“As the Justice Department presses forward with its lawsuit filed last week against Apple and two publishers for allegedly colluding to raise prices and manipulate the evolving market for digital books, the nation’s other antitrust regulator is weighing whether to approve a transaction that could dramatically impact the development of another digital market: music.”
“Sony DADC which has acted as the U.S. CD distributor for three of the four major labels has transferred those rights to Knoxville, TN based Anderson Merchandisers. Anderson will now distribute Universal Music, Sony Music Entertainment and EMI CDs to every U.S. wholesaler and retailer.”
“Reducing the number of major players in the music industry from four to three would, ordinarily, sound alarms among antitrust regulators, especially if those companies account for roughly 75 percent of the music business.”
Today the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee approved the Performance Rights Act, and the bill will go to the Senate to be discussed and voted upon at some later time.
The Performance Rights Act is a bill primarily backed by the 4 major record labels (EMI Capitol, Sony BMG, Vivendi Universal, and Warner Chappell) and major artists. The bill closes an exception in federal Copyright law whereby radio stations only have to pay songwriter/publishing royalties for playing music on the air, but do not have to pay record labels that own the master recording.
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