[Fmpro] Spelling it out & PRO's??

Wed Nov 28 02:33:40 GMT 2007

> Spelling it out     &       PRO's??

> http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/magazine/15-12/mf_morris? 
> currentPage=1
> http://blog.wired.com/music/2007/11/doug-morris-lab.html

from PHO

Begin forwarded message:
From: Chris Clarke <phoreal at chris-clarke.com>
Date: November 27, 2007 4:29:20 PM EST
To: Pho List <pho at onehouse.com>
Subject: RE: Pho:  Doug Morris Speaks...

</lurk>

I attended an MP3.com gathering in maybe 1999-2000 at ASCAP  
Nashville, as an
informed but peripheral observer.

At a subsequent multi-sponsor Music and Technology conference, Liquid  
Audio
looked like the wave of the future. The list of new-tech presenters  
at that
one closely matches the bone heap of online music history.

All the while, the labels were uncomprehending, and then resistant,  
and then
litigious, as MR says. Some folks are not just clueless, but amnesiac  
too.

Songs.com founder and sometime phoster Paul Shatzkin attended both of  
these,
always willing to ask the iconoclastic question from the back of the  
room.

Paul described such gatherings collectively as "meetings of the  
dinosaurs to
discuss the oncoming meteor impact."

In the real dino extinction, the crash didn't change the dinosaurs, it
killed them off, with their walnut-sized brains. New creatures filled  
the
competitive niches, some surviving to reproduce, some not.

We can't see the end yet, because there isn't one -- this is a  
process, not
a destination.

Chris

<lurk>

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Robertson [mailto:michael at linspire.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2007 10:09 AM
To: Steve Rimland
Cc: 'Pho'
Subject: RE: Pho: Doug Morris Speaks...

I have read the Wired article. As someone who met with every record  
label at
the onset of my founding of MP3.com. Then met with them repeatedly  
during
MP3.com's existence. We hired several VPs to interface with the  
industry.
During that time LiquidAudio, Listen and countless other companies  
courted,
educated and begged the labels to work with them. Most if not all of  
those
companies also had industry execs as VPs to try and facilitate
relationships.

My feedback is that it is a bunch of revisionist history bunk  
designed to
sidestep blame for a failed strategy over the last decade. To the  
question
of why they didnt mandate one format Morris responds, 'It never crossed
anyone's mind!' what a preposterous notion. A2b would have loved the
industry's support for their format. You dont think liquid wanted the
industry's support for their format?

Go look at my blog in 98-00 which chronicles several industry led
initiatives such as sdmi and madison project to do just that - unite the
music industry behind a single format. Several of these were  
championed by
UMG so it is hard to believe Morris was unaware of these.

Morris adds that they gave apple a license because 'we were just  
grateful
that someone was selling online.' Dick must have slept through the  
meetings
with emusic, mp3.com, a2b, liquid, real networks, and dozens (if not
hundreds) of others who all asked to sell UMG music.

Lets be clear here. Over the last decade the labels have embarked on  
a very
calculated strategy with much thought and deliberation. They decided to
liberally use the courts to sue companies. Everyone always brings up  
Napster
as an example but there were plenty of people that were not  
anarchists like
MP3.com that ended up in court. We invented technology which sold  
more CDs -
not possibly - not potentially - it DID and they still sued us. What  
about
portable mp3 players? They sued them too instead of partnering.

When asked (begged) to partner by the digital music companies the  
labels had
unrealistic oversized demands, would do only token gestures or simply  
ignore
them. Now they are suffering from that failed strategy.

The sad part is that they are continuing on with the failed strategy.  
They
seemed to learn nothing. EMI is suing MP3tunes - a responsible
implementation of a personal music locker service. UMG is tangled  
with Veoh
and Divx in the court.

The reported savior - totalmusic - is just a rehashed - one drm  
scheme to
rule them all - strategy. See sdmi, madison project, windows media, a2b,
sun's open drm, etc to see how well that will work. The only difference
being they are promoting a monthly service instead of ala carte  
purchases.
If they believe in this why not just get behind Napster who has been  
quietly
toiling away on the technology which is quite advanced by now and been a
loyal partner to the industry since its defeat in court? Because UMG  
wants
an oversized piece of the action.

Rinse and repeat.

-- mr

- original message -
Subject:	Pho:  Doug Morris Speaks...
From:	"Steve Rimland" <steve at mgimedia.com>
Date:		11/26/2007 10:53 pm

http://nymag.com/entertainment/daily/2007/11/ 
universal_ceo_doug_morris.html

" We give this industry six months to live."

The music industry will certainly live on way past six months.  The  
labels
might be dying, but NOT THE INDUSTRY!

<http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/apropos_of_nothing/> Apropos of
Nothing

11/26/07

11:00 AM

Universal Music CEO Doug Morris Speaks, Recording Industry in Even  
Deeper
Shit Than We Thought

In the December issue of Wired, Seth Mnookin sits down with Universal  
Music
Group CEO/supervillain Doug Morris for a pretty excellent profile  
(which is,
tragically, not yet online). 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
<http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2007/10/ 
universal_music_to_challenge_i
.html>  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:

"There's no one in the record industry 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?"

Personally, I would hire a vet. But to Morris, even that wasn't an  
option.
"We didn't know who to hire," he says, becoming more agitated. "I  
wouldn't
be able to recognize a good technology person - anyone with a good  
bullshit
story would have gotten past me."

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. The original  
Napster hit
its peak in 1999 - kids born since then have hacked into CIA computers.
Surely it wouldn't have taken someone at Universal more than a month  
or two
to learn enough about the Internet to know who to call to answer a few
questions. They didn't even have any geeky interns? We give this  
industry
six months to live.

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johnparresatgmaildotcom.