Antitrust Investigation Into Music Companies' Online Efforts

Thanks to Dan Gillmor for the head's up concerning the investigation by the DoJ into MusicNet and pressplay. These are the two big services being put together by Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music, EMI Group and BMG. This follows on from an investigation launched by the EU this past June. This is prelim work but we'll see what happens.

Comments

B.S.

[sllort]

One record company executive fumed, ``For the past five years, this industry has been endlessly investigated by the government. They find nothing. And it costs us a fortune.'' The executive, speaking on condition of anonymity, added, ``It's a handy whipping boy.''

The facts speak differently:

"The FTC estimates that U.S. consumers may have paid as much as $480 million more than they should have for CDs and other music because of these policies over the last three years," said FTC Chairman Robert Pitofsky. - from the decision against BMG, Sony, et al for collusion and price fixing, two years ago.

Liar, liar, pants on fire.

Re:And now this

[Legion303]

A Judge already ruled a couple of years ago that the big 5 were price fixing. The problem is, that's as far as it went. Guess it's about time for another round of bribes.

-Legion

Re:Do I understand this?

[bmarklein]

Details are pretty murky, but it looks like both services will emphasize streaming, and will also offer "tethered downloads" which expire once you stop paying subscription fees. These downloads will only be playable on portable players that support whatever DRM scheme the services use. The services will have fairly complete backcatalogs but may hold back some current singles.

why waste tax payers money on this case ...

[die_rollerblader]

I don't see the big deal here. Let the online music services be anti-competitive, they are not going to last anyway, if they launch the way the record companies are planning them to.
I'm not going to pay the same price for a song that is lesser quality than a CD so I can sit and wait for it to download. And the best part about it, is that I can only listen to it on my PC. Now thats great, I'll buy all this music and I won't be able to use it in my car or home stereo, so what good does it do me.
Even if I get a copy protected CD at least I can put the CD in my car/pc/stereo, or oh no! bring it to a friends house.

The record companies will have a rude awakening if they do not listen to the consumers wants when designing these new services.

I suspect I'm not alone here.

Bill Introduced in Congress

[Ratteau]

There is an article on yahoo today called the The Music Online Competition Act (MOTA). Introduced by Chris Cannon (R-Utah), and our friend Rick Boucher (D-Va), it seems to take into account these 2 services. It states basically, that any song the record labels licence to these services, but be made available to licence to any third party online music distribution service that wants it. Boucher explains that he wants to avoid a distribution monopoly.

The article is here.

I particularly like the line about the RIAA's reaction: Not surprisingly, the RIAA bashed the bill, saying it favors government regulation over market forces. The irony here is so thick here, it doesnt require any more comment.