EMI's likely buyers

It's looking more and more likely that EMI will be split into two as the auction continues.

Warner Music will probably pick up the recorded music part of the company, with BMG Rights Management - a 50-50 Bertlesmann/ KKR group - taking the bit that makes money.

Ah, yes, KKR are private equity - that's been something of a success for EMI in the past, hasn't it?

Warners are expected to kill the EMI brand in America - or at least finish off the parts that are still twitching following Bungling Hands' time in charge - but might retain it in the UK. It wouldn't be too surprising if some form of EMI America label clung on at the edges, just to play to the sentimental amongst the people who still buy records.

Sony takes it all

There's not much surprise - although their corporate pages don't mention it anywhere - that Sony has bought out Bertelsmann's stake in Sony BMG.

Well, no surprise that it's happened - it's been expected all week - but you'd have to wonder why Sony is so excited. The analysts line is that this is going to make it easier to integrate Sony music product into other Sony businesses; but we can't imagine that the poorly organised Sony corporate structure is going to make it any easier just because there's three letters gone from the letterhead.

You wonder if the real plan is to make it more-or-less impossible for anyone investigating the original merger of Sony and BMG to enforce a divorce, while allowing Bertelsmann to escape a sector in which it has lost heart.

A figure to consider

When record labels tell you that file-sharing is undermining their business, you might want to wonder how Bertelsmann can therefore be valuing their 50% of Sony-BMG at $1.5billion. Either times are so hard it requires criminal prosecution of their wayward foes, or a major label is worth three billion dollars. Can't be both, can it?

Bertelsmann thinks the game's up for major labels

Oh, that noise? That's the sound of another chill running through the offices of the RIAA: the German edition of the FT is reporting that Bertelsmann is having serious talks about dumping its share of Sony BMG. No decisions taken as yet, but even considering the idea is a sign that there's not much faith in the label's ability to deliver much in the way of the "organic growth" that new Bertelesmann chief executive Hartmut Ostrowski is demanding. That, though, will make finding a buyer prepared to pay a decent price quite tricky.

Warners ends its Napster nightmare

The final accounting from the end of the popular version of Napster continues. After EMI, Warners have become the latest label to settle with Bertelsmann over its ownership of late-period file-sharing brand. Money has changed hands, Bertelsmann has refused to admit wrong doing, and now everyone is going to move on and prepare for the new millennium.

It's major versus major

EMI are reportedly weighing up joining a class action against Bertelsmann because of it's underwriting of Napster. This, of course, should be viewed purely on its own, and not mulled in the context of the oft-mooted BMG/EMI merger rumours.

Interestingly, it could be argued that Bertelsmann would be able to launch a much stronger case against EMI, suggesting that one of that companies, Robbie Williams, appeared to encourage the 'theft' of its copyright material in widely-reported remarks last month. Go on, the quiet Germans... give us all a laugh.

Meanwhile, the stakes in file-sharing wars have been upped with both the new Madonna and White Stripes records having duff spoof versions loaded into the main file swapping systems in a bid to undermine them.

Too late, guys. We wondered in this space why Metallica didn't do this back at the start of their battle with Napster; it might have been effective then, killing off the reputation of file-sharing as the Place To Go To Get The Tracks at its birth. But in 2003, it's not going to have the same effect, is it? People have built up a collection of tracks, and know that Not Everything Out There is rubbish; they'll also have micronetworks of trusted sources to try first by now. And with the faster speed of computers and connections spreading out - so you spend a couple of minutes downloading a track, and its not genuine? No real loss, just try clicking on another in the list. It's no worse than downloading a recommended track and finding it's shit. Indeed, all spoofing is going to do now is put off the casual sampler - "is the white stripe band I keep hearing about any good? Oh, this is a spoof track. I shall sample Def Leppard's wares instead." And a Madonna .mp3 which is one idea repeated over and over again for three minutes? How would that be different from the official release?

One last thing: If the record companies are using the networks for spoofs, how does this affect their legal relationships? Presumably they don't object to the system swapping their spoofs - if they did, they'd have to prosecute their own IT departments for uploading them in the first place - so they're merely increasing the amount of legitimate material zapping from machine to machine, which is going to make it harder to get the networks shut down. A massive own goal caused by moving way too slowly, then.

It was a long time ago now...

So Bertelsmann has finally fessed up that, yes, actually, we did pretty well out of supporting the Nazis. Does it matter that the owners of RCA, Arista and Elvis' contract made their money through publishing Nazi materials, and only got closed down because so strenuous was their support for the Project that the National Socialist's in-house printers were pissed off at the competition?

Their spokesman was on Today after that publication of their confession saying basically - let's draw a line under this now, it's not like we've built our business on this. But that is exactly what they have done - of course, trading in the years 2001-2 hasn't drawn any cash directly from the production of unpleasant material, but the seedcorn that allowed Bertelsmann to turn from a small German publishing company into an international media giant did. And to simply say "Yes, we've checked our records and it turns out, we did make a lot of cash from supporting a regime which gassed Jews, gays, the mentally ill, Romany, Poles and many other members of our current customer groups" and think that makes it alright sends a message to companies now that, if they do find themselves dealing with unacceptable regimes, keeping your head down for a few years until it all blows over is all they need to do.

So, how about this as a proposal: the writers, the musicians, the artists who currently have contracts with Bertelsmann companies could be argued to have signed a deal with the company without knowing the full facts about who they were dealing with. Why not declare these contracts voided, and allow everyone involved to renegotiate with Bertelsmann if they choose, or go elsewhere if they'd rather? Sure, it will end up costing BMG and its sister companies millions. But it really would draw a line under the past, and show that Bertelsmann's remorse is genuine, and not merely a PR spin to cover the clatter of skeletons coming from the closet.

we'd quite like to apologise... [Bertlesmann statement] - it's okay, we like Jews now...