Warner Music Group

The Warner Music Group ( WMG short ) is one of the world's three largest major label in addition to the Universal Music Group and Sony Music. It is headquartered in New York and is listed as a public company on the NYSE. For WMG also includes the music publisher called Warner / Chappell Music, which dates back to 1929.

The headquarters of Warner Music Group Germany Holding GmbH, Hamburg, and is responsible for business for Central Europe ( German speaking and Eastern Europe). Chairman and CEO for Central and Eastern Europe is Bernd Dopp, in 1984 as a product manager in marketing started after the construction of record sales of the retail chain " Schaulandt " in Northern Germany WEA to 1997 take over the management of the company in 2001 as President of the company to be appointed.

In May 2011, the Russian-born billionaire Leonard Blavatnik acquired U.S. via his investment company Access Industries Warner Music for $ 3.3 billion. In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2011 Warner announced a loss of $ 103 million announced for the year you posted a loss of 205 million dollars. Reason is mainly the decline in CD sales.

History

The roots of WMG lie in the founding of Warner Bros. Records, as part of the Warner Bros. film studio, in the year 1958. 1970 was Warner Music International (WMI ) was founded as " WEA International ". Warner Music International maintains three regional offices for each of the regions of Asia / Pacific, Latin America and Europe and operates in more than 50 countries worldwide.

The WEA Corp.. was established as a common physical sales for the recording of Warner Records, assumed Elektra and Atlantic labels. In addition, WEA Corp. sales. Audio and video publications, inter alia, by Rhino Entertainment, Asylum Records, Word Entertainment, Time-Life Music, Warner Music Latina and Curb Records. WEA Corp.. was when it was founded as the first major music distribution company outside the United States. The business of WEA Corp.. is now merged into the parent company WMG.

She was young on 27 February 2004 of the company Time Warner to a group of investors headed Edgar Bronfman. and sold, among others, Haim Saban. Warner Music Publications, a former part of Warner - Chapell, was sold to a competitor Alfred Publishing, 2005.

Problems and restructuring

The relatively small size of WMG among the majors as well as the industry-wide profit slumps in business operations should be temporarily offset by a joint venture with BMG, but this was not realized. Even the competitors EMI was interested in a merger in order to jointly increase the market share in the music business. However, early May 2006 dismissed the Warner Music Group back a bid by EMI and answered itself with its own bid. In the course of time between rejection of the merger of Sony BMG Music Entertainment ( today only Sony Music Entertainment) This merger plans were rejected by the European Court.

Warner Music has at present the loss of many great artists such as Depeche Mode, Nickelback and Madonna cope. However, it is trying to deal with the expansion of the business field to assert new areas in the ongoing crisis. For the construction of its own tour business Warner Music relies on the amplification by Christian Gerlach, who previously worked at the Hamburg concert promoter Karsten Jahnke Konzertdirektion GmbH.

Like the competitors (Universal Music, Sony, EMI and the merger of several independent labels called " Merlin " ) licensed Warner now the repertoire catalog to streaming services such as Spotify. For their own digital distribution to Warner Music, the majority stake in the German company secured Zebralution, which was a direct competitor of Fine Tunes and The Orchard for the digital distribution of music, until now, primarily for Independents, works.

In addition to tour business and merchandising Warner is now also active in the service business for brands and agencies. By licensing at Warner Music, for example, selected mobile phones came in 27 countries with pre-stored songs by Madonna in the trade.

Lawsuit with YouTube

Recently, WMG is in litigation with the video platform YouTube. Thus more and more videos are from WMG, or their soundtracks disabled. This will be strongly criticized by the users of YouTube.

Strictly speaking it is not a dispute. Rather, it was an agreement made in 2006, may be used on YouTube for the music of the WMG, not renewed in late 2008 following the failure of negotiations. However, the conclusion of a new agreement was announced in September 2009. Accordingly, the use of Warner music from the end of 2009 will once again be possible, but Warner receives a majority of the advertising revenue. So far, these flat-rate allowances to Warner Music is still completely open and unregulated, according to which sharing key money is paid to the artists.

It is also unclear what happens with newer videos of artists who were formerly under contract with WMG, at their current levels but WMG has no more rights. Since the locks are connected only by keywords, these videos are also affected.

Although an agreement was reached in September 2009, it came in January 2010 to close at least one YouTube channel, the cover songs contained, ironically, a participant in one proclaimed by the bassist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers Cover Video Contest.

Connected record companies

Warner Music Group include the following labels:

  • Asylum Records
  • Atlantic Records
  • Curb Records
  • Downbeat Records
  • East West
  • Elektra Records
  • Harder Entertainment
  • Star Watch Music
  • Sire Records
  • Warner Music Australia
  • Warner Bros. Records
  • Word Entertainment
  • 679 Recordings
Types of business entity Chief Executive Officer Alfred Music The Orchard (company)
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