Slashdot Mirror
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."
There's an obscure reference to something like this in an old eighties movie called Crazy People, where the genius crazy people decide to thwart Sony executives by making an ad that simply says: Sony, Bony (while the guy shows this a sketch of a really skinny old guy). I'm sorry but when else am I going to get to reference this funny/stupid movie quote, but when a company starting with the letter B is going to join forces with Sony.
So say it with me;
BMG + Sony...
Sony, Bony
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
One step closer to "The Company".
This looks like a good time to support open source music.
First Clearchannel takes over everything & plays the same 20 songs over & over. Now we get another merger that will control what music we get to hear. Thats it. I'm just going to get satellite radio.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
So what if they merge? I've noticed a lot of smaller labels starting to come into the market, and one of my favorite bands, Vast, switched to one of them. Let the big guys get bigger. This market is going to be dominated by little guys once again.
Anyone remember their history? As I recall, it was a revolt against ASCAP that lead to the formation of RCA. Or do I have my names wrong?
There is a difference between "insightful" and "inciteful" other than spelling.
That is a scary statistic. Even more so if you're a musician.
"Old man yells at systemd"
If there are any.. this could mean more of BMG's catalog will come out on Sony's SACD format.
Sony CEO : "What shall we call it?" ... "
BMG CEO : "...."
Marketing Guy : "How about Sony BMG".
CEOs : "Mmm, it has a good ring to it
Marketing Guy : "I'll invoice you from my office"
*marketing guy leaves, door shuts*
"It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax
With 2000 fewer workers to pay, we consumers can expect to pay, what, $1-2 more per CD to account for all the money they saved?
;-)
Favorite quote: "[Jean-Luka Monte]called the merger "very bad news not only for independents, but also for retailers and artists."
You mean the recording industry isn't trying to protect and help artists?! Say it ain't so!
Live free or die
As long as they keep up the same high quality standards!
The more near-monopolies try to push out the small artists, the more small artists there will be to unite against them.
Its the same thing that happened to Microsoft... Microsoft's over-reaching control basically caused the Linux movement.
So hopefully, our culture will no longer be held hostage to these corporate giants.
Sony artists include Aerosmith, George Michael and Barbra Streisand, while the BMG stable has Avril Lavigne and Elvis Presley.
Elvis unavailable for comment regarding the merger.
...and he's gunnin' for your level of monopolism.
His name, of course, is "music industry".
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
Just one step closer to CocaWarner McMicroSonySoft
The Neo-Bohemian Techno-Socialist
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
Open Source Music: anotherdreamer.net
... Microsoft buys Sony?
How do you want to be controlled today?
As seen on Wired: Get a free desktop PC
Let the market get even more monopolistic and less profitable for artists. Despite what's been said here on Slashdot, the industry is still clinging on to its old models for royalties. Perhaps the industry needs a revolution rather than a slow evolution?
There were what 4 and now 3 big companies? Still not a monopoly, and didn't they already get convicted of price fixing with just the 4 of them? What we have here is an oligopoly, before and after. I realize that this will be one big player, but can you think of any abuses that could be perpetuated now that couldn't have been (and weren't) done before? I think Anti Trust issues only come in when a true monopoly occurs.
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
...but just hearing "music" and "industry" in the same sentence kinda makes me think that I'm fed a mass-produced, scientifically designed, corporate controlled brain anesthetic instead of actual music.
Now that the "industry" is controlled by fewer companies, closer to one conglomeration, the appreciation for what comes out of it is even smaller.
I guess that's why I stopped buying CDs a long time ago and just listen to online radio of "underground" (progressive trance if you must know my tastes) and classical music.
With as bad as piracy is now, they just couldn't afford those workers anymore.
</sarcasm>
Load up the Sony BMGs! The DMZ (Downloaded Music Zone) is hot!
Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
they estimate that 2000 jobs (25% of combined workforce) will be cut
Am I correct in assuming that the only thing businesses will gladly spend substantial amounts of money on (other than catered, air-conditioned lunches) is firing people?
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
Now there will only be 4 major labels
That's like complaining that there's only four different types of manure. Any way you buy it, it's still crap.
Ummmmmmmmmmm...that was weird
Obviously, this is not a 'good' thing for music listeners, but I feel the music industry has found it's niche at this point: take acts and push them like hell. Make them popular. At this point there's no reason to stop this (unless they actually decide they want to put out something for it's artistic merit rather than financial potential).
With rare exceptions, I haven't been buying music released on the 5 or 4 major labels. I feel like this won't even really matter except to those who may lose jobs because of the merge. If you're buying music put out by the majors, you can keep doing that. If you're not, you're gonig to stick to your indie labels and local musicians and it doesn't matter anyway.
Obviously giant corporate beings are no good (I would love to see clear channel go) but until they ruin independents, can anyone see any changes this might make?
-- Why keep us waiting? We are not made of time.
Since the report also states EMI/Warner will merger, that leaves 3. Given the subjective opinion that music has gotten poorer in quality and has not (and now most likely will not) had the promised price-drop, I do not see good times for music connoisseurs. The corporations will still get their profit margins since less options for the artists means easier concessions for the business. What the artists should do is form 'co-ops', like a cluster of indie-labels. Offer a better ROI, broker deals w/radio, satt. and other broadcast mediums, and interface w/fans better (like the forced NASCAR fan/driver interactions). Maybe then I'll go back to buying 100+ albums (CDs) a year (instead of 5 right now).
In a way this is good, it means a consolidation of companies to boycott. I think the time to boycott is going to be soon.
How much momentum could we get for boycotting RIAA labels? I think it could be a lot.
Encourage people not to buy music from RIAA labels. Spread the word. Perhaps we can have some effect; if we succeeded in a large-scale boycott of Sony, the advantage to labels and artists that did not support RIAA would be immense.
Boycott Sony. Boycott Clearchannel.
Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.
After seeing your Bony quote, I thought 'what about the m'?, now I have Boney M in my mind and the plethora of crap tunes now in my head... Rivers of bloody Babylon indeed.
Heres one for you, and with any luck you'll get it stuck in your mind tonight:
Brown girl in the ring, tra la la la la.
Now I'm off to listen to some NIN at a nice loud volume to purge the scourge of 70's pop/disco/whatever. :-(
Are you local? There's nothing for you here!
I sure do love how Slashdot always wants it both ways. To all the people that download mp3s this is your fault. Now it will be harder for new artists to get signed and the variety of music will suffer. I hope you all like mainstreet crap that ClearChannel plays. Thanks!
You know, these mergers are actually a good thing. If all the media companies keep merging, eventually they'll be one big monolithic company that everyone can actively hate, like Microsoft.
It's hard to fight a battle on many fronts, but if there's ONE company to hate, it's easy to rile up the masses.
Of course it's consolidation of the industry. A STRUGGLING industry. And obviously things are probably going to get worse for them rather than better.
I think there's enough blame to go around... INCLUDING the artists! They suck... the record company promotes crap... P2P has sucked what little margin was left... and now the live concerts are going down the tube.
Music Industry... Airline Industry... what's the difference? Could a government bailout be next? LOL!
All markets lead to consolidation. The natural state of capitalism is to edge twoards monopoly. The bigger you are, the better the economies of scale, and the more market power you have. The more market power you have, the easier you can get around the checks of a capitalistic system to make even more money. This is called market failure.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Original press release
FAQ
Sony's press release:
same as above
I mean, sheesh, with the internet, this is much less of a problem. Just stop listening to major label music and support independent artists.
The almighty $ leads to consolidation. Weak market/strong market does not matter (other than the cost of the merger). For proof, look at all the late 90s merger activity that occurred. Daimler overtaking Chrysler happened in a Bull market.
And a report out in the last 2 weeks reported RECORD sales for music companies. Could it not then be concluded that p2p has INCREASED revenue (to follow along your spurious logic patterns).
this is good news, this means less competition for the record companies, higher prices, more profits!!!!
What the f*** was the EC thinking??
Actually, Time Warner sold their music business to Edgar Bronfman Jr. earlier this year as AOL-TW tried to dump their unprofitable divisions. So, despite the name, Time Warner is a wholly seperate company from Warner Music Group.
Moreover, I wouldn't expect AOL-TW to buy anything soon. Not until their stock price goes up some ...
More info here.
Fax Baba!
If all the huge music makers merge, the RIAA will become redundant. One hardly needs a Recording Industry Association of America if there's only one company to represent. They can do it themselves.
Let's hope the 25% staff cut are RIAA morons.
So, to sum up: I, for one, welcome our new trash pop overlords.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
this could be a good thing. Remember, it was Sony that fought for the VCR.. Sony has an interest in selling those new MP3 Walkmen, just as much as they have an interest in selling music. Of all the record companies to give more clout to, I'd choose them.
Hey wait a minute:
Here is an excerpt from an article about NARM (the National Association of Recording Merchandisers) charging that Sony is using unfair business practices:
"The complaint also charges that Sony plans to uses its market muscle to push consumers toward buying CDs and digital music tracks from the soon-to-be merged Columbia House record club and online music retailer CDNow. Sony and Time Warner will each own a 37 percent stake in the combined company.
BMG and Columbia House are the two of the biggest mail-order record clubs out there. If Sony already has a 37% stake in Columbia House, and now they're going to own(be) BMG too, isn't this a BAD thing for competition within the mail-order music industry? Why wouldn't that fact alone cause the EC to thwart this?
I was in the park the other day wondering why frisbees get bigger and bigger the closer they get - and then it hit me.
But when 2000 job cuts are imminent, suddenly those workers are just hardworkin' folk.
Look, idiot submitters: consolidation and merger between relative equals happens in SHRINKING industries (makes hand gestures like Ben Affleck trying to explain basic economics to Jay and Silent bob from that "strike back movie"), not expanding ones. so maybe, just maybe you tinfoil hat crowd can see this as a *good* thing for your nevertheless ill-thought out anti-riaa crusade.
note: i challenge anybody to suggest how apple selling music is fundamentally different than wal-mart doing it in the sense that neither wal-mart nor apple can really promote artists other than one can give britney an endcap and the other can give her some banner ad or other prominent website mention. at the end of the tune, itunes, the coca-cola music store, and every other digital music place that is popping up whack-a-mole fashion are just RETAILERS. there is a massive difference between this and actual promoters and distributors and the difference will continue to grow as there are more and more digital retail outlets out there and so the incentive for an individual retailer to be anything but a bottom feeder pricewise shrinks more and more.
Clearly, what this is about is Sony wanting to hegde its bets. It is a very smart (if evil) move on their part. with nearly 50% of the total retail music catalog, they will make record revenues on physical sales. They will have the power to deny nearly 50% of all music to the Apple iTunes Music Store, while simultaneously guaranteeing that the Sony Connect store has at least an equal size catalog to iTunes, AND allows forcible adoption of the sub-par ATRAC3 codec, as well as the sleek and very limited new network walkmen.
A brilliant business plan, brilliant for Sony, not brilliant for the growth of the music market or the rights and interests of consumers.
Just as irrigation is the lifeblood of the Southwest, lifeblood is the soup of cannibals. -- Jack Handy
...how would you like us to take your money today? Oh, I'm sorry, I'll need both arms. Have a nice day!
Right? Just checking.
John Kerry is a Joke!
Today IBMSNBCBS, owners of Fox/ABCNN, merged with CokeWarner McMicroSonyDisneySoft, completing the last possible corporate merger that had remained on planet Earth.
The price of freedom is eternal litigation.
I guess the only way to beat the apple music store is to control all the music and not allow apple to sell it. Maybe apple will form a movement with smaller artist and change the industry Who knows!
I'm sorry, it's not obvious to me that it makes any difference either way. 4 huge mega-corps is better than 3? How so? What exactly will we see come out of this? The "music industry" is ALREADY fucked up, and this will have no effect what-so-ever.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
I'm not affiliated with it, but I've found 3hive to be a great site. Every single day they post download links for a few tracks being offered for free by artists under small labels. The site seems to mainly do emo rock and punk, which frankly is either good or really bad, but it also covers other things ranging from electronica to hip hop to folk. It's just a damn good site and hopefully someone will find this link to it and enjoy it.
If you get nervous, just remember that there are a few billion other people who don't really give a damn.
Someone needs a hug (or constant medication)
something to do with the difference between 95%ish market share and 46% ?
welcome our new music overlords!!!
....
If you need me, I'll be listening to Aerosmith's new remix of "Blue Suede Shoes"
--- Please insert flaming below ---
Vivendi was on the side of digital music distribution. Sony wants to get more heavily into that arena. It made business sense for them to make this purchase if the company was for sale. There were few corporations/entities that could afford the pricetag.
Apple was concerned that if Sony also had BMG that they would try to limit content to not only iTunes but to Napster, and Real, and the (insignifcant) others.
I think as long as music is not limited to exclusive distribution just to push the lame ATRAC standard, then I'm not for or against this deal. In fact, if the 2000 people are being laid off, that means cost savings. Possibly, it means better management. Which possibly could mean cost savings to consumers.
Anyone want a Sony Music Store code: CH4NHPCRKPGH - I find it ironic that I have a Mac and I got this song off a Big Mac - The Sony Connect Music Store won't work on Macs.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Thank goodness I can still buy my clothes from the OldBaNavyRepubliGap Crew.
... the merger reduces the number of executives we have to feed the mind control drugs.
Yea the fat little penguin Tux should be replaced by a mean penguin. Maybe even a penguin skeleton kinda like the Brisk snowman skeleton. He then should be surrounded by guns, women, and alcohol -- ALWAYS.
That nylug picture, if it's the one I'm thinking of, is funny as hell. Everyone of those guys could be the poster child for joining a gym and going on this show. Although maddog is cool. I think if he was paraded around dressed like some insane old guy in a red beanie with a bottle of whisky in his hand, Linux would be a lot more cool.
You are free to do as we tell you.
We want your soul.
www.wewantyoursoul.com
Well, at least nothing I listen to comes from either of those 2 evil conglomerates. ( except for the MD player I put my music on.. - blah )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
1. 5 -> 4 (check)
2. 4 -> 3
3. 3 -> 2
4. 2 -> 1
5. 1 -> 0
6. Profit!!!
Free as in mason.
We're doing our part over at Zerophase to help people find great music that isn't on major labels. To cop a term, "we don't take no crap!" Check us out.
The cathederal of the media industry is falling as we speak. The onetime gatekeepers of content distribution, be it music, movies, television, radio, are no longer needed.
Artists used to need these gatekeepers, for only the financial muscle of a large company could finance the widespread distribution of these types of media. No individual could afford the upfront expense of mastering and duplicating millions of DVD's, or negotiationg distibution deals with thousands of media outlets, or fiancing a license for a slice of RF bandwidth.
But the final barriers to entry are falling, the last barrier, the cost to the producer for electronic distribution, has just been eliminated this year. Now thanks to technologies such as BitTorrent, the consumers of the content foot the bandwidth bill for distribution.
The multi-million dollar barrier to entry to create a movie for instance has now been reduced to a minidv camera, a half-decent PC, and a broadband connection. Someone with talent and time could spend a few thousand in up-front costs and produce and distribute movies to their heart's desire; and anyone (or everyone!) can have access to that content for the cost of downloading it.
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
"The joint venture will create a recorded music business better able to serve artists and consumers in this rapidly changing marketplace," Bertelsmann chairman and CEO Gunter Thielen said in a statement late Monday.
Real-world translation:
We blow our noses at you, so-called consumers. We fart in your general direction!
Now obey us, or we shall taunt you a second time!
If all geeks continue to say that 'the media that music travels is changing', then we shouldn't be mad or insulted that job losses are occouring. If less and less Shiny Discs are needed, less and less jobs are needed. Everyone who packages and distributes shiny discs will lose a job. everyone who manages or arranges to have discs produced and marketed loses a job. Don't take it to mean I think its a bad thing. Jobs are lost (or rather, shifted) when new technology arrives. Bowling pin setters are now automatic, etc.
If the 'music should be free as in beer' (tm) crowd really means what they say, then they should expect job losses.
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
If the major labels reduce to 3 from 4, we get a 25% decrease in labels producing krap music, no?
so this must be a good thing, right?
well, at least CD prices can come down, with the 2000 former employees no longer requiring a cut...
"Sony, Bony" makes me think of Sonny Bono, which gets me thinking: now that BMG is part of Sony Music, does this significantly change the major labels' lobbying power?
The reason the music market has dwindled so much in the past eight years is because, up until yesterday, only five big corporations (not four) had a bottom line to work with.
Turning two companies into one means turning two bottom lines into one. Or, better put...
"Why should we, SONY/BMG, release the same amount of material that competes against itself? We don't need to release that Avril Lavigne clone we'd been developing, since we actually have Avril Lavigne, and that means we can focus our teen advertising on one artist/album rather than two. Cut the Avril clone and we'll wind up with more profit. Same with our gangsta rappers, our garage rock bands, our adult contemporary singers, our country artists, etc etc etc. Cut 'em down and we'll spend less money on more, better-focused profit."
This might get rid of a few cookie-cutter artists, but ultimately, it retracts the feelers of the new, shrunken two-companies-into-one, which means even less resources are poured into artist discovery, catalog development and risk-taking. Reprise Records was founded with Sinatra's vision that there was both integrity and profit to be had in developing an artist over many years, and then once that artist finally breaks big, watching cash pour in with later sales of the back catalog. Major labels have killed this strategy and have put current sales and quarterly figures at the head of conversation instead. Another merger simply speeds this decay of major label integrity by having even fewer hands working to pluck out hits rather than develop catalog & LP artists.
When you cut 20% of the diversity out of a market that already lacks diversity, you're pouring more black oil into the ocean. Remember, just because an ocean is polluted doesn't excuse the further pollution. Five big evil labels are now four bigger, more evil labels, and the non-SONY/BMG labels will scramble to do whatever they can to catch up to this news, which means plenty of bands will be punted out of their contracts and dropped on their asses before said bands ever had a chance to tour and recoup their previous marketing expenditures. Another sad day in major label history.
And what happens when a major sheet music publisher such as Warner-Chappell cracks down on Free music, claiming (successfully, unlike SCO) that some of the Free songwriters lifted their melodies from copyrighted works? If you wrote Free songs, and you were accused of stealing melodies, what would you do to defend yourself in light of the evidence and precedents?
So much talk about supporting indie musicians, how about we start right at "home." If your band has music online, email me the info ... I'll put together a simple list. There's got to be something for everyone.
robertpaul AT gmail
Who doesn't like free music?
One of the primary functions of the big music labels is to function as a filter between musicians and listeners, so that listeners can have at least some basic expectation of quality when they buy a CD. Though paying twenty bucks for a CD doesn't guarantee high quality, it at least usually guarantees that some people will at least consider it pretty good.
This function could be automated by a recommender system (like movielens does for movies). Does anyone know of a good site for public domain / creative commons music recommendations? My past experience with PD music is that what I downloaded wasn't very good, but that may be because I wasn't downloading the right music. Or, for that matter, does anyone have recommendations for particular bands or songs that are freely available?
-jim
Apollo Diamond's cultured gemstones will break the De Beers diamond cartel, and after Apollo Diamond's patents expire in a couple decades, the bottom will fall out of the diamond market. The music industry, on the other hand, has the near-impossibility of writing a legally original song to back it up.
I recently released an album under a Creative Commons license
When writing the songs on that album, what steps did you take to make sure you didn't accidentally pull a George Harrison and subconsciously copy some copyrighted tune?
But, but, what about all those poor middlemen that I saved by buying DRM-crippled CDs? Do you mean the labels really don't give a damn about them at all?
If your theory is different from practice, then your theory is wrong.
They all scale twoards monopoly. The bigger you are, the more you can attack your competitors, allowing you to become bigger still. Not all fields are at their most efficient when run by a monopoly (about the only ones which are are utilities), but we aren't discussing efficiency- we're discussing money and power, which is what capitalism is all about. You have more of each the bigger you are.
Now some fields, due to lower barriers to entry, are more resistant to this effect because new businesses can easily join the market. But even these eventually merge to increase their market power. Its the natural state of capitalism.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Sony BMG: Buy More Games
seems to suit them nicely!
Only if you can get all the execs on a ship...
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
"Vivendi-owned Universal and Sony BMG, as the new company is to be called, account for about 46 percent of music sold worldwide."
That's one hell of a lot of Hilary Duff CDs.
At this point I no longer understand why there are complaints on slashdot about events such as this. It is clear that the faults of the recording industry are not going to be fixed slowly over time. It is too late to merely stop them, now that they have gained too much momentum.
The recording industry has been headed in one direction for a long time now, and it only leads to requiring increasingly ridiculous measures (legal, drm, etc) to maintain their position.
The more likely outcome, in my opinion, is then that the music industry will continue consolidating, and attempting to defend a failing business model, and eventually collapse. Treating their customers as criminals is not going to tolerated forever.
Personally, I think this merger is great, in that it is just pushing the recording industry one step closer to their eventual doom.
I had a lovely sig... went something like
--
DUDE,
MEET ME IN
MONTANA.
XXOO,
JESUS (H. CHRIST)
it's the note that Homer sent Flander's to keep him away from Marge's party. It rocked.
But alas, CocaWarner McMicroSonySoft is brilliant. Ce la vi.
put the what in the where?
I've been running a similar kind of site for a while now also (just not as frequently updated). I link to bands I'm friends with and sometimes host their music, as well as promote my own music at 8x7.org, and I try to provide news relevant to free music and the digital music movement.
I have always believed in the idea that the music should be made available for free, and a band can live off of everything that is around it (merch, touring, licensing of music). Depending on a label to carry your career is dangerous for 99% of the artists out there.
Sound waves should be free!
All corporations merge to form Omni Corp!
Aaah, who doesn't love the Onion?
Not a sentence!
"When he first gave me that little stuffed troll, and blurted out that he thought I was 'really hot', I suppose I thought he was sweet," she said. "Kind of a geek, but around here, who isn't? Then, every time I turned around, he was standing there staring at me. It got creepy very quickly. I'm not really that angry with him," she added, "but I do wish that he'd find someone else to obsess over. The webpage with 'Imagine a Beowulf Cluster of Ceren' written over about 200 copies of the same picture of me - that was the last straw."
Police refuse to comment on the candlelit shrine supposedly found in her stalker's bedroom, with a photograph of Ceren, superimposed onto the body of Princess Leia in her slave costume, as the central image.
Doing my level best to piss off the religious right wing...
Supply.
Demand.
questions?
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
I don't mean to sound like an ass but as a musician why the hell should I give-up my creative secrets so that someone else can use them?
Believe it or not, some people enjoy contributing to the community. Look at sites such as these for example. For the vast majority of musicians, playing and recording music is not a spectacularly lucrative endeavor.
Is there really any logical reason as to why music should be open source and why I shouldn't make money off my hard work.
Some artists release their work under less restrictive licenses to gain exposure and accolade.
What the hell is the point anyway, the whole idea behind open source software is so that if a coder missed a bug or a feature wasn't included (and that the community wants) it can be fixed or included
You seem to have a very limited conception of the merits of open source. One of the things that motivates me to use open source software is the fear of planned obsolescence. I don't like to have my data at the mercy of a single software company. I'd prefer to at least have the option of employing my fair use rights to customize commercial software. As a consumer of music, wouldn't you like to have multi-track versions of your favorite songs?
THIS COULD NOT WORK WITH MUSIC by it's very definition music is done when it's done.
It does happen, I've already shown you the evidence. The links that I've posted will take you to sites where patch and sequencing data are legally shared among communities of musicians. Some programs, such as Reason, are particularly suited for this kind of sharing. Both the musicians and their audience benefit from this open exchange of information.
We all have taken something from the commons. Would you have been a musician if you had to invent your own instruments, scales, and time signatures?
no, you can't guarantee that at all. your entire post is just conjecture.