Warner Music Group Settles With Spitzer

Eliot Spitzer

The WARNER MUSIC GROUP becomes the second record label group to settle with NEW YORK Attorney General ELIOT SPITZER's office for $5 million.

According to the press release on SPITZER's site:

WARNER MUSIC GROUP CORP., the third largest record company in the United States, has agreed to abandon the industry-wide practice of providing radio stations and their employees with financial incentives and promotional items in exchange for "airplay" for WARNER’s recordings.

SPITZER commented, "WARNER is the second major player in the music industry to come forward and acknowledge that these practices are wrong. Unfortunately, other companies continue to engage in them. I applaud WARNER’s decision to halt this conduct, cooperate fully with my office, and adopt new business practices." 

The money that WARNER's has agreed to pay will be distributed by the ROCKEFELLER PHILANTHROPY ADVISORS to NEW YORK STATE to fund music programs in the state.

WARNER MUSIC spokesman WILL TANOUS commented, "The reforms we have agreed to with the attorney general are consistent with the internal reforms that our new management team implemented earlier this year. We consider this to have been a valuable process. From our perspective, radio cannot be too consumer-driven. The music that people hear on the radio always should represent the highest quality the industry has to offer."

For additional details on SPITZER's press release, just click here.

And for a look at the 56 page Assurance Of Discontinuance which contains a lot of the evidence, just click here.

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