Record Labels to Appeal Sony-BMG Merger
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Impala, a group representing 2,000 smaller record labels, said Wednesday it would ask the European Union&#39;s high court to overturn a decision by EU regulators approving the merger between the music units of Japan&#39;s Sony Corp.
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Japanese electronics giant Sony  and Germany's Bertelsmann  have appealed against an annulment of their joint venture that created the world's No.2 music company, Europe's top court said on Thursday.
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Penthouse International on Monday said it expects to appeal a court-approved reorganization plan for the unit that publishes its racy adult magazine.
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The world's biggest music companies, including Warner Music Group Corp and Sony BMG, denied that they have agreed to license songs for a free download service that was launched by Qtrax on Monday.
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In the weeks since authorities approved the merger of the recorded-music businesses of Sony and Bertelsmann, there has been barely a mention of the labels' classical catalogs.
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EMI Group PLC and Warner Music Group Corp., locked in a tug of war after each rejected a takeover bid from the other, are still discussing a merger, EMI said Wednesday.
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Blog: Recording industry tells federal regulators the proposed merger shouldn't be approved unless the combined satellite radio providers pay "fair market" royalties and do more to protect their content.
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Edging cautiously into the water where Amazon, Apple's iTunes, eMusic and other services are already frolicking, Sony BMG Music has announced plans to offer a tiny set of DRM-free tracks online... if you go to one of their brick-and-mortar stores first.
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U.S. media conglomerate Viacom has  teamed up with private equity group Apollo to submit an offer  for BMG Music Publishing in a bid battle that could top 1.5  billion euros ($1.92 billion), sources close to the matter  said.
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(InfoWorld) - Sony BMG Music Entertainment will pay $1.5 million in penalties to settle lawsuits with two U.S. states over its controversial use of copy protection software. The settlements with the California and Texas attorneys general were announced Tuesday, seven months after theÂ music giant settled a class-action lawsuit in the matter. Sony's trouble began in late 2005, when a computer science researcher disclosed that Sony's had beenÂ shipping CDs with a copy protection program that used dangerous "rootkit" techniquesÂ to cloak itself after installation. Sony licensed this software from First 4 Internet Ltd., based in Banbury, U.K., but problems were also found with a second copy protection program used by Sony. That software, called Media Max, was developed by SunnComm International Inc. of Phoenix. Until Tuesday, Texas had been the only state with an outstanding lawsuit related to the rootkit fiasco, but other state's attorneys general and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission had also been looking into the matter, according to Jeff McGrath, deputy district attorney, with Los Angeles County, which participated in the California lawsuit. Sony has now reached tentative settlements with more than a dozen other states, including Massachusetts and Nebraska, as well as the FTC, McGrath said. The FTC declined to comment on the matter. The California lawsuit was both filed and settled on Tuesday. Sony's rootkit software shipped on an estimated 15 million CDs, bundled with music from artists such as Frank Sinatra, Celine Dion and Earl Scruggs. Consumers were offered refunds as part of the May class-action agreement, but Tuesday's settlements take additional steps by compensating them for damages caused by the rootkit code and "ensuring that this type of thing will not happen again," McGrath said. California and Texas consumers who believe that their computers were damaged by Sony's software can receive up to $175 to cover repair costs. The agreements also force Sony to submit any software it ships with music CDs to third-party audits for the next five years. Sony has created a Web site to address its rootkit settlement. That site is eventually expected to include instructions for consumers seeking refunds for their PC repairs. These refunds will, for example, compensate users who had their CD drives trashed when AOL's antispyware software tried to remove the First 4 files, said Paco Felici, a spokesman with the Texas Attorney General's office. Since the rootkit fiasco, Sony has stopped shipping digital rights management software with its music CDs. However, if it does add this capability to future CDs, it must make this clear to customers. "They're requiring disclosures to consumers before sale on the CD packaging," said Corynne McSherry, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "I think that's really crucial. Part of the whole background of the rootkit fiasco was that consumers just didn't know what they were getting into." A Sony spokesman declined to comment on investigations by the FTC and other states. "We are pleased to have reached agreements with the offices of the California and Texas Attorneys General," he said, reading from a statement.
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LONDON - Warner Music Group Corp., Viacom Inc. and Universal Music Group are among those to have bid for BMG Music Publishing, people familiar with the situation told Dow Jones Newswires on Friday.  German media giant Bertelsmann A.G.
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Sony Corp. next week will launch a marketing blitz in Europe for its new Connect music download store, its latest effort to derail the runaway momentum of Apple Computer's iTunes service.
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EU regulators on Friday opened an antitrust probe of Universal Music Group's plans to buy BMG Music Publishing for about $2.1 billion, saying the deal could damage "the already concentrated music publishing market."
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Sony is the last of the four big record labels that have abandoned digital rights management software that limits how many times copies can be made of digital music.
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The movie and music industries have filed a petition asking the Supreme Court to overturn a federal appeals court decision that favored makers of file-sharing software.
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A European court annulled on  Thursday the European Union&#039;s approval of a 2004 merger between  Sony Music and BMG, leaving the world&#039;s second biggest music  company in a state of limbo.
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Sony has embarked on a potential collision course with music groups, including its own Sony BMG joint venture, over MP3 digital song files.