Sunday, July 1, 2012

The EMI Publishing Deal Is Now Complete

As EMI winds down from being a major record label, thereby taking the number of majors from 4 to 3, the first part of the deal is now complete. An investor group led by Sony/ATV Publishing now brings the famous and powerful EMI Music Publishing under its wing.

The group, which includes the sovereign wealth fund of Abu Dhabi, Jynwel Capital of Hong Kong, Blackstone's GSO Capital Partners, the estate of Michael Jackson and mogul David Geffen, paid $2.2 billion to purchase EMI Publishing, which appears to be a pretty good deal. EMI Publishing has long been considered the jewel of the industry, with a catalog of 1.3 million songs including classics like "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" and "New York, New York," as well as songs by The Beatles, The Police, The Beach Boys, Kenye West, Alica Keys, Justin Beiber and many other superstars.

Terms dictated by the Jackson Estate stipulate that EMI Music Publishing still remains as a separate company, which is all well and good, but it's still under the same conglomerate umbrella.

Isn't this country supposed to have anti-trust laws to prevent major consolidation like this? It's not only a bad idea for one company to have such a large market share (well over 30%), but it's bad for the writers too. With that many songs to administer, it's too easy to fall between the cracks.

This is just another indication of how badly the music business needs a major reset, even more so than we're seeing today.

-----------------------------------
You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Unbelievable!! Never thought I'd see this happen in my 22 yrs in this industry! Its becoming even more scarce.!! Thanks for the update!

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...