p2pnet - rss feed: Spitzer nails Warner Music
p2p news / p2pnet: Disgraced Sony BMG wasn’t the only member of the Big Four Organized Music cartel to have New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer breathing down its corporate neck over bribes and payoffs.
Now the Warner Music Group has “reached a settlement” with Spitzer to “resolve accusations that it made payoffs to persuade radio programmers to play certain songs,” says the New York Times.
Warner will pay $5 million to nonprofit organizations that finance music education and appreciation and will also pay $50,000 to cover the costs of the inquiry, says the story. It’ll also mirror changes set out in a deal Spitzer reached with Sony BMG, which agreed to pay $10 million.
“Warner, like Sony BMG, also agreed to end its use of certain independent promoters, middlemen who are paid by the company to press programmers to add songs,” says the NYT. “And the company agreed to limits on the efforts its executives can undertake to market its artists.”
Warner and the other OM family members, Sony BMG, Vivendi Universal and EMI, are trying to sue men, women and children around the world into buying ‘product,’ claiming they’re being “devastated” by p2p file sharers and calling them “thieves” and ” criminals”.
Sony BMG has been caught red-handed trying to plant secret Digital Restriction Management spyware on customers’ computers.
Vivendi’s Universal Music Group and the EMI Group “remain under investigation, as do many big radio chains, according to people involved in the inquiry,” says the story.
Warner admitted “certain employees had pursued radio promotion practices that were ‘wrong or improper,’ and apologized, adding sanctimoniously, “From our perspective, radio cannot be too consumer-driven. The music that people hear on the radio always should represent the highest quality the industry has to offer.”
Spitzer said Warner executives had obtained play time for songs through “deceptive and illegal” practices, including making payoffs in the form of personal electronics and tickets to the Grammy Awards, the World Series and the Super Bowl, says the story, going on that Clear Channel Communications and “several other stations” said in a statement, “We take this issue very seriously and have zero tolerance for pay for play. Any employees who violate this policy will be dealt with accordingly. We investigate any allegation of improper conduct by our employees. This is no exception.”
Spitzer also criticized the Federal Communications Commission, which he said had displayed a “disappointing” lack of action in dealing with the radio broadcasters under its jurisdiction since the New York inquiry became public.
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UPDATE: Go here for the Spitzer/Warner .pdf
Also read:-
New York Times - 2nd Music Settlement by Spitzer, November 23, 2005
bribes and payoffs - Spitzer on Sony BMG scandal, July 28, 2005
November 23rd, 2005 at 4:01 pm
A person can and was given 15 years jail time for making a video of a film. In essense for using a toy in what the toy was designed to do. The act, in a crime scale of one to 10, is a 0, since there were no real victimes.
Now, payola destroys culture and also the receivers of money and favors into prostitutes. This is what America records companies and music publishers have done with the music in my country. This is a 5 on my crime scale. What Hitler did was a 10.
With movies, payola is not used, The film companies simply control the pupett distributors and the theaters. Back to music…
But who will go to jail for payola? No one, I expect, because in corporate America only the disadvantaged are prosecuted harshly.
The case was already fixed with shareholder’s, not personal, money, which is an even worse type of corruption.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.venegas.com
November 23rd, 2005 at 4:06 pm
We need to CLEAN up the FCC. Too many “paid for” and corrupt individuals.
November 23rd, 2005 at 4:31 pm
“reached a settlement”
in other words, business as usual. if Spitzeer really seriously wanted to make an impact he wouldn’t let these guys get off for pennies compared to what they’re worth.
November 23rd, 2005 at 5:15 pm
he’d also demand time for the ones doing this. and in the same institutions they send the people who video tape screens.
November 23rd, 2005 at 6:31 pm
The music cartel thought they got away with something when they screwed Rafael Venegas’s father out of his royalties. They thought they could just squash another little man and walk away like they almost always do. But this time, they messed with the wrong person!!
Rafael Venegas’s dad may not be rich and famous, but he sure has a son that is willing to give the cartels Christian Hell for what they did to him. Rafael posts some very good blogs exposing these bastards for what they truly are. I also have seen his website. I wonder how many other p2pnet.net readers have been screwed or bullied by the cartels.
Blogs like these are really giving the music cartel a hard time. We need to post this information to as many blogs as we can in oreder to force the LameScream media to pick up on it. If we keep these cartels in the news for another few weeks, I think it will really bring them down to size. Warner, Sony, and company really need a lot of bad press. Let’s dig up the dirt and get it into the spotlight. It will also be very nice if we can see how we can expose the people in congress who pass their laws. Maybe it can be a p2pnet.net reader’s investigation.
November 23rd, 2005 at 9:28 pm
Two down, two yet to settle.
I strongly agree that the terms of “settlement” isn’t on par with the level of intentional violation. Considering they got nearly 30 years of willfull violating after it was ruled illegal, the price turns out to be not even pennies on the dollar that was returned in sale.
Yet the poor bugger that camcords will recieve a far harsher sentence for a far lesser violation. He won’t make any money on it but he will certainly recieve time in jail as part of the guilty sentence. Those of the cartels have gotten the big head because money solves all. Put some of those big theives in jail and you would not have to worry about the FCC straighting it out. Most would try to protect their own butts and consider that a prime objective. With these slaps on the hand it looks like another cost of doing business and nothing else. The volumes of money that are pulled in through the cartels make this a mere pittance if it ranks that high.
November 23rd, 2005 at 11:13 pm
Hey RIAA bitches, it’s ME that decides whether I listen to something or not. Play what I want and I’ll listen. Play crap and I won’t.
Warner’s statement is like a movie studio saying “films shouldn’t be made with the viewer in mind”.
If that isn’t the biggest “fuck you” to radio listeners, I don’t know what is.
November 24th, 2005 at 1:57 am
This is actually a big step towards allowing more independent and less-established artists getting air-time, instead of your Timberlake, Spears, and Destiny’s Child clones. What the Big 4 were doing was essentially monopolizing all the air-time, illegally mind you, so as to promote their own interests not yours.
November 24th, 2005 at 3:53 am
Let’s keep the game rolling boys…
November 24th, 2005 at 9:09 am
I’m amazed ppl still listen to commercial radio at all. I got sick of hearing the same songs every day back in 92. While wandering up and down the dial i stumbled across a prince song… that i’d never heard in my life. Stopping there, i then heard a madonna song, again had never heard it before. Turns out the station is a govt funded youth (ie 25 or less) focused national station called triple j.
They actually stream their show continuously and play stuff you’ll never hear on the commercial networks. Should point out that they don’t play censored tracks so occasionally there’ll be some naughty words. Just so you know. If anyones interested check out their website.
http://www.triplej.net.au/
Oh yeah, forgot to mention. This isn’t a commercial network, the only ads are for the odd concert, their tshirts and stuff and promos for regular shows. In other words you aren’t gonna get harassed by morons trying to sell you shit. At least not very often.
November 25th, 2005 at 10:35 am
“Warner will pay $5 million to nonprofit organizations that finance music education”
Oh, now I get it…..
Warner is being ordered to do additional public relations in the music education field, a great area to recruit performers into their slavery contracts.
-The corrupt Warner and Sony employees stay on their job. Surely their next victims will be the shareholders and of course the royalty receivers. If in doubt see here to see how Sony paid the royalties to my family:
http://rafa_venegas.web.prdigital.com/venegas_v_sony_lawsuit.htm
-Warner and Sony before only do payola in New York. Eslewhere they are plain honest, harworking decent folks.
-Only Warner and Sony do payola?
What a sweet deal for the entire RIAA !!! The RIAA ethics comittee must be having a party to celebrate how they get away with it.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
November 25th, 2005 at 10:54 am
CORRECTION
“Warner is being ordered to do additional public relations in the music education field, a great area to recruit performers into their slavery contracts.”.
The contracts that performers mostly sign with record companies can be called anything but slavery contracts. They are almost always stupid contracts (for the performer) but they are signed voluntarily, even when not understood by the performer who did not get legal advice before signing.
In some instances the performers, a low percentage of them, do quite well, in particular when heavy payola is done by the record company.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com