An Analysis / Commentary

The European Union today rubber-stamped . . . er, approved the proposed merger of Sony Music Entertainment, Inc., and BMG (Bertelsmann Music Group), thus leaving 80 percent of the total market into fewer and fewer hands. This, after closed-door meetings last month with the heretofore two companies and with other “third parties,” thus disregarding the objections of independent companies who have bitterly fought against this action – and which are planning an appeal to overturn the E.U.’s (rhymes with P.U.) ruling, which was made, in the words of one source, “without conditions.” Whether the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) goes along with this insanity remains to be seen – although it’s highly likely that may well be the case.

The ironies in this can be found if you look for them. In this writer’s case, ironies can be found in the previous parentage of the two individual firms. Sony Music had once been known as CBS Records, named after its prior owner, the so-called “Tiffany Network,” and BMG came into being after General Electric, which took over RCA Corporation (formerly Radio Corporation of America) in 1985–86, dumped its record division onto Bertelsmann. RCA Victor (as it was known well into the 1970’s), by dint of its corporate parentage, had been affiliated with the NBC network. Both companies had custom-pressing divisions that handled a slew of labels, big, small and medium (sometimes at the same time), and both have had profitable mail-order record club services. If this combination had occurred, say, 30 years ago, what would the combined company have been called – “NBCBS”? (Just musing.)

The full enchilada can be found here.

Reminds me of that episode of the Simpsons where future Homer and Marge were watching CNNBCBS: A Division of ABC.

1 World Government? New World Order?
How about a One World Corporation?

Like them apples? You better, cause that is what you are gonna get.

who says there's no monopoly

There's another irony here, insofar as that many, many years ago, both names also had other foreign ties: the name "Columbia," outside of North America, was owned by EMI (up to 1990), and the "His Master's Voice" symbol, associated in the U.S., Canada and Mexico with RCA Victor, was likewise owned by EMI in the rest of the world (the "HMV" label). Indeed, it was the 1931 merger of the Columbia Graphophone Co. Ltd. (parent of U.K. Columbia) and Gramophone Co. Ltd. (parent of HMV) into EMI that led to the U.K. company divesting of the U.S. Columbia, leading to a downward spiral that was only ended when CBS took over the American Record Corporation (ARC) in December, 1938.

I can think of another situation similar: the oil industry. Remember, back in 1911, when the courts ordered John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil trust to be broken into different companies? Now, slowly, bit by bit, they're coming together again; the most blatant example being Exxon (former Esso, Standard Oil of New Jersey) and Mobil (derived from Socony, Standard Oil of New York) merging to become ExxonMobil. But there are others: Conoco-Phillips, BP-Amoco (the ex-Standard Oil of Indiana, a.k.a. American Oil Co., combining with British Petroleum), Chevron-Texaco . . . the whole thing is enough to make one barf.

Sort of like a monopolator instead of a terminator. All the pieces that were blown asunder melding back into the evil machine.

I've always said that one day,(probably soon) the RIAA won't need to exist because of USBET- Universal Sony-Bertelsmann EMI TimeWarner.

I mean, come on. How much more consolidated can we get? USBET is hard to beat.

:-:~ Phantom

I just thought of something. The RIAA sues people on idea of "theft".

The RIAA is stealing, they are THIEVING, my bandwidth, my ISP's bandwidth, hell... the WORLD's bandwidth with thier unsolicited and negligent means of running thier fucking spiders over my airspace to "probe" me for files, legitimate or not, thiers or not.

I find this a condemnable act, no better than Spam (an enemy so great, it is a proper noun now) and other brute hacks. How many servers has the RIAA crashed in thier holy war? How many end users daily are getting barraged on Peerguardian by eerie names of sites. Why does Peerguardian block AOL? Disney? Time Warner? Countless of servers?

Wait, aren't we supposed to trust these guys? Don't they own our testicles on paper in "legitimate form"? Where the hell did my freedom go and how much will it cost me to get it back?

Where is our Justice Department? Like they would be able to do anything about this, after all, Sony and BMG aren't AMERICAN companies anyways, are they??? Yet, the E. U., which ought to know better by looking at the examples of monopolies in the U.S. approved this merger. What a joke! Just when you thought things weren't going to get worse as far as music is concerned, you find out they are.

The Justice Department is kinda busy looking the other way.