Sony Music Entertainment is the second largest music company in the entire world. Although it is a subsidiary company of the Japanese global conglomerate Sony Corporation, it is owned and run by Sony Corporation of America. Sony Music was first founded in 1929 as ‘American Record Corporation’ and has had many names before becoming ‘Sony Music Entertainment’ in 2008.
Some of Sony’s dominant record labels are Columbia Records, RCA Records and Epic Records. All three of these records don’t specialize in one genre and publish a vast variety of music genres unlike smaller music labels. RCA is known to be the label that the infamous alternative rock band ‘Foo Fighters’ are signed to. Epic Records started off as a jazz imprint but eventually diversified into the large multi-genre label it is today.
Only in 2008, Sony bought BMG (Bertelsmann Music Group), which was part of the major dominant music groups that existed at the time. This helped Sony Music surpass EMI and secure itself as being the second largest music corporation in the world.
SME does not have a distribution and marketing platform as large as UMG (Universal Music Group). Although Sony Music Entertainment does not have its own merchandising subsidiaries, it partners with companies such as Band Merch and The Thread Shop. The company completed the acquisition on October 1, 2008.
In March 2010, Sony Corp partnered with The Michael Jackson Company in a contract of more than $250 million, the largest deal in recorded music history.
Doug Morris, who was head of Warner Music Group, and later Universal Music, became chairman and CEO of Sony Music Entertainment on July 1, 2011. Sony Music underwent restructuring upon Morris’ arrival; with some artists switching labels while other labels were eliminated altogether.
In June 2012, a consortium led by Sony/ATV acquired EMI Music Publishing, making Sony/ATV the world’s largest music publisher at the time.
In July 2013, Sony Music withdrew from the Greek market due to an economic crisis. Albums released by Sony Music in Greece from domestic and foreign artists would then be carried by Feelgood Records.
In June 2017, Sony announced that by March 2018 it would be producing vinyl records in-house for the first time since ceasing their production in 1989.
On February 5, 2019, a group of 1970s-era musicians including David Johansen and John Waite filed lawsuits accusing Sony Music Entertainment and UMG Recordings, Inc. of improperly refusing to let them reclaim the rights to songs they had signed away earlier in their careers.
In 2021, Sony agreed to buy Kobalt neighboring rights division and independent distribution company AWAL, from the Kobalt Music Group for $430 million.
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