And then there were three...

amclark2

EMI purchaser Terra Firma lost its lawsuit against Citigroup, and will most likely go bankrupt, and be chopped up.

Article.

Article.

So it looks like emusic won't have to sign the fourth - just wait for somebody else to buy it. Unless Apple buys it. Maybe emusic should buy it.

pzeke

So much for the Beatles' career...

thomnottom

Best line from the Billboard article:

One has to wonder, however, just how concentrated the recorded music market can become before competition is damaged.

cafreema

Budzinsky points to a number of past issues that are cause for regulatory scrutiny, such as price fixing through minimum advertised pricing in the U.S. In addition, he singles out labels' current erosion of market power due to iTunes' dominant position in the digital marketplace. "The merger could, thus, be seen as an attempt to react to that and trying to restore the old market-power position by means of an increased concentration," he writes in an email to Billboard. "This might lead to a restoration of anticompetitive practices in the new digital world."

Wait...so iTunes is keeping away anticompetitive practices? The mind boggles.

Craig

amclark2

article.

edit: it's a shame about Warner- the whole emu major experience has led me to believe that Warner's by far my favorite of the four.

thomnottom

EMI was probably my favorite from a corporate standpoint. They had truly begun to embrace the changes that digital distribution and cross-media competition were bringing. They lowered prices on CDs and did not pursue DRM. Unfortunately, as that article points out, they never learned that the indies did these things by running a tighter ship.

At least we'll always have the Great Guvera Giveaway to remember them by.

BigD-Bluez

Well that article was certainly depressing. There are advantages to liking music that's often 40-60 or more years old. Thank goodness I've amassed this library of tired ass old timey music to last me through the end of days and the ascendancy of Top 40 Corporate Muzak Soma. Got to collect more.......oh, there's always baroque to keep me warm.

amclark2

I meant Warner was my favorite from a music standpoint more - a lot of music I like on Warner, and I like the way they do re-issues better than anybody else because (1) they maintain album integrity, unlike Sony, and (2) they reissue albums instead of best-of's which Universal has an annoying tendency toward leaving albums oop.

thomnottom

I thought that's what you might have meant, which is why I tossed out the "coporate standpoint" bit. Of course that makes it sound even more lame...

But once the majors started coming, it was a little surprising at how little Sony really did offer. Don't get me wrong - plenty of great material is on Sony. But when I started scrolling through page after page of their releases it was somewhat underwhelming. Warner definitely has a better musical sense overall - and probably a better collection of subsidiaries, too.

amclark2

Uh oh, Warner trouble. Maybe by the end of the year we'll be down to the big two!