Head of Warner Music recants music industry's bad attitude

Seriously, you can't write comedy this golden.

MacUser: Music boss: we were wrong to go to war with consumers

The boss of Warner Music has made a rare public confession that the music industry has to take some of the blame for the rise of p2p file sharing.
Speaking at the GSMA Mobile Asia Congress in Macau, Edgar Bronfman told mobile operators that they must not make the same mistake that the music industry made.
"We used to fool ourselves,' he said. "We used to think our content was perfect just exactly as it was. We expected our business would remain blissfully unaffected even as the world of interactivity, constant connection and file sharing was exploding. And of course we were wrong. How were we wrong? By standing still or moving at a glacial pace, we inadvertently went to war with consumers by denying them what they wanted and could otherwise find and as a result of course, consumers won."

Props to Bronfman to wising up, although hindsight is always 20/20, isn't it?

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Warner Music inks deal with YouTube

New York Times Online DealBook

Do you hear that? That's the sound of a traditional media property company being innovative and partnering with a new media company for mutual gain.

YouTube said Monday that it would share online advertising
revenue with Warner Music Group, in a move that will make music videos from
artists like Madonna, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Sean Paul legally available for
the first time on the online video sharing site.
The deal, announced Monday,
comes just days after Vivendi’s Universal Music Group accused YouTube and News
Corporation’s social networking site MySpace of being “copyright
infringers.”

Hah, making money through the internet, what a breathtaking idea. I wonder when Universal is going to have the light bulb blink on for them as well?

Another interesting tidbit:

In June, NBC Universal announced a strategic relationship
with YouTube whereby NBC offers video clips promoting its fall lineup through a
special NBC channel on YouTube.com. The deal followed a spat between the two
over a Saturday Night Live skit posted on the web.
NBC asked YouTube to pull
the video down, and YouTube complied. However, after the clip showed up on
YouTube, Saturday Night Live’s ratings ballooned, says Gerry Kaufhold, an
analyst with consultancy In-Stat. In the end, NBC decided to make even more
programming available to the site.

Apparently, like publicity, there is no such thing as bad exposure of your content.

Back in 2000, a very good friend of mine who is pretty decent at forecasting which way the technology wind is blowing said to me "Mp3 is not going to just go away. The record companies need to get their heads out of the sand and learn how to profit from peer to peer downloading." It looks like Warner and others are finally starting to awaken to the possibilities that the digital world holds.

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