the big four major record labels
TRANSCRIPT
The Big Four Major Record Labels
By Chloe Porter
Warner Music Group• Founded in 1958 (As Warner Bros Records)• Headquarters are in New York And the CEO is Edgar Bronfman who
is also the chairman.• Major artists signed to Warner include/d Led Zepplin, Bette Midler,
Cream and the Bee Gee’s, so a mixture of American and British Artists were signed tot his label.In December of 2008 negotiations between YouTube and Warner
broke down, as a result Warner Music Group has continuously blocked or muted videos on YouTube that feature Artists
belonging to it’s label. Many anti-Warner videos have been popping up on YouTube from users with outrage over videos being blocked by WMG. However, on September 21 2009 it was reported that WMG had possibly struck a new deal with YouTube so WMG
music video’s may start appearing on YouTube again.
Sony BMG
• Founded in March 3, 2004• David Gordon, Chairman• Headquarters in New York City, USA• Signed a deal with YouTube so content from Sony BMG can be viewed
on YouTube legally.• includes ownership and distribution of Recording labels such as Arista
Records, Columbia Records, Epic Records, J Records, Jive Records, RCA Victor Records, Legacy Recordings, Sonic Wave America and Many more.
• Sony BMG was fined 10 million dollars after the New York's Attorney General Office determined that they had been practicing payola in the form of direct payments to radio stations and bribes to DJ’s to promote various artists such as Jessica Simpson, Franz Ferdinand and Audio slave.
• Epic Records, one of their labels was under suspicion as they were accused of making up fake contests to hide the fact that the gifts were going to radio jockeys rather than the listeners.
EMI• Founded in 1931• Headquarters in London, England• Elio Leoni-Sceti, Chief• Artists under this label aren’t as well known as some other labels which
assign globally known artists, however the artists under EMI are up and coming.
• As well as the well-known record label the group also owns EMI Music Publishing, which is the largest music publisher in the world. EMI Music Publishing has won the Music Week Award for Publisher of the Year every year for over 10 years; in 2009, for the first time in history the award was shared jointly with Universal Music Publishing.
Pop star Robbie Williams signed a 6 album deal in 2002 paying him £80 million which was the biggest recording contract in British history and the second
in music history.
• Founded in 1996• Headquarters at New York City, USA• Doug Morris, CEO and Chairman• It is the largest business group and family of record labels in the recording
industry. It is the biggest label out of the four big record companies. Which feature more of the widely known artists and more successful artists.
• However in May 2006, UMG was claimed to of bribed radio stations to play some of their up and coming artists such as Ashlee Simpson, Nick Lachey, Lindsay Lohan and was forced to pay out $12 million to the state in settlement.
• In September 2007, Universal came up with a new way of tackling music piracy by "paying the pirates", beginning with a pilot of tracks from will.i.am.
• However in December 2009 UMG removed over 10,000 of their videos on YouTube. Critics say that UMG doesn't want other users to post their videos.
Universal Music Group
