Wikinews Shorts: May 21, 2007

EMI music to merge with Terra Firma
International music company EMI has agreed to a £3.2 billion ($4.7 billion) (including debt) merger with private equity firm Terra Firma Capital Partners Ltd.

The deal likely ends, Warner Music Group Group's, the global music market's fourth largest record company, seven years of trying take over EMI, the third largest record company in the world.

"Terra Firma's offer is the most attractive proposal received and delivers cash now, without regulatory uncertainty and with the minimum of operational risk to the company," said EMI Chairman John Gildersleeve.

Terra Firma shareholders have not yet approved of a 265-per-share offer which was recommended by EMI.

Sources

Television commercials no longer restricted in Canada
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has agreed to remove restrictions on television ads in Canada by September 1, 2009. The current 12 minutes-per-hour restriction on commercial time is to be lifted and the advertising time will be market-driven.

"The commission considers it essential that broadcasters have the flexibility to maximize advertising revenues to respond to the negative impact of audience fragmentation," said a statement.

The CRTC said the ability to have market-driven commercials will help with the increasing amount of competing television networks in Canada, and it will create more revenue.

Sources

MySpace to release names of registered sex offenders
MySpace is set to release names and data about registered sex offenders who use the popular social networking site. The information will be released to all the State Attorney Generals in the United States.

Last week Attorney Generals from eight U.S. states requested the information but MySpace said it would break federal privacy laws.

Sentinel Tech Holding Corp. along with MySpace teamed up to build a database of users who are sex offenders. They created "Sentinel Safe", a program which shows names of the sex offenders and possible information that could help in future investigations.

"This is no different than an offline community," Mike Angus, MySpace's executive vice president said. "We're trying to keep it safe."

According to CNN, MySpace has removed over 7,000 accounts held by sex offenders.

Earlier, the U.S. government threatened to sue or shut down the company if it couldn't provide all the names of the 7,000 or more sex offenders using the site.

Sources