This Ger­man media car­tel needs to be bro­ken up if peo­ple, par­tic­u­larly in Europe, are ever going to wake up to Ger­man hege­monic ambition.

Ber­tels­mann even have edi­to­r­ial con­trol of some of the most suc­cess­ful British TV pro­duc­tion com­pa­nies, insert­ing all the pro­pa­ganda they want into British prime time fic­tional TV shows.

Remove Ber­tels­mann and Siemens, remove an awful lot of Ger­man power.

@Dave,

Megau­pload is com­ing back as a new ser­vice called Mega and it’s founder, Kim, is some­how free. Either way, there is an awe­some video and song at his site, where he anounced the forth­com­ing Mega ser­vice. I’m SUPER inter­ested in get­ting your per­spec­tive on this and how you see this as fit­ting into the grander scheme of things which we com­mon folk can­not see. Let me know, Dave, but while you con­sider my request, please check out the site, which has the video & song on the front page with a new campaign.

http://kim.com/

@Jay–

This post cov­ers my view of Kim Schmitz, aka Kim Dot­com.

Read it care­fully and fol­low the links.

Best,

Dave Emory

Iran Spy­ing in Vienna says JPost: BERLIN – The Aus­trian cap­i­tal is a main Euro­pean hub for Tehran’s spy net­work, the US-based Fed­eral Research Divi­sion of the Library of Con­gress con­cluded in Decem­ber in a com­pre­hen­sive report on Iran­ian intel­li­gence activities.

The report was con­ducted with the Com­bat­ing Ter­ror­ism Tech­ni­cal Sup­port Office’s Irreg­u­lar War­fare Sup­port Pro­gram and unleashed a flurry of reports in the Aus­trian media last week.

Accord­ing to the US study, “Vienna... is allegedly full of MOIS [Iran­ian Min­istry of Intel­li­gence and Secu­rity] agents. It is because of the con­tin­u­ous good rela­tion­ship between Iran and Aus­tria since the Rev­o­lu­tion – after the US hostage cri­sis – which resulted in con­dem­na­tion of the Islamic Repub­lic by many coun­tries and secluded Iran in many ways. Aus­tria was one of the few coun­tries that was not concerned.”

“It appears that Iran takes advan­tage of this rela­tion­ship by deploy­ing its intel­li­gence offi­cers in Aus­tria. It has been reported that MOIS agents iden­tify anti–Islamic Repub­lic polit­i­cal activists and threaten to silence them,” the report said.

The MOIS is respon­si­ble for sup­press­ing dis­sent in the Islamic Repub­lic among oppo­si­tion groups and among the large dias­pora Iran­ian com­mu­nity, accord­ing to Iran­ian dis­si­dents and experts. Iran­ian reform groups con­sider the MOIS a ruth­less appa­ra­tus of Iran’s government.

In response to a query from The Jerusalem Post on Sun­day, Karl-Heinz Grund­böck, a spokesman for Austria’s Inte­rior Min­istry, wrote via email that the domes­tic intel­li­gence agency Ver­fas­sungss­chutz can­not issue a com­ment beyond the infor­ma­tion con­tained in the agency’s report, and referred the Post to the agency’s intel­li­gence analysis.

Christoph Mohn’s father was Rein­hard Mohn http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/bertelsmann-names-christoph-mohn-chairman-366816

The below press announce­ment is from Bertells­mann
———————————–
Güter­sloh, 01/02/2013

Christoph Mohn chairs the Ber­tels­mann Super­vi­sory Board from Jan­u­ary 1

Gunter Thielen’s suc­ces­sor takes office
Sixth gen­er­a­tion of the Ber­tels­mann and Mohn families

Christoph Mohn (47) has been the new Chair­man of the Ber­tels­mann SE & Co. KGaA Super­vi­sory Board since Jan­u­ary 1, 2013. He suc­ceeded Gunter Thie­len (70), who resigned from the Super­vi­sory Board after five years as its Chair­man on the reach­ing retire­ment age. The con­trol­ling board chose its new Chair­man in August of last year. At the same time the Ber­tels­mann Man­age­ment SE Super­vi­sory Board (the gen­eral part­ner of Ber­tels­mann SE & Co. KGaA) also appointed Christoph Mohn as its future Chair­man with effect from the turn of the year.

Says Mohn: “I look for­ward to the new chal­lenge and the grow­ing respon­si­bil­ity asso­ci­ated with it, which I am priv­i­leged to under­take for Ber­tels­mann as a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the sixth gen­er­a­tion of the Ber­tels­mann and Mohn fam­i­lies. I have pre­pared inten­sively for this role, for which I would espe­cially like to thank my pre­de­ces­sor Gunter Thie­len. I will ful­fill these respon­si­bil­i­ties as an active con­troller, together with my Super­vi­sory Board col­leagues and col­leagues from indus­try and the works coun­cil. I take office in a highly dynamic and impor­tant phase for Ber­tels­mann that will lead to a long-term strate­gic strength­en­ing of the Group.”

He adds: “I will do every­thing in my power to sup­port Thomas Rabe and the Exec­u­tive Board in mak­ing Ber­tels­mann a faster-growing, more inter­na­tional com­pany. The com­pany has already defined a clear path to achiev­ing this with its four strate­gic pri­or­i­ties of strength­en­ing the core, dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion, build­ing growth plat­forms and expand­ing in growth regions. I look for­ward to work­ing with our CEO, with whom I share many beliefs. We will work with the excel­lent Exec­u­tive Board team to safe­guard the future of this com­pany, its con­ti­nu­ity and its independence.”

About Ber­tels­mann

Ber­tels­mann is an inter­na­tional media com­pany whose core divi­sions encom­pass tele­vi­sion (RTL Group), book pub­lish­ing (Ran­dom House), mag­a­zine pub­lish­ing (Gruner + Jahr), ser­vices (Arvato), and print­ing (Be Print­ers) in some 50 coun­tries. In 2011, the company’s busi­nesses, with their more than 100,000 employ­ees, gen­er­ated rev­enues of €15.3 bil­lion. Ber­tels­mann stands for a com­bi­na­tion of cre­ativ­ity and entre­pre­neur­ship that empow­ers the cre­ation of first-rate media, com­mu­ni­ca­tions, and ser­vice offer­ings to inspire peo­ple around the world and to pro­vide inno­v­a­tive solu­tions for customers.

Munch, munch, munch..... From Ber­tels­mann.
———————————–
Gütersloh/New York, 03/01/2013

Ber­tels­mann Acquires Full Own­er­ship of Music Com­pany BMG

KKR sells its stake fol­low­ing suc­cess­ful build-up
BMG has been jointly devel­oped into a lead­ing global music com­pany
Ber­tels­mann strength­ens its growth area of music rights management

Ber­tels­mann, the inter­na­tional media group, is tak­ing full own­er­ship of the inno­v­a­tive music rights man­age­ment com­pany BMG by acquir­ing the shares cur­rently held by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR), and will con­tinue to develop BMG as a wholly owned sub­sidiary. The trans­ac­tion, which is sub­ject to reg­u­la­tory approval, is sched­uled to close dur­ing the first half of this year. The par­ties have agreed to keep the finan­cial details of the trans­ac­tion con­fi­den­tial. BMG admin­is­ters the rights to more than one mil­lion songs, includ­ing works by such artists as Bruno Mars, Duran Duran, Gos­sip, Johnny Cash, and Will.i.am. It also rep­re­sents the mas­ter rights (com­po­si­tion and record­ing) of artists who include Brian Ferry, Nena and Anastacia.

Ber­tels­mann Chair­man & CEO Thomas Rabe said: “This is a great day for Ber­tels­mann: We are bring­ing the music home to our group. A few years after our exit from the tra­di­tional music busi­ness, in asso­ci­a­tion with KKR, we have suc­ceeded in build­ing the world’s fourth-largest music rights man­age­ment busi­ness.” Rabe empha­sized that KKR has been a good part­ner. “Our part­ner­ship made it pos­si­ble for BMG to take advan­tage of con­sol­i­da­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties and to rapidly advance the organic expan­sion of the busi­ness. I thank them for an excel­lent collaboration.”

Tak­ing full own­er­ship of BMG is an impor­tant step in putting Bertelsmann’s growth strat­egy into prac­tice, Rabe explained. “We are happy to have BMG as our own com­pany again. CEO Hartwig Masuch and his team deserve our thanks for the pas­sion and know how they brought to devel­op­ing a small cre­ative nucleus into a pow­er­house that pro­vides the right answers to the chal­lenges of the music indus­try in this dig­i­tal age.”

Johannes Huth, Head of KKR Europe, said: “Our inno­v­a­tive part­ner­ship with Ber­tels­mann, which com­bined the pro­fes­sional exper­tise of a global media com­pany with the finan­cial strength, net­work and business-building exper­tise of KKR, was a com­plete suc­cess. We explored new busi­ness approaches with Ber­tels­mann; BMG did pio­neer­ing work in the music rights mar­ket with its dig­i­tal, service-focused busi­ness approach. The model of a ‘growth and build’ part­ner­ship between a cor­po­rate group and KKR is bound to be seen more often in the future.”

Thomas Hesse, who as Pres­i­dent, Cor­po­rate Devel­op­ment and New Busi­nesses, at Ber­tels­mann is respon­si­ble for BMG, added: “The BMG suc­cess story is impres­sive. The com­pany works with a lean orga­ni­za­tion, a man­age­ment with an excel­lent net­work, and a deep under­stand­ing of the needs of artists, song­writ­ers and copy­right hold­ers in the dig­i­tal age. We will oper­ate this busi­ness long-term to actively expand it.”

 
Hartwig Masuch, CEO of BMG, said: “For BMG, this is a return home. Being a sub­sidiary of one of the world’s lead­ing media com­pa­nies opens up more fields of coop­er­a­tion for us and our cus­tomers in the future, and we look for­ward to many new, long-term devel­op­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties. The world­wide increase in the use of music, and the emer­gence of new dig­i­tal busi­ness mod­els offer a vari­ety of oppor­tu­ni­ties that we will actively explore. We are grate­ful to KKR for always shar­ing our vision of an alter­na­tive, service-oriented com­pany in the music rights mar­ket, and for actively sup­port­ing us with their team these past three and a half years. With­out KKR, this devel­op­ment would not have been possible.”

Philipp Freise, Head of KKR’s Euro­pean media busi­ness, added, “BMG has deliv­ered an out­stand­ing per­for­mance since it was founded, and has exceeded our orig­i­nal expec­ta­tions. Together with Ber­tels­mann, we sys­tem­at­i­cally sup­ported BMG’s inter­na­tional expan­sion. As we had hoped, today, BMG is one of the world’s lead­ing music rights man­age­ment com­pa­nies and very well posi­tioned to con­tinue writ­ing its suc­cess story under the proven lead­er­ship of Bertelsmann.”

BMG, with head­quar­ters in Berlin and a pres­ence in eight core coun­tries, is highly prof­itable on an oper­at­ing result level. Numer­ous renowned artists are signed to the com­pany, which in recent years has acquired sev­eral rights cat­a­logs and labels from the United States, UK, Ger­many and France. BMG will be fully con­sol­i­dated within Ber­tels­mann after antitrust clear­ance has been received. Hartwig Masuch will remain CEO. J.P. Mor­gan served as Bertelsmann’s finan­cial advi­sor in the share buy­back, while KKR was advised by Citigroup.

About Ber­tels­mann
Ber­tels­mann is an inter­na­tional media com­pany whose core divi­sions encom­pass tele­vi­sion
(RTL Group), book pub­lish­ing (Ran­dom House), mag­a­zine pub­lish­ing (Gruner + Jahr), ser­vices (Arvato), and print­ing (Be Print­ers) in some 50 coun­tries. In 2011, the company’s busi­nesses, with their more than 100,000 employ­ees, gen­er­ated rev­enues of €15.3 bil­lion. Ber­tels­mann stands for a com­bi­na­tion of cre­ativ­ity and entre­pre­neur­ship that empow­ers the cre­ation of first-rate media, com­mu­ni­ca­tions, and ser­vice offer­ings to inspire peo­ple around the world and to pro­vide inno­v­a­tive solu­tions for cus­tomers.
http://www.bertelsmann.com

About KKR
Founded in 1976 and led by Henry Kravis and George Roberts, KKR is a lead­ing global invest­ment firm with $75.5 bil­lion in assets under man­age­ment as of Decem­ber 31, 2012. With offices around the world, KKR man­ages assets through a vari­ety of invest­ment funds and accounts cov­er­ing mul­ti­ple asset classes. KKR seeks to cre­ate value by bring­ing oper­a­tional exper­tise to its port­fo­lio com­pa­nies and through active over­sight and mon­i­tor­ing of its invest­ments. KKR com­ple­ments its invest­ment exper­tise and strength­ens inter­ac­tions with fund investors through its client rela­tion­ships and cap­i­tal mar­kets plat­form. KKR & Co. L.P. is pub­licly traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: KKR), and “KKR,” as used in this release, includes its sub­sidiaries, their man­aged invest­ment funds and accounts, and/or their affil­i­ated invest­ment vehi­cles, as appro­pri­ate.
http://www.kkr.com

 
About BMG
BMG is an inter­na­tional group of music com­pa­nies focused on the man­age­ment of music rights. BMG cov­ers the entire range of rights admin­is­tra­tion, devel­op­ment, and exploita­tion, plac­ing the needs of song­writ­ers and artists at the core of its busi­ness model. Since its found­ing in 2008, BMG has estab­lished a pres­ence in eight core music mar­kets and rep­re­sents the rights of more than a mil­lion songs and record­ings includ­ing Crosstown, Cherry Lane, Stage Three, Ever­green, Chrysalis and Bug in addi­tion to a num­ber of signed promi­nent artists and song­writ­ers. The com­pany trades under the name BMG Chrysalis in the United States of Amer­ica, the United King­dom and Swe­den fol­low­ing the acqui­si­tion of Chrysalis plc.
http://www.bmg.com

The late Anti-Fascist Amer­i­can Folk Icon Woody Guthrie has been a BMG Artist since BMG acquired Bug Music. He wrote a ton of anti-fascist songs and even had “This machine Kills fas­cists” inscribed on his gui­tar. Now when his music is bought Ber­tels­mann gets a cut. It’s a sign of the times;increasingly, this land is their land.

http://bmg.com/category/music?artist=woody-guthrie

http://www.americansongwriter.com/2011/09/bmg-snatches-up-bug-music-ceo-sues-company/

*burp*

Bloomberg
Bertelsmann’s Ran­dom House Wins EU Back­ing for Pen­guin Bid
By Stephanie Bodoni & Aoife White — Apr 5, 2013 10:14 AM CT

Ber­tels­mann SE’s Ran­dom House won Euro­pean Union approval to buy Pear­son Plc (PSON)’s Pen­guin unit to cre­ate the largest book pub­lisher in the U.K. and the U.S.

The Euro­pean Com­mis­sion said the deal wouldn’t raise com­pe­ti­tion con­cerns because the com­bi­na­tion would face strong rivalry from large and small pub­lish­ers, reg­u­la­tors said in an e-mailed statement.

There was “no evi­dence that the trans­ac­tion would lead to risks of coor­di­na­tion among pub­lish­ers in rela­tion to the acqui­si­tion of authors’ rights and the sale of Eng­lish lan­guage books to deal­ers,” the com­mis­sion said.

The joint ven­ture, named Pen­guin Ran­dom House and to be based in New York, will be 53 percent-owned by Ber­tels­mann, with Pear­son hold­ing the remain­der, the com­pa­nies said in Octo­ber. Ber­tels­mann Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer Thomas Rabe said the ven­ture will con­trol about 25 per­cent of the industry.

Ber­tels­mann said the EU approval adds to pre­vi­ous back­ing from the U.S. Depart­ment of Jus­tice and the Aus­tralian and New Zealand com­pe­ti­tion author­i­ties ear­lier this year.

...

Yeah, that “com­pe­ti­tion” is going to be fierce.