Universal Music Group(
UMG) is the largest business group and family of
record labels in the
recording industry. It is the largest of the
"big four" record companies by its commanding market share and its multitude of global operations. Universal Music Group is a wholly owned subsidiary of international
French media conglomerate Vivendi.
Universal Music Group owns a
music publisher,
Universal Music Publishing Group, which became the world's largest following the acquisition of
BMG Music Publishing in May 2007.
Vivendi's headquarters are in
Paris,
France. The UMG global headquarters are located
New York City. Other major offices are located in
Universal City and
Santa Monica, along with
Universal Music Group Nashville in
Nashville; in the UK the group has a number of offices in
London and
Romford.
Vivendi Entertainment is a division of
Universal Music Group Distribution.
History
"Universal Music" was once the music company attached to
film studio Universal Pictures. Its origins go back to the formation of the American branch of
Decca Records in 1934.
MCA Inc. bought American Decca in 1962. The present organization was formed when its parent company
Seagram purchased
PolyGram and merged it with Universal Music Group in 1998. However, the name first appeared in 1996 when
MCA Music Entertainment Group was renamed Universal Music Group.
With the 2004 acquisition of Vivendi's
Vivendi Universal Entertainment by
General Electric's
NBC, Universal Music Group was separated entirely from its film studio namesake for the first time.
In February 2006, the group became 100% owned by
French media conglomerate
Vivendi SA when Vivendi purchased the last 20% from
Matsushita, the group's sole owner from 1990 to 1995 and co-owner from 1995 to 2006.
On
May 25,
2007, Vivendi completed its €1.63 billion ($2.4 billion) purchase of
BMG Music Publishing, after receiving European Union regulatory approval, having announced the acquisition on
September 6,
2006.
Labels
Artists
Multimedia content delivery
Universal Music Group has announced the development of an online web site for music videos inspired by Hulu.com, which similarly, will allow for free, ad-supported streaming of music videos and other music content. The new music site will be called
Vevo.
Controversy
Payola
In May 2006, an investigation led by then
New York attorney general,
Eliot Spitzer, concluded with a determination that Universal Music Group
bribed radio stations to play songs from
Ashlee Simpson,
Brian McKnight,
Big Tymers,
Nick Lachey,
Lindsay Lohan and other performers under Universal labels. The company paid $12 million to the state in settlement.
YouTube
In May 2007, UMG was accused of abusing the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act in order to squelch criticism, by forcing
YouTube to remove a
Michelle Malkin video critical of singer
Akon. Eventually, UMG backed off its claims after being challenged by the
Electronic Frontier Foundation. Recently, UMG has been accused of abusing its power by removing numerous non-profit tribute videos and instrumental covers created by users who use or play songs of bands signed to UMG's labels. On October 24, 2009, Universal Music Group reached 1,000,000 subscribers; the fourth channel on YouTube to attain that milestone.
Pay-per-listen
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 (
will.i.am music group).
MySpace.com
In December 2007,
Colbie Caillat inadvertently announced that The Universal Music Group recently enacted a new policy on MySpace.com that will reduce all songs from artists within The Universal Music Group to 90 seconds.
Imeem.com
In December 2007 UMG announced a deal with
Imeem which allows users of the social network to listen to any track from Universal's catalogue for free with a portion of the advertising generated by the music being shared with the record label. Two weeks after the deal was announced Michael Robertson speculated on the secret terms of the deal and argued that ultimately this was a bad deal for imeem. This speculation lead to a flame war on the Pho digital media email list as imeem representatives denied his claims and dismissed his theories as unfounded.
See also
