 Former label exec says UMG's anti-tech stance was typical of industry ·Nov 27, 01:21 PM From Howie Klein’s blog at the Huffington Post: “New York Magazine’s’ ‘Vulture’ section comes to the correct conclusion about the music biz — but for the wrong reason. “In commenting on the Wired profile of ‘Universal Music Group CEO/supervillain Doug Morris,’ the folks at ‘Vulture’ have a yuck-fest over Morris’ inability to “At the time most record company bigwigs had contempt, fear and disdain for computers. Many of my colleagues told me they had never touched one… and one major record group chairman said a computer is just a newfangled typewriter and that’s what secretaries are for. “Years earlier one of my promotion men had helped me out at my little indie label by… showing me how computers could make my life easier… He came up with a system which we brought to our corporate overseers. Here’s where the Doug Morris quote comes in: ‘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?’ “We viewed this ‘threat’ as an opportunity. Not an opportunity to sue teenagers and/or their parents, but a new opportunity to let people purchase their music the same way they do at record stores… [P]eople crave convenience. “We proposed to our corporate masters that we sell ‘unprotected’ MP3 singles at a reasonable price— $1/$1.50. We wanted to experiment and see if this model would stick… “Our proposal, after lots of corporate headscratching, hummimg and hawing, was denied. The technology people Morris was complaining about said it was ‘elegant’ but that they were ‘unprepared to set any precedents,’… “So what happened? They aggressively sued “Music fans have had a chance to go all the way through high school and college thinking music is free. And now it is, thanks to Doug Morris and corporate managers who couldn’t— and still can’t— adapt to change. “An interesting footnote: in 2000 Steve Jobs snagged our VP of new media, referenced above, Jimmy Dickson… to help with Apple’s music strategy… 6 months later: iTunes 1.0.” Read the entire blog at the Huffington Post. share: del.icio.us.  Reddit  Digg  Yahoo  Wink  Windows  Google  Newsvine 
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come to grips with modern technology…
music fans…
