Universal Buys EMI's Recorded Music Unit For $1.9 Billion 119
An anonymous reader writes "The 'Big Four' music labels are about to become the 'Big Three.' Universal Music Group is buying the recorded music unit of EMI for $1.9 billion. It's expected that a consortium led by Sony will soon purchase EMI's publishing unit for upwards of $2 billion. 'Although the enlarged Universal will now account a third of all music sales worldwide, company executives believe they can persuade regulators to allow it to swallow the business whole because the music industry is in such decline. Nevertheless, Universal will respond by selling record labels or catalogs if the European Commission were to demand disposals.'"
Price disparity (Score:5, Insightful)
Even at $2B+, it's still probably cheaper to buy EMI outright than to pay copyright charges for all of their songs.
Decline? Huh (Score:5, Insightful)
Their revenue [grabstats.com] says differently. It's grown. And during a recession, at that. And yeah, there is inflation to account for and whatnot. Still, grown.
Oh wait, piracy is destroying the music industry, blah blah BULLSHIT. Not that it really matters, most of their produce is as much bullshit as their claims. Unfortunately, a bigger cartel^H company is likely to be able to "lobby" for more Internet regulation.
Eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
"buying the recorded music unit of EMI for $1.9 billion"
"It's expected that a consortium led by Sony will soon purchase EMI's publishing unit for upwards of $2 billion."
"company executives believe they can persuade regulators to allow it to swallow the business whole because the music industry is in such decline."
1.9bn for a single (apparently struggling) company. Wow. Wish my company was in such decline. Strange that an industry can decline while those producing the devices that music plays are and those selling music (albeit online now rather than physical) are at their most popular and profitable in the entire history of music.
Hell, those idiots only started counting digital sales in the UK Top 10 just about a year ago. In denial much?
Be afraid, be very afraid (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
The music industry is tiny (Score:3, Insightful)
So, EMI accounts for about one-third of the music sales in the country, and it's worth about $2 billion. That means the entire recording industry, copyrights and all, is worth about $6 billion total? Google could buy the whole thing out of its pocket change if it wanted to (and if regulators let it).
Heck, if we had one multi-billionaire who was devoted to the free content movement, he/she could put an end to the RIAA and music copyrights once and for all for a relatively small price.
Remind me again why these idiots have so much political power? Lots of other industries are worth a hell of a lot more than $6 billion and we never hear of Congress bending nearly this far backward for most of them. Even Senate malapportionment can't be an excuse here, since the music industry is overwhelmingly California-based and they have only two Senators just like every other state.
Re:Decline? Huh (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow, a whole 2% annual growth, that's just mind-blowing. Definitive proof that stealing music doesn't hurt anyone.
Say, what do you sell for a living? Cars? I'm one of the people that's been stealing cars off your lot. You're losing money? Bullshit! You're insured! And your cars suck anyway! And you're an asshole!
Sorry folks, here in Canada, my band is postponing our annual nationwide tour because larger venues are doing less and less live music in favour of DJ bullshit (which many of them play pirated music) so we're now competing with Juno award winners for 200-500 seat venues. We now have to book a year in advance to get the key venues to make the tour profitable.
So you'll have to forgive me as I break ranks with other musicians who have placated piracy advocates. We're just being polite because our reputations require it. I've done over 100,000 miles of touring, I've seen members of hit bands looking for odds jobs because their back catalog doesn't sell, I've seen the empty floors at Sony's NYC offices, I know excellent producers that are hopelessly in debt, and I know musicians that kick the shit out of current pop stars but can't get 1/10th the record deal they could have in the 80's.
You do not know what the fuck you're talking about. No matter how you interpret the infinitesimal amount of information you have on the matter, your advocacy of piracy directly prevents me from doing what I love and providing for other talented musicians. I'm not going to pretend I can stop you from pirating music, but please shut the fuck up.
Re:Decline? Huh (Score:5, Insightful)
First, in this economy, 2% in this economy IS mind-blowing. I know as a musician you might not follow the financial news but even 2% decline would be seen as good news for some businesses.
Are you seriously blaming piracy for your industries inability to adapt to a changing marketplace? Guess what - most people have no problem with paying for music but the industry, instead of adapting quickly, took YEARS to react and when they did it was to squelch digital formats instead of embrace them.
Some can even argue that people who pirate music probably wouldn't even have bought it in the first place - at least not a full CD. Back before mp3s I can think of plenty of songs I liked that I didn't buy because I didn't want the whole CD so I just never got the song. Now I wouldn't hesitate to just buy that song so you are actually getting MORE money than you would have before.
Re:Decline? Huh (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Decline? Huh (Score:5, Insightful)
"I've seen members of hit bands looking for odds jobs because their back catalog doesn't sell"
Not gonna cry too much over that. I go to work every day and do a good job; I don't expect to then be able to retire a year later and live off the profits of that good day's work forever more...
Re:Decline? Huh (Score:5, Insightful)
This is kind of a good point. Since when did "being a musician" amount to only having to work for a year or two, and then be ultra-rich? Maybe musicians just have to work 9-5, 5 days a week, like the rest of us..
Re:Decline? Huh (Score:2, Insightful)
Even if this decline you speak of is happening, why are you putting the blame on piracy, which survey after survey has shown is decreasing, if anything. I'll admit I download a crapton of pirated music just for convenience sake (and because a lot of the music I like isn't readily available in the US.). But I also have a paid napster account, a paid pandora acct, a paid last.fm account, and I still buy individual tracks from iTunes that I can't get from the other services.
The real reasons that music has not increased more have nothing to do with piracy. The young artist today has to compete with the digitally pristine back catalogs of Queen, Nirvana, etc, and consequently is going into an industry where most items are commodity priced. And your band has to compete with 800 cable channels, 3d movies, xbox360 and thousands of fart apps. Back when all of my friends were into Pink Floyd for years, I could internally justify saving up 3 months allowance to see them, but today, even a Justin Bieber can't muster up Floyd type sales because artists can't dominate the demographic any more.
You want to blame something for the demise of music? Blame the cellphone, which has changed listening to music from something you do as its own activity in your house, to something you use as background noise while texting.
(smafti)
Re:What a bunch of lies. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Decline? Huh (Score:5, Insightful)
Which band? You have a chance for some self-promotion, why are you ignoring it?
Welcome to 2011, where anybody can make music, and where there's an ever growing amount of stuff to listen to. Your new music then makes a smaller and smaller addition to the whole.
People still buy ABBA CDs. It sounds perfectly good, and a lot of people don't particularly feel like trying to filter out the good songs of 2011 from the trash when they can just buy a collection of the classics and have something perfectly nice to listen to while commuting.
No, I don't plan to shut up.
Here's where I stand: I care about my freedom and my Internet much more than I care about my music. If push comes to shove, I'll glady accept having the entire music industry bankrupt, if it means they stop trying to mess with my hardware, my Internet connection, and sneakily trying to reach into my wallet.
One day I looked at an invoice, and noticed that half the purchase price for some DVD-Rs amounted to a tax for the music industry. So, I decided to vote with my dollars. In the last 5 years I've not bought any music. Where I am, they tax recordable media, so I stopped buying DVD-Rs as well. They tax other media too, so I just have it shipped from another country (at extra shipping expense, purely for the satisfaction of not giving money to organizations I don't like)
No, I don't pirate it either, I just keep listening to what I have and find alternative things to listen to (music from Jamendo, TED talks, etc). That's just it, I'm tired of this music industry crap, and decided they will not have any of my money. No matter what anti-piracy measures are taken, no matter what laws are passed, I'm done with the music industry, and they're not getting another cent from me that I can avoid paying, even if it involves shipping hard disks from the other side of the planet. Sony has empty floors now? Good.
Only way I will pay for music ever again is if it comes from a street musician, or indie musician who is not associated with the various recording associations.
Re:Decline? Huh (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow, a whole 2% annual growth, that's just mind-blowing. Definitive proof that stealing music doesn't hurt anyone.
2% growth in an industry that large is really quite significant actually.
Say, what do you sell for a living? Cars? I'm one of the people that's been stealing cars off your lot. You're losing money? Bullshit! You're insured! And your cars suck anyway! And you're an asshole!
Totally different. If you brought raw materials and made an exact copy of that car, the car lot owner couldn't really say shit. Ford might be able to take action if I sold or distributed copies but they couldn't do squat otherwise. Pirating music involves physically stealing nothing. It is just a near-perfect reproduction created on the pirate's own equipment. More like counterfeiting than stealing. And it's likely a sale you wouldn't otherwise have anyway.
Sorry folks, here in Canada, my band is postponing our annual nationwide tour because larger venues are doing less and less live music in favour of DJ bullshit (which many of them play pirated music) so we're now competing with Juno award winners for 200-500 seat venues. We now have to book a year in advance to get the key venues to make the tour profitable.
That's not because of pirates, that's because people haven't been going to shows because douchebags like you have been openly hostile toward them for getting your music heard by others.
When you treat your entire customer base like untrustworthy criminals, they tend to not want to be your customer anymore. When you do it publicly and openly, they even tend to unite against you and cost you as much money as possible because hating you becomes a cool thing to do socially. And as part of the backlash more people find bittorrent clients.
The funny thing is that I don't really pirate music. I just stopped buying any when I realized how corrupt and twisted the music industry is and how little the artists are actually compensated.
Piracy may have increased some but the hassle DRM and other tactics have introduced have really made people uneasy about buying CD's if they can't use them however they want with their hardware.
Right now, the pirates have a much better DRM-free easily accessible product. Want to make more money? Give people what they want.
So you'll have to forgive me as I break ranks with other musicians who have placated piracy advocates. We're just being polite because our reputations require it. I've done over 100,000 miles of touring, I've seen members of hit bands looking for odds jobs because their back catalog doesn't sell,
Wow, sounds like those band members should have planned for financial difficulty a little better instead of assuming their art is better than it is and will sell. Never put your eggs into one basket. Either write crappy music that all the teeny boppers want to hear or write real music and be a starving artist. That's how it works.
I've seen the empty floors at Sony's NYC offices, I know excellent producers that are hopelessly in debt, and I know musicians that kick the shit out of current pop stars but can't get 1/10th the record deal they could have in the 80's.
You do not know what the fuck you're talking about.
Maybe because real music played on real instruments doesn't sell like it did in the 80's. It's not just piracy, people are actively boycotting the music industry. Cry me a river. Don't like it? Get a real f**king job.
And Sony deserves everything they have coming to them. Every ounce of it. They've screwed themselves as well as treated artists like shit for years.
I really doubt piracy now per capita is any worse than the heyday of recordable cassette tapes. Piracy is more a convenient scape goat for a poorly run industry that depends on ancient legislation and sleazily buying new legislation to remove our rights to secure