It’s not that big record companies didn’t want to create innovative, useful services that customers would actually like to use. It’s just that they never knew how. Read Wired’s profile of Universal CEO Doug Morris from a while back and you’ll see:
Morris insists there wasn’t a thing he or anyone else could have done differently. “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?”
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.” Morris’ almost willful cluelessness is telling. “He wasn’t prepared for a business that was going to be so totally disrupted by technology,” says a longtime industry insider who has worked with Morris. “He just doesn’t have that kind of mind.”
You crazy kids, with your iPods and computers and skateboards!
Well, maybe not. I asked a friend who knows about this type of thing and apparently some people are less than convinced. From an industry mailing list discussion of the article:
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?
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.
Until I read that, I hadn’t questioned what Morris says in the Wired article at all, and even found the admission of incompetence kind of refreshing. It’s tempting to believe that music executives are simply the floundering dinosaurs that Morris is evidently happy to portray them to be. After all, it fits quite nicely with that same view of the music industry that the anti-RIAA set are fond of sending up.
Meanwhile, Universal are totally looking into getting an intern or someone to build them a new website soon. Just keep buying CDs until then, ok?