BMG Rights Management

BMG is an international group of music companies focused on the management of music publishing, recording rights and music distribution. The company operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of the international media conglomerate Bertelsmann, its name being the legacy of the former BMG, which was sold to Sony Music Entertainment in 2008. The company was established in 2008 as a joint venture between Bertelsmann and the global private equity firm KKR. A sequential acquisition programme of music catalogues (e.g. the Hal David, Mute or Sanctuary catalogues), music publishers (e.g. Cherry Lane, Chrysalis or Bug Music) and record labels (e.g. Infectious Records Vagrant Records or Rise Records) coupled with an important number of international signings has made BMG the world's fourth biggest music rights company in terms of revenue.

In March 2013, Bertelsmann took over BMG by acquiring KKR’s shares, making BMG a fully owned subsidiary of the Bertelsmann group and underlining Bertelsmann’s long-term interest in the music business. The company's head office is in Berlin, and it operates regional offices in New York, Nashville, Los Angeles, London, Madrid, Milan, Paris, Munich, Stockholm, Hilversum, and Beijing. BMG is the youngest major international company in the music industry.

World championship

A world championship is generally an international sports competition open to elite competitors from across the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport or contest.

The title is usually awarded through a combination of specific contests or, less commonly, ranking systems (e.g. the ICC Test Championship), or a combination of the two (e.g. World Triathlon Championships in Triathlon). This determines a 'world champion', who or which is commonly considered the best nation, team, individual (or other entity) in the world in a particular field, although the vagaries of sport ensure that the competitor recognised at the best in an event is not always the 'world champion' (see Underdog).

Certain sports do not have a world championship, instead they may organise a world cup competition, or they may organize both. Often, the use of the term cup or championship in this sense is just a choice of words. Some sports have multiple champions because of multiple organizations such as mixed martial arts, boxing and wrestling.