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

Expect a result in several years

[Dr_Cheeks]

Remember how long it took them to get an anti-trust investigation through against Microsoft. Oh, wait, sorry; I forgot that they're still arguing about it.

The combined might of these companies is even greater than that of the Redmond steamroller, and they're only in the preliminary stages. It's going to take years before this gets settled (even if it does go to court).

So let's not get our hopes up just yet.

Re:The Coward disagrees...

[jonathan_ingram]

Actually, they would be better off lowering the prices and making legal purchase less of a hassle

Exactly. It annoys me no end that they charge more for CDs than for tapes, despite CDs costing less than tapes to produce. When consumer groups here (in the UK) complained about this, instead of reducing the price of CDs, they increased the price of tapes.

When are the record companies going to recognise that .MP3s and CDs are complementary, rather than being in direct competition? I have bought plenty of CDs after listening to MP3s - indeed, when I left university and my free fast internet access, I didn't buy any CDs for 6 months.

Sometimes I wish our copyright systems were purged, and we went back to plagiarism and copying, like England in Shakespeare's day (and Taiwan today).

Bush Admin Should Sock it to Entertainment Indust.

[YIAAL]

Here are the facts: 1. They fix prices. 2. They screw their artists. 3. (Almost certainly) they cheat on taxes. (With their byzantine accounting system, it's hard to imagaine they wouldn't). 4. They're thugs, who are now very unpopular with young voters who Bush wants to win over, and with older voters who already like Bush. 5. They're Democrats who give Bush grief whenever they can. Why on earth wouldn't the Justice Department go after them?