Universal has acquired EMI recordings a few months back but the EU hasn't yet declare the sale to be holy in its books.

On March 23rd 2012, the EU has announced it launches an official investigation in the sale of EMI recordings to giant major Universal by CitiGroup. The EU has apparently some very serious questions on the quasi-monopole position Universal would find itself in if the sale gets approval: Universal would then be about twice the size of its nearest rival and that would seriously cause competition problems on the market as the EU wants to ensure consumers will still have choice with large offer of music whether in physical or digital formats.

A few days ago, Martin Mills (he of Beggars and 4AD famous label) spoke to CMU and talked about the multiple dangers of having a market being dominated by one huge company: that would be a problem not only in the physical market (shelves in shops and magazine front covers would be under serious pressure to feature Universal artists first) but that would also suffocate the offers and sustainability from other labels. Another point made by Mr Mills would be that, if pop artists would benefit from being signed on...

The illustrious Temptations and its 13 plaintive lawyers are sueing Universal Music Group for allegedly having being cheated out of revenues coming from digital downloads, and we're not talking small dimes here as this lawsuit, if lost by UMG, could mean millions of dollars having to be paid to artists such as Nirvana, Eric Clapton, Kiss, The Police, The Who, etc...

What's the grunge ? The use of the words "licences" and "sales". See, in a 1993 Universal contract, it says UMG would pay The Temptations around 16 % percent of revenues coming from "sales" when they would pay 50 percent from "licences" revenues. And UMG seems to consider that digital downloads and ringtones are sales, and not licences. We're talking a big, large, very large amount of money: UMG would have to pay The Temptations about 3 times more what they've been paying them so far, and we're talking more or less about 17 years of digital sales, aren't we ?

So, in what is going to be a trial to remember, we'll see lawyers from both sides arguing that digital sales are or are not licenced products. And no doubt The Temptations' lawyers will call Steve Jobs' ghost at the hearing as he wrote a...