A small round of links

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117978756.html?categoryId=16&cs=1: EMI is going to exit IFPI;

http://www.donhopkins.com/home/micropolis/: Micropolis, a new name for Simcity, is now available with a GPL3 license;

http://joaomartins.entropiadesign.org/2008/01/13/brilhante/:
(this is in Portuguese) Microsoft tells "Bright Partners" they are their "partner of the year". If you check out what did they do, you'll realize that their work was to inject Microsoft into the Portuguese Public Administration. No wonder they got a price...

Is EMI going to be sold to Terra Firma?

In April EMI shareholders started to have a load of news on a possible change of hands.

EMI is one of the big four record companies, with more or less 10% of the music market share. In April we started to hear about Warner wanting to buy EMI (again), in May we heard that several Private Equity firms also wanted EMI. Warner extended the offer, but Terra Firma also made an offer, and EMI accepted it - meaning that they started by then to convince its shareholders to accept the deal. Terra Nova needs 90% of the shareholders wanting to do the deal. Warner kept wanting to buy EMI, and shareholders were not really interested in Terra Nova's offer without knowing what alternatives they have... So Terra Firma raised their offer for EMI, and set'd up June 27 as the aquisition deadline. Warner said they were going to make a final offer, and EMI shareholders didn't show any interest on Terra Firma's offer. The limit date was postponed, but when Warner gave up the ride, then shareholders faced an easier decision: Terra Firma or nothing. Until friday Terra Firma had 84.94% from the 90% they need to, and a final extention was set to 1.00 pm on Wednesday. Everything would lead to the conclusion that Terra Firma is going to get the deal, but there are reports that financing for the deal could fall through due to the recent turmoil on global debt markets.

Let's see what's going to happen: wednesday is definively the final day for us to know if EMI is going to be sold to Terra Firma or not. Unfortunately I think that if they are sold those are bad news, but if they're not we have even worse news. One way or another, after the deal we'll have interesting time for the big four in the next few months.

Links for the weekend

• Warner will make final offer to buy EMI in one week;
• Expectnation - an awsome web service to organize events/conferences;
• After my rant on the horrible article from the US Ambassador in Portugal, I understand. There's this draft of an agreement between Korea and USA that basicly ends with freedom in the name of Intelectual Property;
• In Germany you can't use any "hacker" tool. I wonder if they have a clue on the legit uses that tools like nmap can have...
• letsproveVO is yet another BaseCamp alternative;
• Plazes has a new version!
• Reboot started. Damn, I wish I was there...
• Tomorrow I'll attend to this concert. Three bands, one DJ, the offer of a 3CD compilation with one Merankorii track in it... all for 4€!

Today, in the music business...

Terra Firma raised their offer for EMI, and set'd up June 27 as the aquisition deadline.

On other field, CBS bought Last.fm, which not only dictates the end of Last.fm's financial problems, but also their move to the USA's legislation, with all that it might imply.

Finaly, NYTimes tells us that "CD sales have plunged more than 20 percent this year", and they talk like that is the end of music, and its cultural value. But they also tell us that "more than half of all music acquired by fans last year came from unpaid sources including Internet file sharing and CD burning, according to the market research company NPD Group", which, from my calculus, tells us that we have a rise on music (roughly 40%), which is far from the idea that music is diying.

Warner aims to buy EMI, alone

According to The Guardian, Warner is now wanting to buy EMI, alone. This comes after they had some talks with private equity firms, and Lucky Jim's claims of wanting EMI too.

I have already speculated about this aquisition here.

Quickies

• 'Lucky Jim' in for EMI;
• DRM vs. Hackers: Time to Surrender?;
• EMI to sell mp3 in Russia, with DRM;
• Finnish court rules CSS protection used in DVDs “ineffective”;
• See here how to get a free 3CD compilation with one Merankorii track (Merankorii is my musical project);
• Global conference on Internet Freedom.
• Who are the real pirates?

Warner might raise offer for EMI

After Terra Nova doing an offer to EMI that was accepted, EU regulator frees Warner Music to raise offer for EMI, which I find odd. Anyway, the stock market is already waiting for a new bid from Warner, so I guess we'll have more news on this issue preety soon.

So, what do I find of this? Well, while some think that Terra Firma's guidance is going to be worse than nowadays EMI, at least I think that nothing worse than being bought by Warner could happen. What would be trully great was if somebody else took them. Since that seems improbable, let's just hope that Warner stays quiet.

The Warner and EMI dance

I've reported here before that Warner is again wanting to buy EMI, after EMI's decision to sell DRM-free tracks on iTunes. After that, I told you that after all EMI could be bought and not by Warner, but by a set of private equity firms interested in the deal. EMI gave them until May 23 to present their offers, and as the date is getting closer, the tension grows... The big news today is that Warner may offer extra $240m for EMI thanks to the confidence that the European competition regulators.

Of course I hope that this merge does not happen, but worse than that is that, all of the sudden, it seems that everything points out for an European aprooval of this merge, where previously everything pointed to the other side. I have no clue on what changed, and, unless someone got his bank account more joyful to change his oppinion, I just don't get why could a Warner/EMI merge be considered as possibly not fall into anti-trust. Let me just remind you that Warner recognized that the new impulse to buy EMI came out of their latest decisions (like selling DRM-free music) that are taking the music industry to a path that they don't like. Isn't buying some company to change the complete industry to a deliberate path exactly what anti-trust measures try to prevent?

EMI might be bought... and not by Warner

After EMI start selling DRM-free tracks on iTunes, Warner decided they wanted to buy EMI (again), claiming that they would do it to stop them from selling DRM-free music. There was a $4.1 billion rejected takeover bid, so they decided to approach shareholders instead.

News now tell us that there are three diferent US private equity firms wanting to buy EMI, which replied giving them until May 23 to present their plans. The offer is in the order of $5.9 billion, but the motives behind the interest are indisclosured yet... Let's see if this is good news or not.

Warner wants to buy EMI

After EMI last month rejected a $4.1 billion takeover bid from Warner Music Group (WMG), WMG may now pursue a merger with EMI by appealing directly to its shareholders, a move that would undermine EMI's management.

Taken from here.

Your take on EMI && Apple

Two days ago I wrote the second most criticized blog post I wrote here - damn, it's the second time I feel someone's comming to me physicly and beat me. While there are only a few comments there, the flame wars started in Mailing Lists, but, surprisingly (seeing the common reaction we get from the blogosphere), I saw that there are more people thinking like me about the latest DRM news.

So, out of curiosity, I created this poll and I ask you to please answer it... The first options implicitly take that you care about DRM issues. If you do not, then there's a propper option for you.

Thank you.

Edit: For those who are not seeing the poll, please vote here. For those that do not have a flash plugin, vote here.

Apple iTMS to sell DRM-free EMI tracks... as luxury items

Do you know the difference between a CD record with its jewel case and it's digipack version? Easy, the digipack version is more expensive, probably in a limited edition, because you're paying for it as a luxury item. Think on books, and why are hardcover books so much expensive than their trade paperback versions. Well, Apple and EMI are now doing the same with music.

The good news for EMI: they can now sell music for more than $0.99 ($1.29, to be exact), something they were trying to achieve for a long time.

The good news for Apple: they are now selling some music without DRM. Maybe they can use this to postpone the court decisions on those European countries that will sue them if they don't stop selling DRM'd files. They can even argue that they're giving an alternative to users. Until then, they'll keep telling "hey, give us time - we dealt with EMI, maybe in the future we'll do the same deal with others". They'll keep "forgeting" that lot's of indie labels want to ditch DRM files and sell only DRM-free music. They'll keep forgeting that they're still signing new deals about new businesses (video and movies instead of music), and those deals are only in DRM'd formats - no DRM-free files there.

The good news for music lovers: uh... good news? Nah. This is an attempt of turning the "standard" music (DRM-free, where "consumers" have rights such as the "personal copy" and "fair use" ones) into luxury items, making the DRM items the standard.

So, excuse me, but FUCK YOU Apple and EMI. DRM is absurd and non-acceptable. Music lovers won't accept that YOU decide that music should be defaulted as DRM'd, and that RIGHTS that we have now can be turned into "extras" we can, sometimes, purchase.

Your proposition on a new music world keeps unaceptable. You're still not giving a fuck to music artists and lovers - those that give you money - so we'll keep telling you to fuck off until you take US into consideration.


Apple's press release
EMI's press release
Announcement Podcast

EMI might ditch DRM from iTMS songs

A lot as been rumored lately about the press conference that is going to happen today at 1pm in London, with Apple's Steve Jobs and EMI's Eric Nicoli. Most speculation went about EMI starting to sell The Beatles songs on iTMS, but then an article in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) raised hope: as you can see here, where they quote the original article, saying:

In a major reversal of the music industry's longstanding antipiracy strategy, EMI Group PLC is set to announce Monday that it plans to sell significant amounts of its catalog without anticopying software, according to people familiar with the matter. The London-based music company is to make its announcement in a press conference that will feature Apple Inc. Chief Executive Steve Jobs. EMI is to sell songs without the software -- known as digital rights management, or DRM -- through Apple's iTunes Store and possibly through other online outlets, too.

The press conference is going to be webcasted live here, for those wanting to hear the news on first-hand.

Apple on DRM, and reactions it caused

By now almost everyone knows that Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO, wrote two days ago an article about DRM on iTunes Music Store, in reaction to the the latest events in Europe, where several countries are telling Apple to ditch DRM or else they're going to be sued.

So, Jobs told us his/Apple's public position about the use of DRM in iTunes, telling that there are three paths for the future:

1. Let everything as it is now (keep DRM, bad)
   
2. License Apple's DRM technology (keep DRM, bad)
3. Stop selling songs with DRM (ditch DRM, good)

Using his words, Apple would embrace DRM-free music "in a heartbeat" if "the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM.", or so they say.

Well, they also say that

"Much of the concern over DRM systems has arisen in European countries. Perhaps those unhappy with the current situation should redirect their energies towards persuading the music companies to sell their music DRM-free. For Europeans, two and a half of the big four music companies are located right in their backyard. The largest, Universal, is 100% owned by Vivendi, a French company. EMI is a British company, and Sony BMG is 50% owned by Bertelsmann, a German company. Convincing them to license their music to Apple and others DRM-free will create a truly interoperable music marketplace. Apple will embrace this wholeheartedly."

In other words, they're trying to escape from the lawsuits that are comming, by telling Europe to force the big four to do a nice deal with Apple... instead of forcing Apple to do their job.

Cool, heh?

Of course that this action already had some results:

Senior advisor Torgeir Waterhouse of the Norwegian Consumer Council did the best thing possible, and gave Jobs the reply he deserved:

"Our concern is of course that it's Apple and [the] iTunes Music Store [that] should be addressing the issue of record companies and DRM themselves if it needs to be addressed - and as we've stated earlier it's iTunes Music Store that's providing a service to the consumers and therefore has the responsibility to offer up a consumer friendly product."

and

"no matter what agreements [the] iTunes Music Store [has] entered into, they're still the company that's selling music to the consumers and are responsible for offering the consumer a fair deal according to Norwegian law."

On the other hand, RIAA refuses a DRM-free world, telling that "option 2" (open Apple's DRM technology) should be the choice, ant that

"We have no doubt that a technology company as sophisticated and smart as Apple could work with the music community to make that happen"

, but this is the option that Jobs himself dismissed...

As I've told you before, EMI is really slowly experimenting music sells without DRM. Inquired about it, Jeanne Meyer, an EMI spokeswomen, said:

"The feedback from fans (has) been very enthusiastic,"

and that

"I think the labels will release selected back-catalog stuff, to see what happens"