Why do they think they have it figured out now?
Doug Morris on the state of the music industry. The problem, he says, is that “there’s sympathy for the consumer, and the record industry is the Shmoo.”
Oh my God.
Wired writer Seth Mnookin interviews and skewers Universal Music Group Chief Executive Doug Morris in the latest issue, which speaks for itself. You just got to read this interview.
“There’s no one in the record company that’s a technologist,” Morris explains. “That’s a misconception writers make all the time, that the record industry missed this. They didn’t. They just didn’t know what to do. It’s like if you were suddenly asked to operate on your dog to remove his kidney. What would you do?”
Well, for one, maybe – instead of suing the technologists from Napster 1.0 – perhaps you should have considered hiring them. Just a thought…
Unbelievable. No wonder we are in the situation we are in.
Total Music. Hmm… Why do they think they have it figured out now?
For another great history lesson on how the major music labels ignored change and tried to impose their will on the masses, read this. Disturbing and painful. Great work Seth.
Downloading isn’t going away. I believe if product is good consumers will buy. Music nowadays is not very quality and music fans are sick of being ripped off. On the flip side the internet is a real opportunity for the music business to re-position itself as a growth industry.
the future of the music businees is about like the american auto business. Check out Ford and the American Dream by Clifton Lambreth!
As a musician who’s only ever released music via independent labels and has been able to cut a decent living this way for over 10 years, I like nothing better than seeing a fat major label exec sweating through his vest. They deserve all they get – and so do the artists who sign away their souls to them.
Greed is their engine. Nothing more, nothing less.
Can you really blame the major’s. Their mistakes were born from their very existence. It is not as easy to switch a light bulb and change the way thing are done when you have thousands of people working in your company. For the most part. People in that company just want to keep their jobs. It does not matter how. That is what most people do not understand. Record companies for the most part as a whole are trying to be profitable, but just like in any other business. In a sinking ship, people play internal games to make sure that they are ok whether it is good for the company or not. Think about how many people would have been replaced at the majors if they had embraced the internet. Ironically it happened anyway’s, but those people got pay checks a few month longer. If the real world was black and white, everyone could be successful. Unfortunately this one was written in the stars. The natural order of things.
David Wolf- http://www.themusicbusiness.info