And Then There Were Four - EU's Monti to Recommend Sony BMG Merger

[NashVegas]

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Sony Music and BMG took a big step toward completing a proposed record company merger on Thursday, winning unconditional backing from the European Union's top antitrust official, sources close to the situation said.

European Competition Commissioner Mario Monti decided to recommend the merger after meeting with BMG Chairman and Chief Executive Rolf Schmidt-Holtz and consulting with his staff, sources said.

The full European Commission will act before a July 22 deadline and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission also is expected to give the needed approval, one of the sources said.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=industryNews&storyID=5454260§ion=news

[arcos]

1. hahahahaha...

this is unbelievable! :puke:

[AmericanErrorist]

2. In "Honor" of this Merger...

Five Corporations
by Fugazi (Without permission)

Moves so slowly
Grows so smoothly
Takes so neatly
It's as if they belong and they've been here all along
Grows so smoothly
Moves so slowly
Takes completely
It's as if they belong and they've been here all along
This one's ours let's take another
Check the math here check in ten years
Clusterfuck theory buy them up and shut them down
Then repeat in every town
Every town will be the same
This one's ours let's take another
Five corporations there is a pattern

http://lyrics.duble.com/F/fugazilyrics/fugazifivecorporationslyrics.htm

[NashVegas]

3. Oh and By the Way - If Someone REALLY Wants to Fuck Over the Labels

re: file sharing.

get with a friend or someone in college who's going for a communications degree, preferably in a top 40 market. have said friend try to make an appointment with every music-radio program director they can in the region, especially alternative stations. tell said PD they're interviewing & surveying for a paper on the state of radio. buy said PD a drink or two for lunch, and midway through the interview, say they've spoken to some PDs who a label asked to drop a certain record because they were about to cut the artist from their roster, or asked a PD not to add a record because they wanted to work college radio first. if they ask who told you they met that, fudge and say it was in confidence, it's not for the paper you're writing.

take down the names of all the PDs with fruitful answers, and the names of the bands/records/labels that pop up.

then go hand the list to the Electronic Frontier Foundation