p2pnet - rss feed: The Big 4 Organized Music cartel
p2pnet news | music:- To all intents and purposes, EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany) and Warner Music (US) are the only record labels in town.
Any town.
In much the same way Organized Crime is universally known as OC, p2pnet calls the Big 4 the Organized Music cartel.
Because what they say goes. Their demands dictate corporate policy and they’re principally responsible for instructing the many and various ‘trade’ copyright enforcement units such as the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), BPI (British Phonographic Industry), IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industry) and CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association of America).
Recording Industry vs The People has a list of the record labels which show up most often on the RIAA’s ‘Frequent Plaintiff List’.
They are: Arista; Atlantic; BMG; Capitol; Elektra; Fonovisa; Interscope; Lava; Loud; Maverick; Motown Priority; SONY; UMG; Virgin; and, Warner.
There are also numerous other apparently separate labels such as Priority Records.
But dig deeper and it seems:
- Arista is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony BMG
- Atlantic is owned by the Warner Music Group
- BMG is the German half of the Sony BMG partnership
- Capitol is owned by EMI
- Elektra is owned by the Warner Music Group
- Interscope is owned by Vivendi’s Universal Music Group
- Lava is owned by owned by Warner Music Group
- Loud is owned by UMG
- Priority Records is owned by EMI
- Maverick is owned by the Warner Music Group
- Motown Priority is owned by Vivendi’s Universal Music Group
- SONY is the Japanese half of the Sony BMG partnership
- UMG is Vivendi’s Universal Music Group
- Virgin Music is owned by EMI
- Warner Music Group is Warner Music
Only Fonovisa Records, an American Spanish language label, has the slightest appearance of being separate from the Big 4.
Also See:
Recording Industry vs The People - IPhone Flaw Lets Hackers Take Over, Security Firm Says, July 21, 2007
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July 23rd, 2007 at 9:36 am
And your point is???
July 23rd, 2007 at 10:44 am
One could argue that if you want all these sub company’s to act completely independent. Then the same should apply to all industries but if for example Sony/panasonic did not make special deals with or look after the interests of the smaller sub company’s then most if not electronics they sell would be much more expensive as each set of management would be after maximizing there profits driving the cost of assembling a TV etc. up.
the real issue you should be raising is whether by the big 4 working together sharing resources etc. they gain more than 50% market share which (in the uk) would be against competition laws. but then again you always state that I-tunes is like a drop in the ocean compared to the independent market so a 50% share is unlikely.
July 26th, 2007 at 5:16 am
as they say. everything comes down into one. well.. that’s the reality of it. Though this small companies operates as an independent label, they still belong to one of these giant labels.