Bertelsmann Music Group

In 1994, BMG acquired Casa Ricordi, an Italian publisher founded in 1808.It also took Ruffhouse Records under its wings which houses American urban hip hop, a first for a German Label.

In March 1998, BMG sold its video game publisher BMG Interactive to Take-Two Interactive, with Bertelsmann taking a 16 percent stake in Take-Two. BMG Interactive notably held the published rights to Grand Theft Auto, which Take-Two's Rockstar Games developed into a series.

The joint venture between Sony and Bertelsmann to merge both companies' music divisions was set up in August 2004. It reduced the Big Five record companies to the Big Four record companies. At that time, the company had a 21.5% share in the global music market. Sony Music and BMG remained separate in Japan, although BMG Music Japan was wholly owned by Sony BMG.

On 27 March 2006, The New York Times reported that Bertelsmann was looking to raise money by leveraging some of its media assets and that executives from both companies were in talks about possibly altering the current venture. In 2008, Bertelsmann sold its 50% share of Sony BMG to Sony Corporation of America for a total of $1.5 billion and the company was renamed back to Sony Music Entertainment Inc.

While officially withdrawing from the business of recorded music, Bertelsmann continued its strong presence in other areas of the music industry by establishing BMG Rights Management, which specializes in music rights management and by representing artists and authors. It is mainly active in European markets. The basis of the company was formed through BMG's decision to withhold selected European music catalogues from the former Sony BMG joint venture and the BMG Publishing businesses.

Also kept separate from the acquisition by Sony Corporation of America was Sony BMG's wholly owned and operated BMG Japan. Sony Music Entertainment Japan remained independent from the Sony BMG joint venture, therefore BMG and Sony labelling were kept separate in Japan under the venture. During Sony BMG's buyout, BMG Japan was instead picked up by SMEJ. It briefly continued to operate as a distinct entity until a reorganization in early 2009 folded the company into Sony Music Japan.

Subsidiaries

Now part of Sony Music Entertainment after the buyout of Bertelsmann's 50% stake in Sony BMG.

Catalogues owned

Through international sub-publishing deals, BMG Music Publishing represented the catalogues of Famous Music Publishing, Walt Disney, Roadrunner Records, Leiber & Stoller, Fremantle Media, Pete Waterman, and Malaco Records in various territories.

BMG Music Publishing acquired Complete Music in 2006.

Brentwood-Benson Music Publishing was BMG Music Publishing's Christian publisher and owned over 60,000 copyrights. Like with other assets of BMG Music Publishing acquired by Universal Music, it was renamed to Universal Music Brentwood-Benson. It is nowadays managed by Capitol CMG Publishing, Universal Music's christian publishing operations under Capitol Christian Music Group.

Criticism

CD price fixing

Between 1995 and 2000, music companies were found to have used illegal marketing agreements such as minimum advertised pricing to artificially inflate prices of compact discs in order to end price wars by discounters such as Best Buy and Target in the early 1990s.

A settlement in 2002 included the music publishers and distributors; Sony Music, Warner Music, Bertelsmann Music Group, EMI Music and Universal Music. In restitution for price fixing they agreed to pay a $67.4 million fine and distribute $75.7 million in CDs to public and non-profit groups but admitted no wrongdoing. It is estimated customers were overcharged by nearly $500 million and up to $5 per album.