bye bye EMI

[Brandon Burke]

all,

not sure if this was already posted or not - i haven't been around much - but figured it's newsworthy if for no other reason than the future of the BN catalog on disc. (to say nothing for Beatles, classical, etc).

hmm..

Brandon

[Guy Berger]

Yikes, time to buy some of those RVGs and Connoisseurs!

Guy

[zen archer]

They claim Sir macca could have saved EMI ? sounds like it would take more than a small dip into his

fortunes to save them

[Stefan Wood]

Yeah. I can see potential vultures picking apart the catalogue for their own reissue labels, downloads, etc.

[David Ayers]

And remember that Mosaic is half-owned by EMI.

[Guy Berger]

The only good thing that comes out of this for us is that the private equity guys that will own EMI will be much more interested in "leveraging" the label's assets. That may mean less reluctance to license out recordings.

Guy

[MoGrubb]

One man could have saved the company with a small dip into his personal fortune, but Sir Paul McCartney is otherwise preoccupied and evidently disinterested.

The cheap bastid.

[clifford_thornton]

Whoa...

[ghost of miles]

Read about this last week & don't know enough to really comment yet, but obviously it doesn't look good. Any chance Mosaic could find a way to buy back EMI's 50% stake? I'm also concerned about the possible impact on Blue Note.

[J Larsen]

I have some relatively high-level connections to Terra Firma. I probably can't find anything out, but I will try. However, I do expect the worst. Part of the MO here is to slash the "ancillary" divisions of the company.

Good thing BN got so much reissued when it did. Isn't Angel also part of EMI? Yikes...

[J Larsen]

Read about this last week & don't know enough to really comment yet, but obviously it doesn't look good. Any chance Mosaic could find a way to buy back EMI's 50% stake? I'm also concerned about the possible impact on Blue Note.

If they needed to dip into the capital markets back then, I doubt that they can afford to buy themselves back now. Is it a 50% stake in just profits or also in control? It is possible to have one without the other...

[Chalupa]

The Beatles did not call their album Abbey Road for nothing: it was the crucible of their art. The studio, a tourist shrine, was eerily quiet when I strolled past yesterday; it is locally rumoured to be up for development sale as soon as the parent company’s fate is settled.

"development sale"???? WTF?? Are they going to raze it for condos???

[Teasing the Korean]

In Monday’s (5/28) New York Times, Jeff Leeds reports:

“Despite costly efforts to build buzz around new talent and thwart piracy, CD sales have plunged more than 20 percent this year, far outweighing any gains made by digital sales at iTunes and similar services ... It’s been four years since the last big shuffle in ownership of the major record labels. But now, with the sales plunge dimming hopes for a recovery any time soon, there is a new game of corporate musical chairs afoot that could shake up the industry hierarchy. Under the deal that awaits shareholder approval, London-based EMI agreed last week to be purchased for more than $4.7 billion by a private equity investor, Terra Firma Capital Partners, whose diverse holdings include a European waste-conversion business.” Leeds adds: “More than half of all music acquired by fans last year came from unpaid sources including Internet file sharing and CD burning, according to the market research company NPD Group. The ‘social’ ripping and burning of CDs among friends -- which takes place offline and almost entirely out of reach of industry policing efforts -- accounted for 37 percent of all music consumption, more than file-sharing.”

The buyers' ownership of a waste-conversion business will be especially helpful in running a record label.

[Indestructible!]

In Monday’s (5/28) New York Times, Jeff Leeds reports:

The ‘social’ ripping and burning of CDs among friends -- which takes place offline and almost entirely out of reach of industry policing efforts -- accounted for 37 percent of all music consumption, more than file-sharing.”

I'd be interested to know the methods/research that led to this statistic... seems a little too "specific" to me.

"Aw, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. 14 percent of all people know that."

It will be intesting to see what becomes of ol' EMI. Somewhere John Lydon is quietly chuckling to himself.

Cheers,

Shane

[J Larsen]

I'd guess that they looked at music cdr sales, data cdr sales, and market research into how data cdrs are used.

[J Larsen]

Whoops - that said ripping and burning. What I said above obviously only applies to burning. Ripping is trickier, but they may be doing something like looking at total capicity of all in-use MP3 players, total capacity of all in-use personal computer internal and external harddiscs and market research into how people use their harddisc storage, total GBs of music known to have either been downloaded illegally, purchased legally or legally copied from one's own cds, and then estimated the "socially ripped" MP3s as the residual. Just a guess, but I bet I'm not too far off.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

The Beatles did not call their album Abbey Road for nothing: it was the crucible of their art. The studio, a tourist shrine, was eerily quiet when I strolled past yesterday; it is locally rumoured to be up for development sale as soon as the parent company’s fate is settled.

"development sale"???? WTF?? Are they going to raze it for condos???

Maida Vale has ALWAYS been a very, very, posh part of London. And even the cheap areas are hugely expensive.

MG

[BruceH]

They claim Sir macca could have saved EMI ? sounds like it would take more than a small dip into his

fortunes to save them

Yes, that sounded fishy to me too. I'd think even McCartney might choke on 2.4 billion pounds.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

This saddens me, not because I'm British but because EMI was the only major which continuously sought a worldwide span and a presence in minor markets like Mali, which no other major would ever bother about. But those minor markets constitute the majority of the world; and their populations don't rip burn and download - they still want physical discs/tapes.

I remember in the early '60s Goddard Leiberson saying, contemptuously, of EMI, "they say they're the world's biggest record company because they've got a pressing plant in India". Yeah, right on.

[GA Russell]

http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php...&hl=private

[CJ Shearn]

this is not good at all. I just hope theres still time to grab the many BN things I haven't bought previously, when I start my new job in July I hope things are still around.

[Patrick]

I have some relatively high-level connections to Terra Firma. I probably can't find anything out, but I will try. However, I do expect the worst. Part of the MO here is to slash the "ancillary" divisions of the company.

Is slashing the ancillary division necessarily a bad outcome? Said differently, presumably the Blue Note catalog has some value (however small) to somebody. Wouldn't TF try to maximize their return by selling the unit to somebody rather than throwing it away? They may not get much for it, but at the right price someone should be interested, and presumably the outfit that would pay the most is one that plans to do something productive with it (...like sell re-re-re-re-reissues of Blue Train ).

[BruceH]

this is not good at all. I just hope theres still time to grab the many BN things I haven't bought previously, when I start my new job in July I hope things are still around.

Presumebly you could always get burns from your friends on the Organissimo Jazz Forum!

[brownie]

Why worry?

So much excellent recordings were made more than fifty years ago. I'm sure the Europeans will take care of providing the music legally.

The next years should see a blossoming of more and more interesting reissues.

[Man with the Golden Arm]

So EMI dies but is resurrected by iTunes Plus?

Finally, DRM Free 'iTunes Plus'

Techtree News Staff

May 31, 2007

Apple Computer has reportedly finally launched DRM-free music under its "iTunes Plus" service.

"iTunes Plus" will feature EMI's digital catalog, including singles and albums from 'Coldplay', 'The Rolling Stones', 'Norah Jones', 'Frank Sinatra', 'Joss Stone', 'Pink Floyd', 'John Coltrane', and 'Paul McCartney'.

Speaking on the occasion, Steve Jobs, Chief Executive Officer of Apple, said, "Our customers are very excited about the freedom, and amazing sound quality of 'iTunes Plus'. We expect more than half of the songs on iTunes will be offered in 'iTunes Plus' versions by the end of this year."

Eric Nicoli, Chief Executive Officer, EMI Group, said, "This is a tremendous milestone for digital music. Consumers are going to love listening to higher quality 'iTunes Plus' tracks from their favorite EMI artists, with no usage restrictions."

With the release of "iTunes Plus", customers can now download tracks by their favorite EMI artists, without limitations on the type of music players, or number of computers that these songs can be played on.

"iTunes Plus" songs purchased from iTunes will play on all iPods and other digital music players, Mac or Windows computers, and widescreen TVs with Apple TV, claims Apple.

In addition, iTunes is offering customers a simple, one-click option to upgrade their library of previously purchased EMI content to the "iTunes Plus" versions.

Meanwhile, the DRM-free tracks with 256 kbps AAC encoding will be available for just $1.29 (Rs 54.50 approx) per song. Alongside, iTunes will continue with its old service, offering DRM tracks at 99 cents per song.

Previously purchased EMI content can be upgraded to "iTunes Plus" versions for a price of 30 cents per song and $3.00 (Rs 122 approx) for most albums.

so everyone will think that the new bit rates will make your MP3s sound twice as good?