Fox makes nice with Universal
p2pnet news | Music:- It’s cold, pitiless and savage war in the world of corporate entertainment as various cartel elements try to figure out how they can cash in on the possibilities offered by online distribution.
The idea is to grab as much as you can and give back as little as possible.
Customers? Forget it. We don’t count.
Potentially, the best thing that ever happened to the movie and music industry was P2P and file sharing. Free promotion, viral advertising, branding, fast, efficient distribution, no more costly packing, instant communication with consumers. And a whole lot more.
And a new Industry Canada study states, flatly, that P2P file-sharing, “tends to increase rather than decrease music purchasing”.
But that’s definitely not how the major labels or studios see it.
They call it piracy and they both loathe and fear it. And they’re equally afraid someone else will figure out how to effectively plug into it before they do.
‘Tense and convoluted’
p2pnet posted earlier today:
Warner Music, abandoned by Madonna and marked down as ’sell’ by a firm of New York analysts, is engaged in what Forbes is calling a ‘piracy spat’ with Nokia.
Mosh is “Your Stuff. Any Phone. Everywhere” – boasts Mokia on the Mosh website. But not quite. Because Warner has petulantly refused to allow Nokia to run Warner ‘product’ on Mosh.
By way of contrast, “For much of this year, News Corp.’s movie and television studios refused to use in their productions almost any music controlled by Vivendi SA’s Universal Music Group” says the Wall Street Journal, going on:
“The Twentieth Century Fox film and TV studios’ ban on using Universal music was recently lifted.”
But the move, “highlights the tense and convoluted relations between media conglomerates with conflicting agendas in the digital age,” says the story, quoting “numerous people familiar with the situation” as saying the ban was implemented in February by “senior News Corp” management, “in reaction to a lawsuit Universal had filed against News Corp. and MySpace.”
The suit alleged MySpace, “contributed to copyright infringement by allowing users to post unauthorized copies of Universal’s songs and music videos”.
President and CEO Peter Chernin was behind the ban and also gave the directive to lift it, “according to a person close to the Fox TV studio,” continues the WSJ, adding:
“Throughout the standoff, which lasted around eight months, the campaign remained confined to music licensing. Given its limited duration, the ban’s financial impact on Universal Music was minimal, people familiar with it said.”
Also See:
increase rather than decrease – P2P file sharing boosts music sales, November , 2007
Wall Street Journal – Fox Lifts Ban on Music Controlled by Universal, November 5, 2007
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