New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is investigating the possibility of complicit price fixing among major record labels in the music download business. Whereas major labels like Universal Music
Group, Warner Music Group, Sony BMG and EMI Group wholesale their music to a la carte music services like Apple's iTunes, the suspicion is that they engage in a passive form of collusion in dealing
with subscription services like Yahoo! Music or Napster. With subscription services the labels license their music to online services instead of letting them resell it, and because of this, the
complexities of licensing deals come into play. So-called "most favored nation status" permits each of the major labels to receive the same terms should another major label negotiate a better deal
with one of the services. The labels have been exercising the same privileges with each of the subscription music services, which many critics say is anticompetitive.
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