Warner Music Group
Warner Music Group (WMG) is the third-largest of the "big four" major record labels, the others being Sony BMG, EMI, and Universal.
Warner Music Group also has a publishing arm, Warner/Chappell Music, which dates back to 1929, when Jack Warner, president of Warner Bros. Pictures Inc., founded Music Publishers Holding Company (“MPHC”) to acquire music copyrights as a means of providing inexpensive music for films. Amongst the historic compositions in which the publishing rights are controlled by WMG are the works of Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. Its printed music operation, Warner Bros. Publications, was sold to Alfred Publishing on 2005-06-01.
History
WMG's roots in what became Time Warner date back to the founding of Warner Bros. Records as a division of the Warner Bros. movie studio in 1958, in reaction to one of its contracted actors, Tab Hunter scoring a hit for Dot Records, a division of Paramount Pictures. In 1963, Warner Bros. purchased Reprise Records, founded by Frank Sinatra 3 years earlier so that he could have more creative control over his recordings. Reprise was operated in conjunction with WBR.
After Warner Bros. was sold to Seven Arts Productions in 1967 (forming Warner Bros.-Seven Arts), it purchased Atlantic Records, now WMG's oldest label. For the next 2 years, Atlantic and its subsidiary label Atco Records were operated separately from WBR and Reprise.
In 1969, Warner Bros.-Seven Arts was sold to the Kinney National Company. Kinney (later to be known as Warner Communications) combined the operations of all of its record labels. The following year, Kinney bought Elektra Records and its sister label Nonesuch Records, and assembled the labels into a group known as Warner-Elektra-Atlantic, also called WEA for short, or Warner Music Group. The WEA name was also used as a label outside the U.S.
In the mid-1970s, WEA expanded by purchasing Asylum Records and Sire Records. The former was merged with Elektra to form Elektra-Asylum, though the separate names would still be used as well. The latter became a sublabel of WBR in the meanwhile.
WEA's labels also distributed a number of otherwise independent labels. For example, Warner Bros. distributed Straight Records, DiscReet Records, Bizarre Records, Bearsville Records, and Geffen Records (the latter was sold to MCA in 1990). Atlantic Records distributed Swan Song Records.
In 1987, it was announced that Warner Communications was to merge with Time Inc. to form Time Warner, a transaction which was completed in 1990.
Atlantic started 2 new subsidiary labels in the early 1990s - EastWest Records (which absorbed Atco Records) and Interscope Records. The former was later absorbed into Elektra, and the latter was also sold to MCA in 1995.
Time Warner sold the company in late 2003 to a group of investors led by Edgar Bronfman, Jr. for $2.6 billion. Time Warner was reportedly attempting to reduce its debt load. This spinoff was completed on February 27, 2004. In the 2004 transition to independent ownership, WMG hired record industry heavyweight Lyor Cohen from Universal Music Group (successor to MCA) to attempt to reduce cost and increase performance.
WMG's current logo is the former Warner Communications logo.
On May 5, 2006, WMG apparently rejected a buyout offer from EMI . Then WMG offered to buy EMI and it also rejected the offer. As of 2008, EMI has since been purchased by Terra Firma Capital Partners.
Recently, WMG acquired Rykodisc (home of the Frank Zappa catalog), and Roadrunner Records.
On December 27, 2007, Warner announced that they would sell digital music without Digital Rights Management through AmazonMP3, making them the third major label to do so.
In 2007, Warner Chapell sent a Cease and Desist letter to Walter Ritter, the creator of a freeware program (PearLyrics) which was used to find lyrics of songs using the internet. In response to wide negative publicity, they subsequently apologized and offered to cooperate with him on the application; however, no subsequent overtures seem to have been made, and the software remains unavailable.
List of Warner labels
Warner Music Group's labels include the following. It should be noted that some labels are actually divisions of other labels than in the order listed; this order reflects the current order of each label's administration.
 1st & 15th Entertainment Founded in 2002 by Lupe Fiasco
143 Records – founded in 1994 by David Foster.
Atlantic Records – founded in 1947 by Ahmet Ertegün and Herb Abramson.
Bad Boy Records – founded in 1993 by Sean "Diddy" Combs.
Elektra Records – founded in 1950 by Jac Holzman.
Fort Knocks Entertainment - founded in 2005 by Just Blaze
Lava Records – founded in 1995 by Jason Flom
Roadrunner Records – founded in 1980 by Cees Wessels.
Colonies Records - founded in 2008 by Omar Preddie
Warner Bros. Records – launched by Warner Bros. Pictures in 1958.
Blacksmith Records – founded by Talib Kweli in 2005.
Maverick – founded by Freddy DeMann and Madonna in 1992.
Nonesuch Records – founded by Jac Holzman in 1964.
Reprise Records – founded by Frank Sinatra in 1960
Festival Mushroom Records – launched from Festival Records and Mushroom Records in 1998.
RuffNation Records
Sire Records – founded by Seymour Stein in 1966.
Word Entertainment (co-owned with Curb Records)
* Word Distribution (Christian Booksellers market distribution)
* Word Label Group
** Word Records
** Myrrh Records
** Squint Entertainment
* Word Music Publishing
* Word Music (Printed Music)
Atco Records
Rhino Records
Rhino Home Video
Warner Custom Products
Warner Music Group Soundtracks
WMG Film, Television & Commercial Licensing
* Warner Strategic Marketing (warner.esp)
Rykodisc Records
Ryko Distribution
Cordless Recordings
Asylum Records – founded in 1971 by David Geffen.
East West Records – founded in 1955 (today serves as an umbrella label for various indie labels.)
* Adeline Records
* Better Looking Records
* The Bevonshire Label
*Born & Bred Records
* Broken English
* Fearless Records
* Floodgate Records
* Liberty & Lament
* Montalban Hotel
* One Eleven Records
* Perfect Game Recording Co.
* Popsicle Records - founded in 2008 by Jeffree Star
* Silent Majority Group
* Tent Show
* Triple Crown Records
* Volcom Entertainment
* We Put Out Records
*Rhymesayers Entertainment
WEA International Inc.
WEA International Inc. has divisions worldwide such as Australia, Japan and all over Europe. These branches are usually called Warner Music followed by the name of the country. Some labels have more than one record company for example the UK has Warner Bros. UK and Atlantic UK.
Warner Music UK
* Warner Bros. Records UK
* Atlantic Records UK
* London Records (originally the U.S. label for Decca)
* 679 Recordings
Liberation Music (Australia)
Ivy League Records (Australia)
Warner Music Gallo Africa (joint venture between Warner Music and South African media giant Avusa Limited)
* Gallo Music Group – the largest South African record label (an Avusa subsidiary)
1967 Ltd
* Must Destroy Records (distribution)
* The Beats (labels deal)
* Warner Strategic Marketing (warner.esp)
Blue Horizon
Chiyun Records
Vice Records
Lightyear Entertainment
Sub Pop
New Line Records
Green label records
SaraBellum Records
VMG Recordings
Teleprompt Records
Rhymesayers Entertainment
Trivia
Warner Music Group is the only one of the Big Four label groups that does not trace its roots back to the pre-1900 labels Columbia Records and Berliner Gramophone. Those U.S. labels' British licensees merged to become EMI in 1931. Then, in 2004, the successors to the original labels merged to form Sony BMG Music Entertainment. Universal Music Group's oldest label, Deutsche Grammophon, was founded in 1898 as the German licensee of Berliner Gramophone. In contrast, all of WMG's major labels were founded after World War II.
Warner Music Group is also the only one of the Big Four label groups that does not have a substantial link to European ownership. EMI is headquartered in London, Sony BMG is half owned by Bertelsmann (headquartered in Germany) and Universal Music Group is 100% owned by Vivendi SA (headquartered in Paris)
Warner purchased the company owning the rights to Happy Birthday to You in 1990; the song is in copyright in the United States until 2030 (although the validity of their copyright claim has been questioned by Robert Brauneis).
in 2008, Warner Music Spain launches one on-line stickers album, new and original way of communication, for the Venezuelan artist Carlos Baute
See also
List of record labels
Warner Music Group artists
External links
WMG.com – Warner Music Group official site
WBR.com – Warner Bros. Records official site
– Warner Music Italy official site
miWML.com – Warner Music Latina official site
Reprise Records.com – official site
Rhino.TV – official site
Sire Records.com – official site
Warner Music Group company profile at Yahoo Business
SEC filings at the SEC
The on-line stickers album of Carlos Baute
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