thanks again, philmh: 2009, eh - so yr hmbl srppnt.'s only seven-eight years behind on this :-)
(& that's why stuff is coming out from bmg again - which i misinterpreted as "still" - and what happened to the sanctuary - castle - prt - precision - pye catalogue of recordings.)
Just picking up on the RCA and BMG issue; RCA Records was bought by BMG in the early 80's, though initially the record companies were called RCA/Ariola (Ariola being the original company that BMG owned), or Ariola/RCA in Germany and Austria. Those companies were renamed to different variants of BMG later in the 80's (the Australian one ridiculously named BMG Arista/Ariola Limited - Arista had been acquired by BMG previously), and BMG went into partnership with Sony Music in 2004 to form Sony BMG Music Entertainment. That partnership lasted until 2009, when Sony bought out BMG's share, and the company became Sony Music Entertainment once again, retaining the RCA, Arista and Ariola labels previously owned by BMG. Through all those variations, I believe that the RCA trademark was under licence from General Electric BMG formed a new entity, BMG Rights Management, which I think was initially music publishing, but gradually branched out into recorded music, largely distributed by [PIAS] Records. BMG Rights Management picked up Sanctuary Records, another label that the EU forced Universal to divest. Curiously, some recent BMG Rights Management-controlled reissues (e.g. The Kinks' Pye-era catalogue held by Sanctuary) has been distributed by Sony!
Well - some mighty interesting reading here. Glad to be a member and needless to say, learn a lot from the likes of the catters on here. Thanks guys - hugely appreciated.
Well, first of all, we should not make a special rule what label is and what label is not.
Like I said in my previous comment, label is represented with a logo. If there is no logo, it's not a label.
I can see why some users might be confused and reading fine print instead of looking for the label logo.
Alenko is right but labels can also be an issue. Can the label be something that is not on the CD or artwork? Some people think so, check out this USA copy of Abbey Road to see what I mean. Here, we also see the longbox rear its ugly head and in this case a longbox with a completely different cat# to the CD inside. I hope there aren't too many of these around.
Are the Beatles released by Capitol USA a special case? I don't know but it seems we're heading that way on 45 Worlds.
Bigger labels are usually distributors. Choosing correct label sometimes has nothing to do who actually released the album. Label is like the badge, symbol used on the release, hence label logo has to be present.
Whatever is written in the fine print has nothing to do with the label. For example, Virgin Records America doesn't really exist as a label on its own. Although it is written on the release Virgin Recirds America, label logo on those releases belongs to mainline Virgin. Virgin Recirds America is just an American office of Virgin Records, not a label on its own.
Rhino for example has many releases that have Rhino written in the fine print and use Rhino catalog numbers. However, if there is no Rhino logo, Rhino is not the label. Just a manufacturer/distributer.
This is really great discussion and a lot of interesting information. However, who owns who has nothing to do with determining the label. Label should be chosen based on the label logo. In this case correct label is Parlophone.
Also, if there is more than one label logo, correct primary label is the smaller (smallest) one.
philmh: thank-you for concise & precise, non-rambling details!
(only possible quibble being that wci/warner music group bought all the chunks of the former emi records group it then acquired from universal music group, rather than from its initial sale.
the result's substantially the same, though "the beatles" recordings and the rights to those label names might well be with warners, had they got their "emichunks" in an initial sale-auction-of-the-separate-emi-operating-companies.)
the vertical, outline-in-white font upon the orange ground of the bowie cd label does seem to yr hmbl srppnt. to've been chosen deliberately to echo the brightest and maybe most attractive of the rca label designs - without necessitating paying a licence fee to general electric, to use any of their copyrights! :-)
didn't the rca records corpses go to bmg (bertelsmann music group) - with a limited-length licence to go on using the ge-owned rca names; and iiuc (which yr hmbl srppnt. well mayn't've), isn't bmg still owned by the bertelsmann group of germany (? but not perhaps a gmbh), working with sony music group rather than having been bought by that larger musucmegacorpse ?
Just a couple of clarifications: the current Parlophone Records Limited (division of Warner Music Group) is the renamed EMI Records Limited, being the bulk of the UK EMI company minus the Beatles and a trademark or two (e.g. Harvest). Capitol went to Universal, with most of its catalogue, but that is complicated too as before the sale, Capitol included the catalogues of Aladdin, Imperial, Minit, Liberty and United Artists; the bulk of those seem to have stayed with Capitol, but United Artists' UK-based artists (Shirley Bassey, Bonzo Dog Band, The Stranglers) went to Parlophone, and have been included in Warner Music UK's ORIGINAL ALBUM SERIES of 5-cds-in-cardboard-sleeves-and-slipcases reissues. One of Ace UK's recent CD compilations, though, had an Irma Thomas track (originally on Imperial) as being licensed from Parlophone, so either the EU mandated the catalogues to be split on an artist-by-artist basis, or that licensing credit was a mistake by Ace, as I have yet to see any other US artist from those 5 labels coming through Parlophone. However, one US catalogue that does seem to have gone entirely to Parlophone is Roulette (including the catalogues of Colpix and T.K.), as Count Basie, Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington, Nina Simone and K.C. & The Sunshine Band have all appeared in that same Original Albums Series. Roulette was purchased jointly by EMI and Rhino after it went bankrupt.; Rhino was ultimately purchased by Warner Music, so Warners got full ownership when they bought the rump of EMI.
My understanding of the RCA situation is that RCA Corporation was sold to General Electric, and they license the name to Sony. I also believe that the HMV name and trademark ultimately was vested in the retail chain, and it remains with what is left of that. As for Bowie, he took his catalogue from RCA a couple of decades ago, with reissues previously appearing on Rykodisc, at least in the USA - the EMI issues in the rest of the world may have been contemporaneous with those, and years before the EMI breakup in any case.
sheepdip: yes, and some of the competing musucmegacorpses nevertheless co-operate in some of the pretty major, as well as the minor market territories, elsewhere in the world.
warner music group/wci also picked up as part of the 2013 auctioning-off of umg's excessive control of the eu recorded music market, all of the emi group's current & back catalogue of classical recordings, including virgin classics; but seem to've decided to allot the virgin classics catalogue to the nonesuch label (originally elektra's classical & jazz label), whilst allocating all the various hmv group classics catalogue not to the angel label (originally a relatively minor classical hmv sub-label), which emi usa settled on instead of hmv (possibly because of the dawn-of-records handshake agreement between the gramophone company in london and either the radio corporation of america or the victor record company, to allow the american record company to use nipper listening to his master's voice coming out of the horn of a gramophone as its logo in north america (? or just the usa? or north and south america?)), but to warner classics. . .
weird and wonderful are the ways of minor, as well as major music companies - but it'd take divine intervention, or major super powers, to work out what the musicmegacorpses are going to do next.
it's like a hyperbillionaires' manicmysticmoney'n'power-broking non-stop game of monopoly.
ppint: Interesting reading. Gone were the days when you knew what record company owned what label. I always thought that UMG bought out EMI, as I own the Beatles Mono Box Set of albums (on Parlophone & Capitol) and they are copyrighted and pressed by UMG. Now I'm seeing Warner Music entering the mix.
sheepdip: fx: "little, seated bow": thank-you; a further bit that's particularly relevant here, is that "rca", "rca victor", "radio corporation of america" and prob'ly all formulations incorporating "rca" are trademarks of and copyright not by the record company in question, nor by bmg, but by ge, the general electric corporation - probably inc, if it's not already a nation-state in its own right - and sony-bmg or whoever wants to use them must pay ge an amount to be negotiated to their - ge's - satisfaction, and also pay anyone else who may happen to have obtained an exclusive licence to use these upon records, cds, etc, prior to their seeking to use 'em in the same territories.
(given the, ah, "interesting" uses to which it's been put, of late, "camden" as a recorded music label name might well turn out to've been owned by the record company, rather than by ge.) (but maybe not.)
- the situation regarding the trademark of "nipper listening to his master's voice (or just "nipper"), upon a gramophone (? - or upon any other proprietary system of the playback of audio recordings - ?)" was already quite convoluted before this latest session of musicbusinessmegacorpse rearrangements, and yr hmbl srppnt.'s no idea who - if anyone - 'll've ended up with the world- (? and/or solar system- ?)wide rights to this/these. they might even be in the process of reverting to the descendants of emile berliner!
Hi Lee Wrecker - Unfortunately, I hadn't seen the original cover until you mentioned it. Yuk. Much prefer the original. This is a true copy of the sleeve with no enhancing or scanner issues.
What confused me was why it wasn't released by Sony Music (RCA), rather than Parlophone. ppint's explanation above clarifies it a bit.
It's interesting ppint but confounding. I've been running into this problem left right and centre but each case is different and equally confusing. Seems the CD, label artwork and logos are not to be trusted just like the transnationals that splash them about.
Anoraks and trainspotting university for all until they resolve into one super label. Forum topic, yes but what to discuss is the question. There is no point having us all list instances of where this has happened - it's everywhere and as you point out labels and bits of them (strips anyone) are being bought and sold all the time. What to discuss other than how we can keep up escapes me.
in the wake of the implosion of emi, its purchase by universal made conditional upon umg's disposing of a sufficiency of it (?and/or other yeurppean recorded music assets?) by the dreaded ee-yewww!, and wci/warner music group winning the auction & buying large chunks of the former emi records/music group assets including parlophone group (largely the renamed capitol records group without that name or the rights to the recordings of the beatles), and including the catalogue of the former emi harvest label from universal/umg (but not that name, neither), there's going to have to be some way of distinguishing who now owns which bit(s), and is now the entity releasing music on which bit, on lp as well has cd - which isn't always going to be the apparent label as judged by the retro artwork splashed over the packaging or the cd media.
- should this be a 45worlds forum topic, do catt^Wworlders think?
The CD label looks great sheepdip and is a good reinterpretation of the original RCA Victor label but what have they done to the cover! It looks dreadful to my eyes and looks like a high school student's water colour version of the original. Great set of covers from Bowie though and Mick Ronson is on fire on this album. Worth the price of admission for the guitar work alone.