Michael Jackson - Michael Jackson - Money, Myth and the Mainstream Media
News media accounts that Michael Jackson was “debt-ridden”, without providing further explanation, gave the impression that the King of Pop’s financial situation was something the general public could identify with or readily understand.
But far from it. Jackson’s so-called “massive debt” was something that hardly any of us will ever be fortunate enough to experience. I dare say most in the general public have never heard of Jackson’s category of indebtedness, better known by some as “acquisition debt”.
Acquisition debt involves multi-million dollar purchases of ventures where a significant percentage of the purchase price is financed through “leverage” borrowing. The assets of the acquired company are used as collateral for the borrowed capital.
When Northern Songs – a music catalog holding thousand of songs, including the Beatles’ back catalog – was put up for sale, Jackson took immediate interest in the catalog. He was warned that he would face strong competition. “I don’t care. I want those songs,” Jackson said to his entertainment attorney John G Branca. “Get me those songs, Branca.”
Jackson eventually beat the rest of the competition, including Paul McCartney, in negotiations for the Northern Songs catalog, which lasted 10 months. He evenually purchased the catalog for $47.5 million.
Jackson used equity in his own catalog, MIJAC, along with the acquired assets from Northern Songs for loan qualification, with the newly acquired assets structured for equity to flow towards servicing the debt.
In 1995, Jackson merged his Northern Songs catalog with Sony’s publishing division creating Sony/ATV Music Publishing. This deal gave Jackson half ownership in Northern Songs as well as half ownership in Sony/ATV. It also included distribution rights to thousands of more songs. With the merger, Sony/ATV became the third largest music publishing venture in the world. Both Jackson and the Sony people were equal partners and vowed to become the world’s largest catalog.
Late in 2001, Jackson and Sony acquired Tony Martin’s Baby Mae Music catalog of 600 songs.
In July 2002, they bought country music publisher Acuff-Rose for $157 million. The venture included publishing rights to 55,000 songs.
And in November 2007, Jackson and Sony bought Famous Music LLC from Viacom. This deal gave the King of Pop rights to songs by Eminem (a C-rated entertainer who once made light of him), Shakira and Beck, among others. The venture included the assumption of a $30 million debt. They purchased the business for $370 million.
Bottom line. If Jackson was debt ridden, it makes more sense to believe his indebtedness of “$500,000,000″ resulted from acquiring multi-million dollar ventures, and not, as media myth makers would have it, “lavish spending.”
Larry Carter is an Old School scholar, life-long follower and avid fan of Michael Jackson.
Wimpy Google and Michael Jackson: Birds Of A Feather
by: Dean Phillips
Google Inc. is suing a Houston-based company for allegedly clicking on sponsored links to fraudulently boost advertising revenues.
Google filed a lawsuit two weeks ago in Santa Clara County Superior Court in California against Auctions Expert International LLC. Google is accusing Auctions Expert of abusing the Google AdSense program, in which web publishers display Google’s pay-per-click ads and receive a share of the revenues.
Auctions Expert joined AdSense in August 2003, according to the lawsuit. Google later discovered the alleged misconduct, terminating the contract between the companies and refunding advertisers, Google’s complaint states.
“These clicks were worthless to advertisers but generated significant and unjust revenue for Defendants who were paid by Google as if the clicks were legitimate,” the lawsuit states.
Google is seeking an unspecified amount of damages and restitution for the revenue-share payments it had made to Auctions Expert, according to the lawsuit.
Google spokesman Steve Langdon said that the Mountain View, Calif., company uses fraud detection technology to combat click fraud and protect advertisers.
“This lawsuit against Auctions Expert demonstrates the success of our anti-fraud system and that we will take legal action when appropriate,” he said in a statement.
Talk about your all-time wimpy statements. I’m not impressed. All Google did was exercise its right to file a lawsuit. The same right any of us have. Somebody shoot off the fireworks. Woo hoo! That’s some scary stuff right there!
I’m still waiting for Google to flex its considerable muscle. I want to hear a powerful statement from a powerful company. Something to the effect:
“Nothing is more important to us than our customers. They helped make us who we are today, and we will not let them down. We are determined to meet and defeat click fraud head on–no matter how how long it takes or how much it ultimately costs!”
But it will never happen. Why? Because despite its considerable power, Google is a lot like Michael Jackson in some ways. Let me explain:
At one time Michael Jackson was the biggest, most powerful star on the planet. However, as we soon discovered, he was also a wimp who was out of touch with reality.
I view Google the same way. Google is the biggest, most powerful search engine on the planet. But the way its handling click fraud is wimpish and shows it’s out of touch with reality also. These are criminals we’re talking about here. They’re not afraid of a silly lawsuit.
Google needs to get with the program and develop a “gangsta” attitude. Hold a worldwide press conference and tell these punk click fraud thieves in no uncertain hip hop terms:
“Yo, dog, let me holla at you for a second. We are Google, yo. We are the biggest, baddest, most powerful search engine on the planet, yo. Peep this: Do NOT steal from us or our homey’s, fool. Me and my posse have the means, the resources and the resolve to hunt you down like the punks you are 24, 7 and bust a cap in your ass! Peace…we out!”
About The Author
Dean Phillips is an Internet marketing expert, writer, publisher and entrepreneur. Questions? Comments? Dean can be reached at mailto: dean@lets-make-money.net
Visit his website at: http://www.lets-make-money.net
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