Sony on Tuesday agreed to buy Bertelsmann out of Sony BMG, giving the Japanese electronics group control of the world’s second largest record company for an initial $600m while allowing the German media group to claim proceeds of $1.5bn.

The move ends a joint venture formed in 2004 by merging Sony Music and Bertelsmann’s BMG as a response to the shock of the internet and digitisation that spread the power of recording and distributing music from the old hands to all comers.