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| Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Inc. | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type | Joint venture |
| Founded | August 4, 2004 |
| Headquarters | New York City, USA see List of Sony BMG offices |
| Key people | Chairman of the Board of Directors Chief Executive Officer Chief Operating Officer Executive Vice President Chief Financial Officer |
| Industry | Music & Entertainment |
| Products | Music & Entertainment |
| Parent | Sony Corporation (50%) Bertelsmann AG (50%) |
| Website | www.sonybmg.com |
Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Inc. is the result of a 50/50 joint venture between Sony Music Entertainment (part of Sony) and Bertelsmann Music Group (part of Bertelsmann) completed on August 5, 2004. It is one of the Big Four music companies, and includes ownership and distribution of recording labels such as Arista Records, Columbia Records, Epic Records, J Records, RCA Victor Records, RCA Records, Legacy Recordings, Sonic Wave America, and others.
Financial analysts covering the merger anticipated that up to 2,000 jobs could be cut as a result, saving Sony BMG approximately $350 million annually.
The company\'s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) is Rolf Schmidt-Holtz, who succeeded Andrew Lack on February 10, 2006. In the first half of 2005, the company\'s share of new releases in the United States (US) declined from 33% to 26% according to Nielsen SoundScan. This, and Lack\'s negotiation of what some called an "ill-conceived" deal with Bruce Springsteen led to Bertelsmann informing Sony that it would not renew Lack\'s contract. Lack now holds the position of Chairman of the Board, the position formerly occupied by Schmidt-Holz.
The company signed a content deal with the popular video sharing community YouTube.
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On March 27, 2006, the New York Times reported that Bertelsmann was in talks with Sony to possibly alter the current venture. Two executives close to SONY BMG have said that Bertelsmann may offer Sony its half of the company in order to raise money by leveraging some of its media assets. Executives close to Sony BMG have stressed that any such agreement will likely take months to conclude.[1]
On July 13, 2006, however, the European Court of First Instance annulled the European Commission\'s clearance decision as IMPALA (a trade association for independent labels in Europe) had applied for. This judgment was appealed by the merging parties. On October 3, 2007, after a new investigation, the European Commission upheld its prior approval of the merger.[2]
It was announced that SONY BMG will dismantle the Sony Urban Music label. All of the artists will now be assigned to Epic or Columbia.[3]
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This list may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia\'s quality standards. Please help improve this list. It may be poorly defined, unverified or indiscriminate. |
Sony BMG was fined 10 million dollars after the New York Attorney General\'s office determined that they had been practicing payola mostly in the form of direct payments to radio stations and bribes to disc jockeys to promote various artists including Franz Ferdinand, Audioslave, Celine Dion and mainly Jessica Simpson.
Epic Records, one of their labels, was specifically cited for using fake contests in order to hide the fact that the gifts were going to disc jockeys rather than listeners . Sony Settles Payola Investigation from the Office of the Attorney General of New York [4]..
A controversy over digital rights management (DRM) software that automatically installed itself on people\'s computers and made them more vulnerable to computer viruses that was produced and shipped by Sony BMG ensued. The scandal caused numerous lawsuits and Sony BMG ended up recalling all affected CDs.
November 16 - US-CERT, the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team, part of the United States Department of Homeland Security, issued an advisory on Extended Copy Protection DRM, citing the XCP use of rootkit technology to hide certain files from the computer user as a security threat to computer users and saying that one of the uninstallation options provided by Sony also introduced vulnerabilities to a system.
US-CERT advised, "Do not install software from sources that you do not expect to contain software, such as an audio CD." [5] In its "Top Flops of \'05" issue, the enterprise newsweekly eWeek had to create a new category for the "Sony BMG root-kit fiasco." Peter Coffee, of eWeek Labs reported, "The Sony brand name was already in trouble—it lost 16 percent of its value between 2004 and 2005....
Now it has taken a body blow among tech-product opinion leaders. We\'ve never done it before, and we hope we\'ll never have occasion to do it again but, for 2005, eWeek Labs awards a stupid tech trick grand prize to Sony." eWeek Vol. 22, No.50
In October 2007, it was announced that Sony BMG successfully sued Jammie Thomas. The single mother, who makes $36,000 a year, was ordered to pay $222,220 in damages for making 24 songs available for download on the Kazaa file-sharing network. Thomas is currently appealing the decision.
| Sony Corporation | |
|---|---|
| Technologies and brands | α · Betacam · Blu-ray · BRAVIA · CD · Cyber-shot · DAT · DVD · Handycam · HDCAM/HDCAM-SR · LocationFree · Memory Stick · MiniDisc · MiniDV · mylo · PlayStation · PSP · S/PDIF · VAIO · Video8/Hi8/Digital8 · Walkman (A810) · Walkman Phones · XDCAM |
| Historical products | AIBO · Betamax · Sony CLIÉ · Lissa · Mavica · NEWS · Qualia · TR-55 · Trinitron · U-matic · WEGA |
| Operating segments | Sony Corp. (Sony Electronics in the US) · Sony Pictures · Sony Computer Entertainment · Sony Financial Holdings · Sony Music |
| Acquisitions | Columbia Records · Columbia Pictures Entertainment (Columbia Pictures & TriStar Pictures) · Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (20%) · Aiwa |
| Joint Ventures | Sony Ericsson · Sony BMG · Sony/ATV · S-LCD · STLCD · Sony NEC Optiarc · FeliCa Networks |
| Key personnel | Phil Harrison · Kazuo Hirai · Masaru Ibuka · Nobuyuki Idei · Yasuo Kuroki · Ken Kutaragi · Michael Lynton · Akio Morita · Norio Ohga · Amy Pascal · Howard Stringer |
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