Sony Bmg Music Entertainment

Sony BMG Music Entertainment plans to sell digital music without copyright protection through Amazon.com Inc., stepping up competition between the Internet retailer and Apple Inc.'s iTunes. Sony BMG is the last of the four major record companies to sell music without piracy protection through Amazon.com, the world's largest online retailer.

Sony BMG Music Entertainment has leased Creative Artists Agency Inc.'s former Beverly Hills headquarters, an I.M. Pei building that has a mural by Roy Lichtenstein in its 57-foot-high atrium. The group, a venture of Sony Corp. and Bertelsmann, will move in by the end of the year, Michael Ovitz, a founder of the Hollywood talent agency and building owner, said this week at the Allen & Co. conference in Sun Valley, Idaho. Sony BMG spokesman John McKay declined to comment.

Now that Sony Corp. and Bertelsmann have broken off their troubled relationship, known as Sony BMG, the Japanese company hopes to harmonize its consumer electronics and its music, a duo that has been badly out of sync. The music business combination four years ago made Sony BMG the world's No. 2 record label, generating savings and preempting other industry consolidation. But the venture's cost-cutting didn't keep pace with falling CD sales, and the two companies' digital strategies didn't mesh.

Sony BMG Music Entertainment was sued by the U.S. on Wednesday for collecting and disclosing personal data about 30,000 children without informing their parents. The Federal Trade Commission filed the civil lawsuit in federal court. The suit, which alleges violations of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, seeks unspecified damages and an injunction.

Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group Corp. said Tuesday that they had made investments in a company operating in China that develops technology for distributing music downloads and other content to mobile phones. The record companies declined to disclose how much they had invested in Access China Media Solutions, formed in early 2006 as a joint venture between Tokyo-based Access Co. and Seattle-based digital media firm Melodeo Inc.

U.S. regulators said Tuesday that Sony BMG Music Entertainment agreed to reimburse consumers as much as $150 for damage to their computers from compact discs with hidden anti-piracy software. According to the Federal Trade Commission, which announced the settlement, Sony BMG's anti-piracy software limited the devices on which music could be played to those made by Sony Corp., Microsoft Corp. or other Windows-compatible devices.

European Union regulators started a reexamination of the merger between the music units of Sony Corp. and Bertelsmann, six months after an EU court threw out their approval. The European Commission, the EU's Brussels-based antitrust regulator, will rule on the creation of Sony BMG Music Entertainment by March 1, a commission spokesman said.

Sony BMG Music Entertainment is suing a company that developed anti-piracy software for CDs, claiming the technology was defective and cost the record company millions of dollars to settle consumer complaints and government investigations. Sony BMG filed a summons in a New York state court against Amergence Group Inc., formerly SunnComm International, which developed the MediaMax CD copy-protection technology.

Sony BMG Music Entertainment fired 61 people Friday, completing a downsizing that began with the 2004 deal that created the second-largest U.S. music company. The joint venture of Sony Corp. of Japan and Bertelsmann of Germany has more than 6,000 employees. Sony BMG confirmed that 42 employees would leave the company as a final element of its restructuring.

The recording industry is coming out of the closet. Sony Music said it was launching the first major music label dedicated to nurturing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender artists. The label, Music With a Twist, is a joint venture with Wilderness Media & Entertainment, a company led by Matt Farber, who founded MTV Networks' new gay and lesbian channel Logo, which is available in an estimated 20 million homes.