EC Approves Unconditionally Sony-BMG Merger

Paul Slocum writes "Just when you thought the music industry couldn't get any worse, Sony and BMG are merging. Now there will only be 4 major labels, and they estimate that 2000 jobs (25% of combined workforce) will be cut." An anonymous reader points to Reuters' report on the planned merger, which points out that "Vivendi-owned Universal and Sony BMG, as the new company is to be called, account for about 46 percent of music sold worldwide."

Comments

Artists need to fight back

[AnotherDreamer]

I recently released an album under a Creative Commons license simply because I would never want a situation in which my audience would be persecuted for listening to my music. The RIAA is must be taking out of the loop. Fans and artists must make an effort to do so. Anyway, my album is available for free at www.anotherdreamer.net

Re:So what?

[Elwood P Dowd]

It's BMI:

ASCAP and BMI
In 1914 the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) was established to protect recording artists from unsanctioned use of their material. ASCAP used a blanket licensing agreement to collect a pre-set annual fee from anyone using its members' material for any commercial purpose. The money was divided among ASCAP artists. As major players in the radio industry became more interested in broadcasting recorded work, ASCAP reinforced its control over distribution. Artists who were not ASCAP members had little hope of exposing their work to wide audiences.

During the recording boom of the late 30s and early 40s, ASCAP had doubled the fees they charged radio stations. In the midst of court battles and the dearth of music not protected by ASCAP, frustrated broadcasters formed their own blanket licensing system, Broadcast Music, Incorporated (BMI), in 1939. The BMI camp sought alternatives to ASCAP acts. In the process BMI would later become the dominant force in the discovery and marketing of a new sound that would breed a new culture.

Re:Piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

To all the people that download mp3s this is your fault.

Proof, please?

Anyone who's actually done a study has found that there is a correlation between file sharing and increased music sales. (Which only makes sense - record labels have known for years that nobody will buy music without hearing it first... which is why they pay people to distribute it for free.)

Re:Ahhh...

[shawnce]

It was Taco Bell in the original US release. In a few non-US releases I guess they changed it to Pizza Hut.

Re:I'm sorry...

[Transcendent]

"Transcendent" has nothing to do with trance.... at all.

1) The spellings are different - trance vs transcendent...

2) Trance is music, transcendent is:

1. Surpassing others; preeminent or supreme.
2. Lying beyond the ordinary range of perception: "fails to achieve a transcendent significance in suffering and squalor" (National Review).
3. Philosophy.
1. Transcending the Aristotelian categories.
2. In Kant's theory of knowledge, being beyond the limits of experience and hence unknowable.
4. Being above and independent of the material universe. Used of the Deity.

not a damn thing to do with one another... not a damn thing...

(just some education for the confused)

Re:Good News for SACD Fans?

[aardvarkjoe]

Seriously?

Well, not quite. However, when I last bought stuff from those companies (mid-90s), the shipping was $6 for one, IIRC. (When getting multiple ones at a time, the extras might have been as "little" as $3 apiece.) Things might be a little more sane now.

It turned out that the "12 for 1" deal got you CDs for something like eight or nine dollars apiece. If you wanted twelve albums, then it was a decent deal; that's how I filled out my record collection as a teenager. However, it's obvious that they make a pretty decent profit by overcharging for shipping; it's not the great deal that they lead you to believe.

Of course, the strange part was that they charged so much that only a fool would buy the CDs at regular price. You'd think that the amount of customer turnover that must have caused would eventually hurt the company. (But maybe I just don't think like a marketer.)