd for 5 - 8 bucks to the distributor who sells for maybe 9 - 11 to the store, who marks up the price to like 14 - 17 dollars.
These companies have a lock on the industry. They aren't going to endanger their market share or profit margins for the sake of slowly gaining share. This is why they are more and more likely to feed you the same corporate mediocre crap over and over. If they don't differentiate product, they are in no danger of making stupid mistakes.
That's funny. Corporations are in the business to make profit. Period. They care 0 about the people (even employees).
As for making it a lot harder for government to become corrupt. That's not happening any time soon. Here's what I see could be done:
- terms limited to 1 or 2 times.
Not going to happen. Government will do all it can to preserve itself.
- completely outlaw special interests. This includes taking money from anyone who could be a special interest.
Not going to happen. They've been promising to get rid of special interests for years. They are lying bastards.
- decrease government size
There are some programs that will be tweaked and/or fixed. However, the bureaucracy is too large with multiple levels and heads in control. Therefore efficiency is a joke.
Corruption. It's human. What can we do but live with it?
I'm in complete agreement with this statement. It seems some people are easily fooled with talk of efficiency for better consumer services, goods and prices. Eliminating choice can only bring the opposite. Some fail to understand that the corporation exists to make profit. Efficiency is just a side effect of competition. With no choice and no competition, gains from economies of scale will just end up in the pocket of the share holders.
What a great day for the consumer !
"And how long will it be before these vast companies start blocking access to sites that don't enforce their morality policies or that belong to a competitor?"
Already happens. Within the work place I think it is acceptable for the employer to implement filters on what sites employees can visit.
The day a large backbone provider, or ISP's (likely in collusion with other large corporations) agree to filter certain sites from the internet in their interest - is the day I burn each and every CEO's house to the ground (at least after litigation fails).
"I'm sure some companies are going to start pulling some of these tricks in the near future and most of them will yank a web page today if someone even hints at a lawsuit. Food for thought."
There are good providers who will not do this. It is, of course, inevitable. What they can't do is control the content. If my ISP takes my site down, I can easily move it somewhere else.
More competition usually means more innovation and/or better prices (the closer we get to unattainable perfect competiton that is). In most markets, PR and marketing can only get you so far. You need product that differentiates from your competitors in price or quality.
As your point about cutthroat competition is vague, I don't really understand it. On a general macro level, a more competitive industry usually means less barriers to entry. With this, relatively anyone within (or new entrants) can bring new innovative technology, better goods, better services, or business practices. You're maybe thinking about the quantity vs. quality argument?
Power consolidation results in less choice and less competition. There are, of course, logical reasons for very large horizontal mergers such as this, but I doubt most are in the consumers interest if there aren't many players in the industry.
Isn't it sad to think that within a couple years we might ignore M$ because there will be _really_ bad monopolies out there that we need to split up.
You guys better watch out...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
"The size of the company assured leverage with suppliers and brought incredible economies of scale to the market, but also created a bloated beast unable to cope with nimble competitors that would emerge from Japan during the 70's."
So you're saying that it worked out, right? Or do you not accept that this was an inevtiable result of a company becoming huge and bloated? I would go ahead and accept that idea. These mergers going on lately are like a death knell mostly as I see it. IBM got big, they missed the boat on the PC. Xerox got big, they missed the boat on the invention of air. It happens everywhere in every industry.
So should companies stay small? No, not unless you want a hand-made computer that fills a room. A small company can't buy a $120M fabrication plant.
What is the solution? Companies should stay focused. yeah, its tempting when you own a business selling a popular OS to start marketing applications, but you shouldn't. You should focus like a laser on your OS and make it the best in the world. Why? To eliminate your competitors, which is a very virtuous and noble pursuit if it is done MORALLY, ie, on merit. Not on ideaology like Linux is attempting to do, and not by buying every company in site, bloating your own, and putting out inferior products like Microsoft is doing.
Esperandi
And I don't worship any single OS, I don't know of any that don't have horrendous, ugly problems.
I don't understand how you can claim that the quarter-million sellers are being hosed to pay for the loser acts WHEN THE ACTS FOOT THE DAMN BILL! Do some homework. If you want to be a recording act you PAY for the services you need. If you don't seem to be a quarter million seller, guess what? The advance will be basically squat!
The acts only flip the bill if they succeed. Do you think the record company ever sees a penny of that $250,000 advance when the album ends up selling 20,000 copies, and the artist goes back to their job at 7-11?
Or are you suggesting that all rock musicians should be robbed to pay for oboe players?
The already are. The average classical CD costs between $250,000 and $500,000 to produce, and sells between 2,000 and 3,000 copies. SOMEBODY is paying for that. EMI, Polygram, and Sony all have very large classical music divisions, and put out disks, virtually all of which lose money. Where is all of that money coming from?
They were only a superstar act _because_ the industry picked them to be, and the industry only picks a few acts each decade to do that with (Michael Jackson, Springsteen around 'Born in the USA + the live set, Madonna etc), but they had what it took to be marketed that heavily- and that almost certainly means a GnR business team who on the one hand got the band a cut of the money, and on the other hand were ready to _guarantee_ product.
This is an _extremely_ cliched view and very false. The industry cannot PICK who is going to succeed - only the listeners can. Yes, the industry can pick who the listeners will hear (to some extent) but it is still up to the listeners to decide. There have been albums which have been EXTREMELY heavily promoted, which have failed miserably. Remember Michael Jackson's HIStory?
Guns 'n Roses _in_particular_ was not chosen to succeed. They are a real band - not assembled by a record company. They released an EP before getting the major label contract. But my main point is that Appetite for Destruction was released much earlier than the point at where it succeeded. It was released in 1987, but Guns n Roses didn't become mega-pop superstars until a year or two later. They say that it was word of mouth and such which made the band big. Clearly if they were "chosen to be big", they would have succeeded immediately.
Talk to any Guns 'n Roses fan, and you will get some major arguments to your claim. You can't judge taste, but compare GnR to the other acts of the time - Poison, Warrant, etc. GnR's songs were catchy, energetic, and much more radio friendly in comparison. It was good music, and a lot of people agreed. In fact, just thinking about this, I think I'll go pull my copy of Appetite for Destruction off the shelf.
There is absolutely no such thing as a guarantee in this business. The music business is much riskier than most other businesses, because trends come and go and nobody can predict them. New artists are especially risky, because nobody can predict how they will appeal.
I love how Steve Albini is suddenly getting massive link-exposure on Slashdot. You're linking to a different copy than I linked to- I used the copy on this page, which has a more detailed costs breakdown on the band's expenditures, which you might find morbidly interesting. It's here: "Some of your friends are probably already this fucked". READ THESE ARTICLES, PEOPLE! It gets... _tiresome_ listening to otherwise really sharp and clued Slashdotters saying 'Gee, we should help support the artists though, so the music industry can't be all bad' because they don't know the reality and are only guessing.
I read Albini's article and he it is based on one fundamentally flawed assertion. He is looking at the micro-music industry, not the macro-music industry. He does not understand that one single record does not exist in a vaccum. All of the major record companies support music which they lose money off of. Classical, and jazz, for example, which almost always sell less than 10,000 copies, and sometimes even less than 2,000 (and almost never make money). The money made off of successful artists who sell 250,000 copies (like in your example) are used to pay for non-profitable artists. Albini's assertions are only correct if every item in the catalog sells 250,000 copies, but this is never the case: usually an extremely small number (like 10%) sell that big, and big-time money is lost of the rest. Much of the "profits" (the $700,000 in the article) goes into failed projects and is not re-invested into new successful projects. Albini does not understand that successful projects fund failed ones. If every record sold 250,000 (or 25,000,000 copies), the record company would indeed be more profitable than it is. But the business is so risky that it is impossible to predict with any degree of accuracy how much an artists is going to appeal to the masses, so the success rate for new artists is only about 10%.
I suggest you read The Cost of CD's which persuasively argues that $20.00 is a fair price for classical CD's (and is written by an independent classical record company).
If you do not believe that 90% of projects fail, then here's an exercise for you: Get a one-year-old magazine on pop music, and look at the reviews of new artists. See how many you recognize. I have a one-year-old copy of PopStar (teeny bopper magazine) here. It has reviews of the following new top-40 artists: DollsHead, Rockell, Ultra Nate, The Murmurs, Baxter, She Moves, Tyrese, Rebekah, 4Kast, and Wild Orchid. Of those, only one "made it" (that I know of - Tyrese), and the rest failed - finished from music to find other careers. All of these were on major labels such as MCA, WB, etc., etc. If there was a "sure thing" as you claim, why would these artists be sign? If the industry can just make artists popular, why didn't they make these artists popular? Certainly they had a vested interest. This is a reality. It is always said that 90% of new artists fail, and all evidence (such as the above) demonstrate this to be true. The "massive profits" made from the one successful artist (Tyrese) are used to pay the others, before the company sees a profit. That changes the picture a quite a lot.
(After typing in "Jan 23, 2001" at random, I suddenly realized that it's today's date plus a year. Wacky, huh?)
i s-Windows*-Digital-AOL. NATTMOWCTMWDAOL's new president, Steve Case, has this to say:
Today, Netscape-Warner-AOL-Time-Mirabilis merged with AT&T-MediaOne-Windows*-Compaq-Digital-Altavista, creating the largest company known to mankind, Netscape-AT&T-MediaOne-Warner-Compaq-Time-Mirabil
"We will continue to let competition... merge with us."
NATTMOWCTMWDAOL will be listed on the NYSE as "AOL". Stock for AOL rised 48 1/4 yesterday in anticipation of the merger.
* - So what if Microsoft has been split up into Baby Bills? I can dream, can't I?
--
For an example of how this will affect the consumer... well, take a look at TIME and Newsweek's coverages of the AOL/Time-Warner Merger. Very different, indeed! (Although, since Newsweek directly competes with TIME, they might also have ulterior motives...)
-Hypr Geeque
Stay up hacking each weekend. Sleep is for the week.
Because those channels EXIST... people always talk about mp3s in a context of ripping off major label artists. Well, when there's only two major labels and only three major label artists and you hear them EVERYWHERE you go, tell me, would you even want to rip a mp3 of them? I think not. It becomes a non-issue, quite naturally.
This is _good_. Because it's _bad_. And it can have very harmful effects on music industry consumers and artists. AND THAT IS AS IT SHOULD BE... the natural counterbalance to the impossibly overwhelming dominance of the industry (I foresee a future in which you can be blackballed for ever having released an mp3. Bowie, of course, gets exempted ;) ) is the increasing irrelevance of the industry to their original concerns- as they become entirely about media control and efficient profitable distribution, they become entirely not about music- the highest of ironies.
Once they're in that condition, it becomes much more easy for grassroots support and underground or indie artists to gain public attention through things like the web and mp3s.
Another reason why this is bad is that EMI was (AFAIK) the only free-standing record company among the five giants.
Please alter my pants as fashion dictates.
Keep in mind this is a vertical, not horizontal, monopoly. They're working on creating a complete manufacturing-to-distribution channel - they create the content, produce it, and sell it. End-to-end control. This is not bad! It allows them to produce/sell at a lower rate - no middle-men. This does not threaten the industry per-se, nor is it a monopoly in the way most slashdotters think of one.
I'm not sure if they will sell everything off. I think that AOL is trying to protect itself from the inevitable deflation of Internet stocks, by buying into more substantial / concrete areas.
Or maybe they just want a huge legal MP3 collection 8-)
How long before we're left with 10 corporations in America? According to the rate of mergers so far it'll in 10 years max.
Will the government matter whan that happens? Peobably not. Corporations will do everything that the governemnt does today. People will loose their democracy and choice when that happens.
Very sad news. Hopefully FTC will put a stop to this.
--
GroundAndPound.com News and info for martial artists of all styles.
They should just proactively change the name from America On-line, to just America.
:)
So gain control over a substantial "Internet" provider like AOL and implement "Acceptable Use Policies" governing what you put on your web page...
Makes you wonder, doesn't it?
Corporations can tread on the First Ammendment in ways that Congress simply can't. It may end up that governmental internet censorship becomes a moot point if every company you can get access from demands that you be politically incorrect. And how long will it be before these vast companies start blocking access to sites that don't enforce their morality policies or that belong to a competitor? What if your ISP decides it's not in their best interest for their users to be doing price comparasons and decide to block access to The List for instance?
I'm sure some companies are going to start pulling some of these tricks in the near future and most of them will yank a web page today if someone even hints at a lawsuit. Food for thought.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
When Corporations merge, they combined assets add up. Their marketshare also does. But there are operations, their methods might not. A simple example - the board of a big company in Manhattan might have x board members, who need 2x secretaries to do their work. When they merge with someone else in LA with y board members (having 2y secretaries), the number of secretaries might not be 2(x+y). It doesn't scale. And many CEO's don't realize this.
Result - the corporation becomes too huge to manage. They become inefficient. and the smaller companies who can remain nimble will win.
This sounds like good news, until one realizes that we are talking about people and their livelihoods.
Sad, but that's how the wheel turns.
I can back this up with some logical reasoning. Dumb people are more susceptible to influence. It is easier to persuade the less intelligent that your product is the best because it has SuperCool NewTechnology MegaValue. Propaganda is most effective against those who are not able to see it for what it is. Thus dumb people are much more influenced by mass media than the more intelligent members of society. Mass media is inundated with primarily one meta-meme, CONSUME: Spend money on THIS. Because of this (and other less important factors not addressed here) dumb people spend more money than the intelligent. They are easier to convince to part with their money, to spend more than they actually have (ie credit card debt), to buy things they don't actually need. The Corporations favorite children.
The size of the company assured leverage with suppliers and brought incredible economies of scale to the market, but also created a bloated beast unable to cope with nimble competitors that would emerge from Japan during the 70's.
Partnerships and cross-licensing is the way to go for this century - you don't need to own it to use it.
Prediction - within three years, everything but the TW network of cable will be sold off. AOL will realize that Time magazine, Fortune, and other old-world media products (perhaps even CNN) are simply holding back the type of growth they were used to in the pre-merger days.
Michael Jackson after Thriller was the most overexposed man in show business. That's very, very dangerous. Are you suggesting that you expected his later releases to do comparably well? You're not talking like an insider here, you should _know_ what I'm talking about if you're going to come across authoritative. The industry will gear up to 'do business' on certain albums, whatever you think. Look at Thriller itself- after surprisingly high volume with Off The Wall (not that surprising, it was a very very strong album), the industry knew to expect serious sales volume from the start with Thriller, okayed expensive videos that broke the color line on MTV, and prepared for extremely heavy distribution. It's the same with Bruce Springsteen's live set- after Born In The USA (which the record company _knew_ was strong, very strong), the industry geared up for a major promo blitz, backing it with the distribution.
You're being naive, I'm afraid. Just supposing some obscure album _did_ click with listeners so heavily that it was set to surprise the industry with monster sales- just where do you think people are going to BUY enough copies of such an album if they're not pressed and shipped to the stores? (Interestingly, with mp3 some random person might develop monster mindshare just by being copied around enough... something that cannot happen with the commercial products as they can't be legally copied so heavily)
Regarding G'n'R, hell- I like them pretty well myself, I'm not calling them the Monkees. But don't you remember the sales volume of, not Appetite, but Use Your Illusion I+II? Again, a breakout hit that basically sold out everywhere laid the way for the music industry to DO TONNAGE on the next album, and to put the earlier album into reprintings. GnR earned their shot- you might be interested to know that GnR are also near the top of the list as far as sound engineering is concerned, on top of everything else- but having done so, the industry decided to MAKE THEM into the megastars they became. And that was not up to GnR, it was up to the suits. They'd still be selling out to this day if they hadn't been given this treatment, but not as the superstars they became.
Regarding your take on Steve Albini's experience, are you out of your mind? I don't understand how you can claim that the quarter-million sellers are being hosed to pay for the loser acts WHEN THE ACTS FOOT THE DAMN BILL! Do some homework. If you want to be a recording act you PAY for the services you need. If you don't seem to be a quarter million seller, guess what? The advance will be basically squat! I'm sorry, there is no compensation as you suggest. In particular, it's lunacy to suggest that the bigger acts subsidise the minor ones when the minor ones are being hosed even worse, and when it's possible to do some homework comparing music industry accounting with other manufacturing industries. In the final analysis, what happened to the music industry is not a question of subsidizing small acts or defending narrow profit margins. What happened to the music industry is middle management, and corporate bloat. Nothing about this suggests that it benefits consumers- or artists.
Regarding your cited article, The Cost Of CDs, I quite agree. Two points:
- Classical Musicians DO NOT foot the bill for recordings of their orchestras
- Classical Musicians have a UNION which forces the record company to actually pay them scale.
This does not correspond with any situation in the rock and pop industries, and Steve Albini was not writing about classical music performers.Or are you suggesting that all rock musicians should be robbed to pay for oboe players? o_O maybe you're suggesting that rock musicians should have a union like the classical guys? At least the latter get paid.
GnR are a different case- they were superstar level in an era when sales volume was huge by comparison, but the industry was already ripping off most acts. My guess, since I've heard things to suggest that GnR _are_ in fact pretty wealthy, is that they had a manager or some business team who knew what to do when negotiating a superstar act with the industry. They were only a superstar act _because_ the industry picked them to be, and the industry only picks a few acts each decade to do that with (Michael Jackson, Springsteen around 'Born in the USA + the live set, Madonna etc), but they had what it took to be marketed that heavily- and that almost certainly means a GnR business team who on the one hand got the band a cut of the money, and on the other hand were ready to _guarantee_ product.
What you're seeing, Jamie, is the special cases- not the 'winners' in the sense of some lottery or luck, but the acts that combined musicianship on a commercial level with a business team that seriously kicked butt and could (a) negotiate contracts well for the band and (b) even more importantly, deliver product for the record company on a superstar level- handling the artist, augmenting promotion, managing all this so intently that they were like a superstar _company_ or business team, wildly outperforming the business teams of the other bands.
I love how Steve Albini is suddenly getting massive link-exposure on Slashdot. You're linking to a different copy than I linked to- I used the copy on this page, which has a more detailed costs breakdown on the band's expenditures, which you might find morbidly interesting. It's here: "Some of your friends are probably already this fucked". READ THESE ARTICLES, PEOPLE! It gets... _tiresome_ listening to otherwise really sharp and clued Slashdotters saying 'Gee, we should help support the artists though, so the music industry can't be all bad' because they don't know the reality and are only guessing. Would people believe the practices of Microsoft without proof? "They can't be _all_ _that_ bad!". Would people believe how dumb Netscape was without proof? (*g* disclaimer, yes, I'm using Communicator, but I understand JWZ has some feelings on the matter ;) )
Think about it, the internet and I'm thinking of specifically wireless means that potentially any electronic thingy can be a distribution channel. You want a sunhat with radio, no problem, scuba mask with music, doable, electronic teddy bear that plays your favourite loony tunes, etc ...
... can we say one-stop-shop for ads?) then they'd start looking for alternatives (ie fringe groups). That's is IMHO people are so scared of MP3 as it gives exposure to non-mainstream groups whom they can't control with company shop (ie artifically inflated to put people in debt) prices to produce/flog music. Given that the average joe can put together (admitted rather low quality) mix on a cheap home system, anyone and his dog will be able to composite stuff ... expect new business model of give away the CD/MP3, sell the DVD/master. Technology is cheap enough such that it is not a differentiating factor (and music companies don't have a lock on the creative types that actually create the new wealth, except maybe some games shops).
With the number of channels expanding exponentially, the normal retail constrictions lose their pricing power. Parallel imports, recirculating radio shows over the net, MP3 servers, mobile phone, whatever.
The only way to to become big enough that your catalog is comprehensive enough (what most e-commerce sites are mostly at this stage) that people will put up with some sort of rental (which could be hidden in the normal telecom/connection charges). I would estimate minimum 20% to the total market, and total includes all music back to the prehistoric-age beating on stones (with effectively inifite storage, anything and everything could be eventually digitised). So you'd probably end up with 3-5 major comprehensives and a raft of niche specialists. The infrastructure IMHO will be coming under incredible deflatory pressures because you will be able to fit a complete radio station into a briefcase. Take a look at Gilder's Inventing the Internet Again. Essentially you can replace local storage with bandwidth (think of the time/space the bits spend in the air as the memory) which means reduction in costs/weight of the receiver. Something like the Transmeta chip would be able to decipher software as it flows from the air, dragging the MP3 stream after it. Given another few years, you'd be able to set up a jukebox at home, then listen to your favourites all day. Implication, severe market erosion by any ad-based distribution network (like radio/e-commerce). Also once people discover that one internet radio station is much the same as another (not surprising when they are all owned/programmed by clones of the same marketing droids
There's a consumer revolution coming and people are rearranging chairs in a mad rush so they're not the ones left standing when the bullets start flying.
LL
For example, Miramax would be remiss to provide content to AOL from this point forward, as Disney (the parent of Miramax) competes with Time Warner's media properties. Feeding AOL means feeding Time Warner, which is counter to Disney's goals.
Supplying content to Yahoo on the other hand, doesn't present this problem, as Yahoo only aggregates and distributes. Yahoo is following the correct model for the new economy.
ok.. everyone here is simply thinking of this in simple terms of a company getting really large. that isn't really how you look at it. this is a _music industry_ merger. Music industry mergers are VERY BAD things. they are BLOODY things.
Mergers usually contain downsizing, but you cant look at downsizing in the music industry the way you can look at it other places. Remember this is maybe the only industry left that is selling a mass-produced artistic product created by individal artisans (as opposed to the massive centralized committeework that produces movies.. you could maybe claim movies are still an artistic, but i wouldn't say so. you don't often have a person or a small group of persons making a movie with total artistic freedom, and you certainly can't ahve a movie that was made by one person working alone..).
If, say, warner cable and TCI cable merge, you're probably going to see a bunch of accountants and managers and people who do whatever it is you do if you work for a cable company lose their jobs. Well, whatever. One accountant is the same as another; any accountant can do the same work as any accountant.
Music doesn't work that way. When the label drops a musician, they're losing something specific that only that musician can do.
When Universal bought Polygram last year, there was a _lot_ of bands getting dropped and a _lot_ of pain. I can't remember the number that lived and the number that stayed came "bloody thursday" (the day they released the list of who got pink slips) but it was fairly sickening.
This bbc article kind of irritates me for its lack of considering what effect this is going to have on non-mainstream artists. "The company would unite artists like The Spice Girls, Madonna, Robbie Williams and the Rolling Stones - and hits might be made available on the internet. " ?? please. This is NOT a good thing.
i would insert something here about hoping that they make up for a small amount of the lost artists by firing all the management at Neglectra records.. but i doubt it would really be appropriate here.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
But Universal bought Polygram and it looks like we have EMI/Warner leaving only these:
The music industry keeps getting smaller and smaller. Together these 4 control over 90% of the music industry.
Three Companies for the record industry on TV,
Seven for the Browsers in their halls of stone,
Nine for smaller ISP's doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord AOL on his throne.
In the land of Wall Street, where the shadows lie.
One Company to rule them all, one Company to find them,
One Company to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.
-- J.R.R Trollkien, son of Troll, son of Trall