"How the Universal-EMI Deal Will Change the Music Industry" na rollingstone.com

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A little more than a decade ago, there were six powerful major labels. Now, with the sale of EMI's recorded-music division – home to the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Coldplay and Katy Perry – to Universal Music Group for $1.9 billion, the record industry will be reduced to just three. (...)

"It's going to be damaging in the end," says a veteran major-label executive. "There's going to be another whack-down of artist rosters. It happens again and again. How can artists and their managers fight for priority attention? It's tough."

EMI is the latest victim of a decade of severe record-industry contraction. Labels peaked in 2000, selling more than 785 million albums, but Internet piracy and the shift from high-profit CDs to low-profit digital singles have forced thousands of label layoffs and drastic artist-roster cuts. At the same time, new power centers have emerged in the music business, including Live Nation, the concert behemoth that merged with Ticketmaster last year; Apple, which has grown into the biggest music retailer; and a new generation of do-it-yourself artists, from Radiohead to Wilco, who have left the majors behind.

How the Universal-EMI Deal Will Change the Music Industry