UMG Doug Morris’ shlock-horror confession
p2pnet news | Music:- “There’s no one in the record industry that’s a technologist. 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?”
Universal Music Group boss Doug Morris, confirming what we’ve all known for years.
That the people who run the record labels are a bunch of incompetent, doddering, technological idiots.
According to the New York Entertainment the quote comes in the December issue of Wired when, “Seth Mnookin sits down with Universal Music Group CEO/supervillain Doug Morris for a pretty excellent profile (which is, tragically, not yet online).”
The post continues:
In it, Mnookin paints the 68-year old Morris as a crotchety executive who’s upset that he can’t focus more on simple product and artist development because he’s too busy worrying about iPods, MP3s, and his company’s digital strategy (which was never really supposed to be part of his job description when he took the gig in 1995). In a way, he almost comes off as cute, like if your grandfather were accidentally hired to run Google (at one point, Morris hilariously compares his embattled industry to a character in “Li’l Abner,” a comic strip that stopped running in 1977).
As for his actual digital strategy, it’s pretty much what we expected — Morris’s singular goal these days is to limit the power of Steve Jobs and iTunes. He puts most of his energy into designing Universal’s own Internet music store (Total Music, which is definitely doomed to fail), cutting deals with Apple competitor Microsoft for a piece of those massive Zune profits, and heroically doing all he can to make it even more difficult for consumers to justify paying for music online. But then he says something so ridiculous it sort of blows our minds.
When Morris is asked why the music business didn’t work harder, in the early days of file-sharing, to build its own (legal) online presence, there’s this exchange:
On dogs and kidneys, “Personally, I would hire a vet,” says Mnookin, according to the NYT.
But to Morris, says the article, “even that wasn’t an option,” because, “We didn’t know who to hire,” he admits, “becoming more agitated” and going on: “I wouldn’t be able to recognize a good technology person —- anyone with a good bullshit story would have gotten past me.”
Adds the New York Times:
Even though we shouldn’t be, we’re actually a little shocked. We’d always assumed the labels had met with a team of technology experts in the late nineties and ignored their advice, but it turns out they never even got that far – they didn’t even try! Understanding the Internet certainly isn’t easy — especially for an industry run by a bunch of technology-averse sexagenarians – but it’s definitely not impossible.
Definitely stray tuned.
Also See:
New York Entertainment – Movie Director Uses BitTorrent as Lawyers Chase Those Downloading His Movie, November 23, 2007
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November 26th, 2007 at 8:02 pm
Just as the recordable 8 track tape, the recordable cassette, and the recordable VHS tapes weren’t supposed to happen I guess. Technology marches on and the industry can not expect to win every technology battle like what happened to the DAT tape that was killed before it made it out into the public.
Now I realize the VHS tape wasn’t so much for music. It is there to illustrate yet again, how when a new tech is adopted and worked into the market, it makes yet more income. After the movies stopped fighting it and found it made more sense to rent them, they made millions upon millions of income on those rental fees.
But face it, DRM isn’t going to work for music. People want music to fit their lifestyles and that means taking it with them in what ever form fits. Fighting that is like trying to command the waves of the ocean to stop. If it does, they will have no use for the music. If we needed to go back to the 18th century where the only music heard was done live, then the only time there would be a market would be when a band preformed.
People have a choice now. They won’t willingly go back. Because of past actions of the industry involving greed as the main guidance, they lost contact with their market. Where do you want to start on these needs not met and leaving the customer dissatisfied?
Should we start with no returns once sold? Or filler stuffed albums? Or dropped tons of artists that limited the labels abilities to continue to offer oldies? Or maybe we should go the route of ever increasing costs? Yet again we could turn to the RIAA that has made the music industry a love-to-hate by the potential customer? The list seems endless by an industry without clue or guidance into how to get the toe in the door. Obviously, the people running the music industry doesn’t have a clue how to adapt and in the process have started making a whole generation not only hate the music industry but want to have less and less to do with it.
A rental scheme that ends when you stop paying is not a winning hand to anyone but the money men. It is the customer you have to satisfy and any time they walk away unhappy, you have a problem. The music labels have managed to do this on mass scale and then look around to blame anything but their selves for why this is.
The drum of piracy has made yet another mass of potential customers want nothing to do with buying a product that rewards your supporting the artist by making it ever harder to use the product. The idea that the majors want to sneak in things like the Sony rootkit did not go down well if the labels need a clue after all this time. Every major label had already signed up for the same use even if they did not use it.
If you make an enemy of those you need for your financial well being, you are not going to last for the long term. That is exactly what the music industry is doing.
November 27th, 2007 at 3:05 am
Of all the years of being soaked by the “music” industry, I enjoy the fact that every day people are finally getting their last laugh. I read articles of music industry employees bitching and moaning about how they are no longer able to make a living doing what they love. That’s fine with me, because I fell into the same category. My former employer decided to take away the measly $8.50 per hour jobs and send them overseas to be done by college educated slaves. I worked as an assistant I.T. administrator and left the company about 3 months before that happened. Employees have been screwed by the companies for years, and are unceremoniously discarded whenever a cheaper way of providing an employee’s function is found.
This same thing is now happening to major companies, and we can see that it is not very well received by the insiders. Instead of taking their lumps and moving on (or going out of business gracefully), these companies have decided to use the force of the governments and their courts to force people to buy their crap.
Even though I no longer get paid for writing code, I still do it. I do it because I enjoy it and I would like to think that I’m pretty good at it. Much of the code I write is for my own personal use. I use it to save money and just to have fun. I accept the fact that not all knowledge and skills can be used to make money. Computer programming here in the U.S.A. no longer makes money unless one happens to be part of a lucky few. The same is becoming more and more true for music and other entertainment. I know many very talented musicians, and these musicians are every day folk who make their living in other ways. However, they still make and share their music. The entertainment cartel needs to accept the fact that the music business is no longer the profitable business that it once was and it will never be again. Very good musicians that happen to put together something that catches on will still make good money. However, these lucky people will be keeping the money for themselves.
If the entertainment cartel would have charged a far more reasonably price for their “product” years ago and put the customer first, hackers would have likely not have seen the need or desire to write the first peer to peer application. Now the the years of abuse has caught up with the abusers. If it were me, rather than bringing suit against Napster, I would have reduce the price of CD’s and installed do it yourself CD vending machines that would have allowed music customers to create their own CD’s on the spot. I would have spent my money on advertising these things instead of advertising for peer to peer programs by suing Napster. Doing this would have still reduced profits for the fat cats, but at least the money would have kept coming in. Customers would have come in droves most likely ignoring Napster and its likes until execs could have found a way to compete. Now there is no way to compete. The music industry folks allowed people to get a taste of free, and there is no going back. Free is much less than the $20.00 CD’s or the crippled DRM infested $1.00 songs on the legal services. At one time, the industry might have been able to make money with 35 cent downloads, but I doubt that will be happening now. It is too late, people have gotten a taste of free.
I have written and installed many programs that allow me to use the Internet as my long distance carrier. I am still forced to buy my local service from the phone company since it is the only broadband Internet provider in my area. However, I enjoy the 0 to 2 cents a minute to be able to talk to friends and family around the world. I do this using a real phone and without paying the ripoff rates charged by most internet telephony companies that market directly to users. If long distance carriers would have charged around the same rates as I pay now and gave me all the same feature I have on my phone now, I would still be using them. Instead, I pay $36.00 a YEAR for an additional local telephone number and 2 cents a minute (no connection fee or other add on crap) for all of my non free long distance calls. Long distance companies will very likely very soon find out that they are competing with free as well.
As a computer programmer and software engineer, I can see things from the creative side as well. I don’t like the fact that I cannot make the big bucks writing software. However, I don’t blame just free software (like Linux, Firefox, etc.). I also blame this fact on big companies that ship their programming and engineering jobs overseas. If I am going to be using a program which was created by a poorly paid programmer, I would rather use the work of a person who CHOOSES to give away his or her work rather than a disaffected company employee working for slave wages. I myself am unable to produce a stamped product and making a living off the residual income. However, I do make money by customizing and installing applications and technology to the specific needs of my customers.
“Intellectual property” originally belonged in the hands of the creators. Big business managed to take a hold of these peoples’ “intellectual property,” inflate its price, and centralize creativity. Now, things have shifted back. Creativity is now back in the hands of the creators. Big companies which make their money off the minds of creators of music, software, and video are finding out the hard way that they can no longer make the huge profits they once made. This is because of the modern equivalent of the printing press is available to the common man.
The printing press that I’m talking about is known as the Internet. It is common people using their talents and COMMON SENSE to create stuff that is used by others. We no longer need the big companies to reach one another, we can do it ourselves.