UMG’s anti-iTunes Plan Doomed to Fail
Wired magazine recently published a revealing piece on Universal Music Group CEO Doug Morris. Yes, that would be the gentleman who gained most from the fake SoundScan feud between 50 Cent’s Curtis and Kanye’s Graduation. The article shows that Morris, while a highly successful entrepreneur, has remained adamant about delivering music to people the way they want it.
Peep game:
Morris goes on to rail against criminal-minded college students and low-life punks who steal the music that his artists work so hard to create. He admits to being fairly ignorant about technology and insists that his job is to nurture the creative side of the business — work that’s being threatened by all of this other nonsense.
Morris was as myopic as anyone. Today, when he complains about how digital music created a completely new way of doing business, he actually sounds angry. “This business had been the same for 25 years,” he says. “The hardest thing was to get something that somebody wanted to buy — to make a product that anybody liked.”
I gather that Morris, who absolutely hates iTunes’ digital dominance, has teamed up with some of Apple’s competitors to form a new music service called Total Music, in hopes of giving Steve Jobs a run for his money - literally:
Total Music is designed to unify Apple’s competitors in what amounts to a coordinated attack on the iPod. The details are far from finalized, but in Morris’ conception a Total Music subscription would come pre-installed on devices like the Zune, the Sony PlayStation, or a mobile phone.
Problem is,
Total Music will almost certainly require some form of DRM, which in the end will perpetuate the interoperability problem. Morris likely doesn’t care. He is more committed to Total Music — or any other plan that allows protection — than he is to a future where music can truly be played across any platform, at any time.
Seth Mnookin sums it up best:
Ultimately, it’s convenience and ease of use that drive new media formats. That’s why cassettes made inroads against records, why CDs killed them both, and why MP3s are well on their way to burying CDs.
Morris comes across as a cut-throat businessman who is admittedly ignorant about new technologies. With that combination, you can’t get too far in an ailing industry. Maybe if he wasn’t too busy trying to sue YouTube and college kids out of existence, he would’ve taken the time to find out how to really reach out to his customers.
The bottom line is that if you give people the option of paying a nominal fee for DRM-free music vs paying a subscription fee for an all-you-can-eat music service with DRM protection, they would go with the option that allows them to do whatsoever they wish with the music they’ve purchased.
[Full Story: Wired.com]
