“British music company EMI Group announced Tuesday it has received an approach from Warner Music Group that could lead to a possible takeover. But EMI said it had not received any firm acquisition proposal,” CNBC and Reuters report. “The news is the latest twist in a seven-year battle in which the two music groups have tried to buy each other.”
CNBC and Reuters report, “EMI and Warner Music first tried to merge in 2000 and again in 2003. Last year, they were locked in a $4.6 billion battle to buy each other, but hopes of a deal were quashed in June when a European court annulled approval of the 2004 merger of Sony’s Sony Music and Bertelsmann’s BMG. That ruling cast doubt on whether EMI and Warner Music would get regulatory clearance, and the companies abandoned talks until there was more clarity from antitrust regulators.”
Full article here.
Related articles:
EMI may sell entire music catalog DRM-free – February 09, 2007
Windows Vista’s DRM is bad news – February 14, 2007
Warner’s DRM-loving Middlebronfman warns wireless industry it may lose music market to Apple iPhone – February 14, 2007
Monster Cable announces full support of Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ call for DRM-free music – February 13, 2007
Recording Industry Association of America wants their DRM, calls for Apple to license FairPlay – February 08, 2007
Warner’s Middlebronfman: Jobs’ DRM-free music call ‘without logic and merit, we’ll not abandon DRM’ – February 08, 2007
Dvorak: Apple CEO Steve Jobs is dead right about DRM – February 07, 2007
Apple’s Jobs jolts music industry; Zune exec calls Jobs’ call for DRM-free music ‘irresponsible’ – February 07, 2007
Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ posts rare open letter: ‘Thoughts on Music’ – calls for DRM-free music – February 06, 2007
Norwegian Ombudsman: Apple’s FairPlay DRM is illegal in Norway – January 24, 2007
Major music labels ponder DRM-free future – January 23, 2007
Warner’s Middlebronfman: ‘We sell our songs through iPods, but we don’t have share of iPod revenue’ – October 05, 2005
Warner music exec discusses decapitation strategy for Apple iTunes Music Store – September 28, 2005
Warner CEO Bronfman: Apple iTunes Music Store’s 99-cent-per-song model unfair – September 23, 2005
Could this be an attempt by Middlebronfman to prevent DRM free digital downloads by a major before it gets off the ground?
For a Big Four record company, “everything” is never enough.
There goes DRM free music from EMI if this deal goes through. I’m sure that is one of the motives of Warner as there execs are dead set against dropping DRM.
Too much consolidation, too few players, too much power in too few hands. Please let the ruling be NO!
The same goes for mass media, industrial food producers, oil barons…
If a Warner / EMI merger was abandoned last year because of the probability that EU regulators might not allow it ( after the Sony & BMG merger was banned ), what has changed to make a merger possible now ?
Warner aren’t doing very well at the moment, their profits have tumbled alarmingly. I would have thought that a different company altogether would try to buy EMI. EMI’s value is about $3.5 billion. Anybody know of any companies with that sort of loose change and an interest in the music business ?
Ouch, no Thanks to reader Harrison for submitting article?
EMI’s quasi support of DRM-less music sales probably has the other big labels extremely concerned and probably had the effect of lighting a fire under their heinies to do something about it.
It’s becomimg more and more obvious that the labels are terrified of a DRM-less future. Probably because it means they won’t be able to make the kinds of profits they used to. They’ll still make money…just not the tens and hundreds of millions like they used to.
The tools are in place, and the networks/infrastructures are in place.
Now it’s time for the artists and music creators to take control over their creations…and put the suits and beancounters in THEIR place.
MDN word: progress. Man, you just can’t make that up.
I wonder if the EMI DRM free gambit was just a ploy to get a favorable price in a buyout.
AlanAudio…
I have consistently promoted the idea that Apple should acquire one of these two, especially EMI, out of the loose change down the back of the sofa in Steve’s office.
$3.5 billion to disrupt the entire music industry, whilst becoming a major force in that industry strikes me as a bargain.