Universal Music Group (UMG) is the world’s leading music company and is comprised of two core businesses: recorded music production and music publishing. All of the other music companies that make up the “Big Four,” including Warner, EMI, and Sony-BMG primarily engage in these two business activities. For the purposes of this section of the report I will analyze the players in the music industry, including Universal Music Group, based upon their performance within the United States. I believe this limitation is fair because each of the “Big Four” have large scale operations in the United States and these operations are representative of each company’s overall performance. In addition, the United States is the largest territory for recorded music sales, contributing 37% of the total world sales in 2007.