In order to pre-empt the risk of censorship, recording studios have been forced to create special Walmart editions of records and films (Ahearn 2009). Similarly, Walmart’s huge control of access to cultural commodities has seen almost all small and independent publications, films, music and periodicals frozen out of the markets that might sustain them (Maneker 2009; Rich 2009). Still unsatisfied with the risks of trusting to the anonymous engines of cultural production, Walmart has begun to work directly with publishers, artists, studios and the like to produce its own proprietary products (Fox 2005). Many popular recording artists have released albums exclusively through Walmart, scrubbed clean of any offensive lyrics or themes (Pareles 2009).

Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, loc. 299