Sony BMG / Sony Music Entertainment mess

[Paul Jarvis-2]

Basic background for those in the dark: In August 2004, the Sony
Corporation of America and Bertelsmann AG set up the music company Sony
BMG Music Entertainment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG, one of
the big four record label groups, with both Sony and Bertelsmann holding
a 50% stake.  In October 2008, Sony acquired Bertelsmann's stake, and
decided that it would be a good idea to rename the company to Sony Music
Entertainment , which was also the name of Sony's music label before the
merger http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Music_Entertainment.

Sony/BMG is the parent label for some of the biggest record labels in
the world (RCA/Columbia/Arista) and has possibly the most complicated
history ever, with the revival of old labels, sudden mergers, use of
different label imprints depending on country etc., you get the idea, so
with this latest relaunch it's going to cause even more confusion.  
We've always had trouble filing these various companies and subsidiaries
in MBz, eventually deciding upon using simple 'what's on the cover'
rationale.  This seems to have resulted in a bit (understatement) of a
mess in the database, which is getting to the unmanageable stage.

Basic questions I have are:
Do people think there is a problem that needs sorting?
What should/can be done about it?

I know that to a certain extent there is a mess in all the labels
(Universal comes to mind!), many of which seems to have been sorted out
by simply ditching and merging all the regional offices.  However, Sony
seems to have made itself a tad more complicated, with all manner of
subsidiaries and imprints.  There needs to be a mass restructure of the
labels, I don't know how much of this might get cleared up in NGS, and
not being programming minded I can't tell whether the problem's because
of the current system or just general clutter, so I thought i'd ask for
people's viewpoints.

Paul / jarvo

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[Brant Gibbard]

Since the "Label" field in MB is intended to represent the imprint, not the
company, the reorganization only matters to the extent that the imprints
change name. The corporate hierarchy and ownership history is largely
irrelevant for our purposes, and should be relegated to annotation fields.
The instructions currently included in the annotations of some major labels
telling people to file releases under regional offices have always been in
complete contradiction to the guidelines, and should be removed.

Brant Gibbard
Toronto, ON
http://bgibbard.ca 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: musicbrainz-users-bounces@...
> [mailto:musicbrainz-users-bounces@...] On
> Behalf Of Paul Jarvis
> Sent: April-01-09 8:15 AM
> To: General discussions about MusicBrainz
> Subject: [mb-users] Sony BMG / Sony Music Entertainment mess
>
> Basic background for those in the dark: In August 2004, the
> Sony Corporation of America and Bertelsmann AG set up the
> music company Sony BMG Music Entertainment
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG, one of the big four
> record label groups, with both Sony and Bertelsmann holding a
> 50% stake.  In October 2008, Sony acquired Bertelsmann's
> stake, and decided that it would be a good idea to rename the
> company to Sony Music Entertainment , which was also the name
> of Sony's music label before the merger
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Music_Entertainment.
>
> Sony/BMG is the parent label for some of the biggest record
> labels in the world (RCA/Columbia/Arista) and has possibly
> the most complicated history ever, with the revival of old
> labels, sudden mergers, use of different label imprints
> depending on country etc., you get the idea, so with this
> latest relaunch it's going to cause even more confusion.  
> We've always had trouble filing these various companies and
> subsidiaries in MBz, eventually deciding upon using simple
> 'what's on the cover'
> rationale.  This seems to have resulted in a bit
> (understatement) of a mess in the database, which is getting
> to the unmanageable stage.
>
> Basic questions I have are:
> Do people think there is a problem that needs sorting?
> What should/can be done about it?
>
> I know that to a certain extent there is a mess in all the
> labels (Universal comes to mind!), many of which seems to
> have been sorted out by simply ditching and merging all the
> regional offices.  However, Sony seems to have made itself a
> tad more complicated, with all manner of subsidiaries and
> imprints.  There needs to be a mass restructure of the
> labels, I don't know how much of this might get cleared up in
> NGS, and not being programming minded I can't tell whether
> the problem's because of the current system or just general
> clutter, so I thought i'd ask for people's viewpoints.
>
> Paul / jarvo
>
> _______________________________________________
> MusicBrainz-users mailing list
> MusicBrainz-users@...
> http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-users

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