Slashdot Mirror
Warner Music CEO Says War With Consumers Was Wrong
l2718 writes "Edgar Bronfman, CEO of the Warner Music Group, has publicly framed the music industry's failure to accommodate file-sharing as an 'inadvertent' war on consumers. I'm left wondering how you can file a series of lawsuits inadvertently. 'We expected our business would remain blissfully unaffected even as the world of interactivity, constant connection and file sharing was exploding ... By ... moving at a glacial pace, we inadvertently went to war with consumers by denying them what they wanted and could otherwise find and as a result of course, consumers won.'"
I think he means that back in the Napster lawsuit days, when all you idiots were crying about how the RIAA should be suing illegal filesharers and offering up a stream of condescending analogies about how toolmakers shouldn't be responsible for the actions of users, they made the mistake of believing you.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
This is definitely off topic, but I was thinking the exact opposite. I have a large DVD and game collection that I hardly ever use. I figure I've gotten maybe 5 hours of enjoyment per DVD (some more, some less) and maybe 10-20 out of an average game. On the flip side, each song that I buy from itunes at $1 each have gotten played at least 20x. That's over $1 / hour of enjoyment for music as opposed to $3-$4 for a dvd and $.50-$6 for a game. If I buy a whole album, it usually gets the same amount or more play than the songs i buy a la carte, which usually leads to a higher value over time.
It's a rare movie or game that gets played more than 2 or 3 times for me, but it's even more rare for me to have a song that doesn't get played at least 10x. From what I've read and seen, this is the case for most people.
sigs are hazardous to your health
How, exactly, does the consumer win by paying over $220,000?
The sheeple have moved onto a new drug... ipod, itunes, zune, etc... online shops.
The really smart ones have been pirating the music all along, and maybe buying merchandise from the actual concerts. Personally, I know a few local bands that got their start selling CDR's of their own music. They're still small but at least those of us who like them, listen to them live and know most of them by name/face in real life. Can't say that with the big boys. Once they "sell out" as it were, they all develop "star syndrome", and forget who got them where they are. Loyalties shift, from their art to their profits, and the art shows it. I am all for selling or exchanging everything under the sun, but I strongly disbelieve that better art can be produced if businessmen are involved in its production. If the primary motive is profit, it isn't art, it is mere labor. And a labor for the love of something other than the labor involved, will show in the final result. As far as I've seen, it always does.
The market is self correcting, and right now the small players have the means to play the game on their own terms. This scares the crap out of the big boys. This is why they're forcing to move government and corporations in the direction of control and restriction over the online medium. Have to reign in the freedom the internet guaranteed to those who used it. Too much information is available that challenges the status quo, and it is available for free... all one has to do is sift it. Too many products are being sold without the leeches stealing their cut... this will have to change if big monopolies, both in government and business, are to survive and oppress the next century also. China is leading the way, and the rest of the world's "democracies" are quickly learning to follow the leader.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
I think the implication here is that they failed to realize the people they were taking to court were also their customers. There's often a disconnect in the mind of business (created by those who stand to profit like lawyers) between one's customers and those who do things one may not like.
Another example that comes to mind would be loitering laws at malls (as teenagers who loiter often have the highest disposable incomes to spend, and those who complain are often the ones tight in the wallet).
Warner may have believed they were suing "bad people" and providing music at the same time on CD for "good people" and have finally realized (possibly as a result of recent studies) that they've in fact been alienating their customer base.
Yes yes, we all knew this already, but its also quite obvious to me that most executives thought the loud "we" who hate these lawsuits were also not customers of theirs and therefore irrelevant. I've had personal discussions about this with people who work for record companies (some related, some not) and they often have a strange view of my perspective as somehow only existing within the "pirate" world and don't see it as pervasive amongst their customer base.
Hopefully that's changing.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
In the "war on piracy" their intention was to prevent people from sharing music (i.e.: to at least maintain their previous business model). However, the consumers won that war: at present people routinely fileshare. Most people I know have an iPod (or equivalent) and all of them have it filled with music, where they only paid for 0-20% of those tracks. The average consumer is file-sharing. The industry couldn't stop it. The consumers won that battle, and the industry lost.
As they say, however, the battle may be won but the war is far from over. The grander issue here is whether copyright law itself is valid in its present form... and whether changing it means more protections/enforcement (for the established industry), or more freedoms/rights (for the citizens). I'm still boycotting new music purchases. As well you should. There are so many better sources for music (independent labels, creative commons music, etc.) that there is no excuse for purchasing any music from companies involved in the unethical legal and lobbying tactics of the established cartel.
That's when the real victory will come: when these currently "fringe" sources of music become the norm, and the established cartel withers away (or reinvents itself to survive).
Ah, but he's not apologizing for the lawsuits -- he's apologizing for not releasing DRM-riddled restrictively-licensed music fast enough, which he thinks is what forced consumers to share music illegally.
Exactly. The bottom line is this article isn't saying anything like what's being implied in the summary; in fact, just the opposite.
His "war" with consumers, from his perspective, is that the music industry wasn't offering consumers what they wanted, so they went out and took it. But if you read the rest of his comments, the problem is he still isn't understanding just what it is that people want. He thinks that DRM-free music is just being used as a means to an end rather than being an end in itself. He thinks that if the record labels just give everybody music pre-made in the formats that they want, even if it comes saddled with DRM and even if consumers need to buy the same music over and over, that they will buy it as long as it's easy and convenient enough for them to get it.
He's totally missing the point, which is that if I have a CD, or a DRM-free digital download, I buy the music once and can then put it anywhere I want to. I can listen to it, my wife can listen to it, I can make a ringtone out of it, I can put it on my iPod or make a mix CD. His idea is still to sell you multiple copies of the same tracks in all these different places, and he thinks where his company went wrong was in not doing that early enough. That's just as wrongheaded as Warner ever has been.
And he says absolutely nothing about the lawsuits, which he will no doubt continue supporting.
That might be the funniest piece of BS I've read in a long time. A war was inadvertently started against the consumers, just like Hitler inadvertently started WWII.
"Don't do that. Jusy boycott the big labels (the ones that support the RIAA). There are still lots if indie labels out there that are consumer friendly."
These days, if you are not using a Free license, and preferably a copyleft one, I don't consider you consumer friendly. Your works are always subject to being bought out and abused. Even if against your will.
Even if I like your stuff, unless I am getting paid, I try my best not to promote you or your stuff unless you are going the Free route. And after all, why should expect to be paid for your efforts but think you can count on mine for free?
all the best,
drew
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
isn't the various Idol shows to be found in North America and abroad the ultimate expression of that
IMHO that is not entirely the case. In fact, compared to the "new" material that the "professional" artists are putting out in the MAFIAA label system these days, shows like Pop Idol and American Idol are a breath of fresh air. These shows actually do find and select some talented new vocalists from among the general populations (the diamonds in the rough if you will) who would never have gotten exposure otherwise under the marketing driven, make anyone sound good in the studio, craptastic MAFIAA label system. Consider the following:
1) The contestants are selected in a grueling process of elimination where actual performance is judged brutally by judges, like Simon who doesn't pull punches when the performance is sub-par, without regard to favoritism, who the contestant is connected with, or crap like that but rather solely upon whether or not, in the opinion of the judges, the contestant could earn the best return on their (Simon's) money if they sign them for a recording contract. Now, admittedly the audience sometimes votes for bad contestants just to make some trouble, but everyone knows that they are still bad so in the end it doesn't really matter that much for who wins the competition.
2) At almost every stage the contestants get to choose what songs they are going to sing and although the choices are sometimes limited to the catalog of a particular guest professional artist or genre there are generally plenty of potential song choices for each contestant.
I particularly like it when professionals make a guest appearance on the show and end up sounding worse then the talented young contestants. They invariably invite the comparison just by appearing on the show. In fact, I don't understand why some professionals appear on the show, it only highlights the fact that they are over the hill or even worse that they were never as talented as some of the up and coming contestants...a potentially bad career move for them.
Frankly, I don't much care for pop style music, but there have been some really good female African American Jazz style vocalists on the show who sound great when they sing the old standards from the likes of Billy Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald.
My point is that contrary to contributing to the problem of mediocre music, shows like American Idol, could potentially be the antidote to no-talent bands and the crap that has come out of the marketing driven "promotion" of sub-par "artists" by the MAFIAA labels. It is really hard to hide the fact that you suck when you have to sing live in front of a studio and television audience straight into the mike with no second takes, remixing, or other studio tricks. In such situations the real talent tends to come forward while the hacks leave in disgrace (or hopefully don't even make it onto the show in the first place).
Well, what do you expect? Read Bronfman's entry on Wikipedia. He was the heir to Seagram's Liquor. His whole life has been carried along by family connections. Highlights from Wikipedia:
- "He was particularly active in school theatre, an interest his parents supported by donating to construct The Ann and Edgar Bronfman Theatre during a 1967 expansion at The Collegiate School, the prestigious private school in Manhattan which Edgar Jr. attended."
-
"The summer before his final year of high school, in 1972, he was a credited producer on the film, The Blockhouse. Despite his inexperience, Bronfman's involvement was accepted because of his connections and access to financing."
-
"By 1994 he became the Chief Executive Officer (of Seagrams), where he began a move away from the traditional liquor business and into entertainment.
The first step in this diversification was the widely criticized sale of Seagram's stake in DuPont."
-
"Bronfman, Jr., then led Seagram into a disastrous all-stock acquisition by French conglomerate Vivendi in 2000."
-
"Seagram's for all intents and purposes ceased to exist."
-
"On February 27, 2004, Bronfman finalized the acquisition of Warner Music Group and he has served as Chairman and CEO of the music company since that time."
He didn't build up Warner Music, or move up within the company, or come to it from success elsewhere. He bought the thing with inherited money, after a long career as a failed executive.I completely agree with you about Gene Simmons and was actually going to bring him up as an example of why I feel that the rest of your post isn't quite accurate.
... Dido, Esthero, Thievery Corporation, Circa Survive, Audioslave, Velvet Revolver to name a few.
In the 60's and 70's you had bands like Kiss and The Monkeys who were entirely about show and very little about music. Boy Bands are the descendants of Motown groups. You mentioned Michael Jackson as being an example of a talented artist but it's arguably groups like The Jackson 5 that gave birth to modern boy-bands.
Madonna was taking off her clothes on stage while Britney Spears was in diapers.
There's a lot of great music still being made it's just that MTV and the radio only cater to the most requested (and thus the most marketed hits) and so if you turn on the radio it's very easy to get the impression that only crap is being produced. There's a lot of amazing artists out there who are getting signed to big labels and touring
My point is, mass media has always been a circus and it will always continue to be. But buried in the cheesy clown acts that please the children are the really talented Chinese acrobats who still manage to do some pretty amazing acts even though so much attention gets put on what the kids like.
Consumers/sharers won. Music has no monetary value today. If you want to sell some recorded music, you might find some people that don't know how to download or have too slow an Internet connection. Some people might pay money on iTunes for the same MP3 that you or I would just download for free. A few folks with heavy guilt complexes might want to pay or they wouldn't be able to sleep at night.
Now the record companies can move on. Only problem is, where are they going to move to? Nobody in their right mind is going to pay lots of money for trinket go-with items like jewel cases for their CDs. Pretty much the "recorded music industry" is going to disappear now that the exec's have figured out their "war" is over.
I'd expect to see in the next year or so some new media distribution deal coming along. One that doesn't involve music in any way but is difficult or impossible for the average person to re-distribute. Probably because of raw size, but also temporal locality - something like a 24-hour live Big Brother show but only on the Internet. If you miss something, well, keep watching because something completely new and original will happen - just keep watching 24x7.
Just think about some unknown "instant celebrity" having a camera on them 24x7 (night vision in the dark) for people to watch. Look! She's combing her hair again! Look! She is putting on THAT dress!
iTunes is just a stopgap measure between the old world and the new
in the new world, all music content will be free. artists will support themselves with tip jars and advertisements and touring. and THERE WILL BE NO MIDDLE MAN. because the internet has simply replaced them
iTunes, bertelsman, polygram: dust in the wind. the dutch east india company. extinct. defunct, irrelevant and unnecessary
and these developments have nothing at all to do with all the tired old legal arguments. it will just happen, because it's simple economic forces at work
the final implications of the new technology called the internet is the extinction of all music publishers
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I'll answer by stating merely that you and I are in the same boat. I buy little or no music at all, and for the most part I prefer orchestral music rather than lyrical stuff.
So I would call those who prefer not to go ga-ga over bands and their internal issues as "free".
----------------
Now for my own opinion of "mainstream music" and the urge to have it blasting non stop? As far as I've seen, participation in certain types of music concerts and or CD/tape collections tend to be more related to "fitting in" or "belonging" to a certain group (thus elevating one's status in society by being a member of some group or other, even if the group membership is the "depressed loner goth", it is still a "group"). It is also the fear of being truly alone with silence and introspection as one's only companions that drives participation, and the fear of silence, rather than the actual love of any type of music. The desire to hear voices and be "not alone" is what drives the urge so many have to keep the TV on, non stop and the desire to buy myriad CD, tapes, MP3's etc. It also seems to be why said discs, tapes or files have to be on the Walkman or iPod running non stop, with earmuffs drowning the user in sound.
Gods only know, if the user had some silence, with nature as their only sound source, the individual might have to take stock of the world and learn to live life, instead of merely running a rat race of someone else's design. But then again... since when is introspection valued by the fast food generations? That stuff is passe, old school, not fast enough, and it makes those senses actually work, rather than be kept on the IV drip.
My antidote to mainstream culture exposure is to take a hunting trip or fishing trip every chance I get, merely because it is relaxing to be out of doors. I rarely actually take a shot at any game, I mostly go to enjoy my time as a human being, away from all the rats chasing some cheese that is just out of reach.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
Which is pretty much bang on the money. Along with point (b) which is that he finally gets that suing consumers for doing that won't help sales.
Actually, he's right again in principle, but where he falls down is perhaps not understanding just quite how far he needs to go to get over that easy and convenient enough barrier for enough people. And I think he gets the economics better than you do in that you're an edge case. Not that that's wrong, but he doesn't need to go so far as to please everybody; just enough to be sufficiently profitable. There's a tipping point of levels of freedom/convenience (for they are the same thing) at which enough people are satisfied enough to spend the money.
This is what Apple also realised before the record industry, and got roughly correct - you can share iTMS tracks between enough computers and burn them to CD enough times for enough people's needs to sell enough tracks to make it worthwhile. Balance it right and only the edge case people will be dissatisfied. Those being somewhat congruent with the people who demand Ogg support on their iPods.
I should also point out that that balance level of course can move over time. So the iTMS deal of yesterday may not be convenient/free enough to strike the same balance tomorrow. And it may be that in the end, the destination point is universally available, entirely unrestricted formats. But that day is not here yet.
The only thing you can accurately describe as "Scotch" is a sticky tape made by 3M. And it's
From his perspective they have managed to get the public to do this once before so why can't they do it again?
Most of the reasons why they will not get away with this again are technological and I would bet if anyone tried to explain them to him they go straight over his head. I would also bet that anyone trying to explain it to him would have a very tough time as it is probably not something he wants to hear.
Can you imagine trying to explain to your employer that his entire business model was not going work and may well bankrupt the company? Especially after he had publicly locked the company into a particular path. He would have to exercise such an about face it would end his career.
I do think that a CEO of a record company saying this is actually quite positive news though as it may be the start of a slow change of focus / direction where the executive is walking a fine line between losing shareholder confidence and completely alienating his customers. After engaging in the tactics that RIAA have been for the past 5 years can you imagine him saying that he has been wasting millions of pounds of the shareholders money on court cases that were ruining his companies public image? He would have to do a VERY good job of explaining why it has taken him so long to realise what he was doing.
I dont read
... just when they look like they're going to do something not entirely unselfish (like fight piracy), they realise that they can make more money in the short term caving to populist ideology.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Here's an 18 year old girl they have been inadvertently pursuing for 4 years, based on 48 song files she downloaded when she was 13 and 14 years old.
This past summer they inadvertently filed a summary judgment motion against her, trying to get a judgment for $36,000 so that she can start off her adulthood with a bankruptcy.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful