Warner Music has slashed staff numbers, merged individual record labels and cut its roster of artists.
Universal Music Group, Sony Music and Warner Music Group are pumping money into Latin music.
Enter Len Blavatnik, Russian-born owner of Warner Music and the 25th richest person in America.
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The Black Keys rock band is signed to Nonesuch Records, a label owned by Warner Music Group.
Blavatnik has helped cut Warner Music's losses in half in 2012 while revenues have remained relatively flat.
Warner Music owner Len Blavatnik was the main outside investor initially, with a designated board seat.
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While in Australia, he founded Higher Level Records, an independent record label he later sold to Warner Music.
Atlantic Records' British arm, which is owned by Warner Music Group, increasingly uses data to hone marketing campaigns.
Angel investors include Rajesh Sawhney, president of Reliance Entertainment of India and Alex Zubillaga (formerly of Warner Music Group).
EMI's 2007 rejection of a bid from US rival Warner Music ultimately paved the way for the Terra Firma takeover.
Initially the site will offer 1 million, DRM-free songs (ramping up to 5 million) from Sony BMG, Warner Music, and EMI.
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"Vinyl will definitely outlast CDs because of the resonance, the sound, " predicts Lyor Cohen, chief of recorded music at Warner Music Group.
When it launched in October 2008, Spotify publicized music rights deals with Sony BMG Music, Universal Music, Warner Music, EMI and Merlin.
News Corp. is reportedly talking to major record companies like Vivendi and Warner Music Group about launching an online music store through MySpace.
Sony Entertainment Group and Warner Music Group, though its catalogue on a macroscopic level seems undifferentiated from the likes of Rdio, for example.
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By early January 2008, a few months after Amazon MP3 launched, the three other major labels--Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, and Sony BMG--dropped DRM.
But they are all signed to the Warner Music Group, an indication that artist development might once again become a priority for the major labels.
Ironically, the opportunity to own his masters was what convinced him to take the Def Jam gig over a similar job at Warner Music Group.
The agreements are with Sony Music Entertainment, EMI Music, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, and more than 150 independent distributors, aggregators and music publishers.
Customers include Twitter, Warner Music Group, Humana, Stanford University, Mercedes-Benz and the New York MTA. Acquia has a number of 7-figure clients, Erickson notes.
Groove Mobile also powers the music store for Orange Mobile in the U.K., and features music from labels such as EMI, Warner Music Group , V2 and Beggars Group.
The back catalogs of Warner Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment, for example, have been converted to hi-res although much of it is not yet available for sale.
While there is no doubt that Warner Music has been a successful investment for the private-equity firms, its attractiveness to public investors who usually demand growth is less obvious.
Yet here is little Rearden Commerce with a companywide deal with Motorola, as well as three- to five-year contracts with Warner Music, Cingular Wireless and Whirlpool Corp.
Some think the announcement was a ploy to jump ahead of EMI and Warner Music in the regulatory queue, rather than the reflection of a done deal.
In late December, Amazon.com added Warner Music Group to the growing number of labels that sell music free of copy protections on Amazon's Amazon MP3 digital music store.
Big music companies like Vivendi's Universal Music Group, Sony-BMG Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and EMI Group are already experiencing a sharp decline in sales of compact discs.
Next up could be Warner Music, which Forbes.com has learned has a project in the works that could help promote and sell its music library directly to customers.
EMI's weak presence in America, where it had an 11% market share at the end of October, compared with 17% for Warner Music, is also a serious drawback.
Apparently, Sony BMG Music has already expressed interest in being a "potential partner, " and Universal is now trying to convince Warner Music Group to come on board as well.
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