“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,” Simon Aughton reports for MacUser.
“‘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,'” Aughton reports.
“Bronfman suggested that mobile companies have much to learn from Apple, despite being critical of and iTunes in the past,” Aughton reports. Bronfman also praised Apple’s iTunes Store, iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store, and iPhone/iPod touch.
Aughton reports, “Bronfman appears to be experiencing an epiphany when it comes to digital music. From threatening to withdraw from iTunes and suggesting that to drop DRM would be ‘without logic or merit,’ he is now heaping praising on Apple and recently opened a DRM-free section on Warner’s own Classics and Jazz music store.”
Full article, with Bronfman’s quotes regarding Apple’s iTunes Store, iPhone, and more, here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Tom S.” for the heads up.]
Circling the bowl ever more rapidly seems to be helping Middlebronfman quickly straighten out his thinking.
This is a April Fool’s day joke; right?
He just proclaimed himself an idiot for not understanding the customer and waging war against the people that feed his company. Fire the idiot!
It’s about time he came to some sense.. but he still has a little ways to go.
Git
Hello Bronfman, this is the kettle, you’re black, in other words: Your hypocrisy knows no bounds… Beat up Apple then praise it? Seems someone forgot their meds…
Apple once “circled the bowl”.
I think Apple succeeds despite your evangelism.
The one advantage these big companies have is resources. They have the potential to offer services that look great, are easy to use and have great download speeds etc – professionalism. The radiohead thing it great, myspace is great, but when they’re new (at least) they can’t scale as quickly, they don’t have the behind the scenes teams to test heavily. Apple succeeded because they put their resources into making something that looked professional and reliable but that was also easy for anyone to use.
Forgetting the (illegal) content that has made bittorrent so popular, if you have two services, one run by a big company, one by a startup, they both have the same content but the one run by the big company is easy to use, reasonably priced, and in the case of the internet – fast, whilst something like bittorrent is (relatively) complex to really use and of varying speed, then people are going to use the one run by the big company.
If they do their jobs right, they can take advantage of everything the internet has to offer and make it the preference of the consumer. Very much like apple are doing. There are cheaper music players, players with better raw specs, but people use the iPod and Apple are raking in the cash.
Just sell everything through every store. In lieu of a brain, something it likely to sell.
The digital market is as much complementary as competitive. It is true we may buy a digital track instead of a CD. But it is also true that we might buy the CD for a present for a friend for Christmas after buying the download.
I think the stalemate in the TV/videos market is the powerful pressure being put on Hollywood by the cable companies. Sell video through Apple, Hulu, Amazon, Walmart, etc and flood the market with standard-priced DRM-free, Win/Mac-compatible shows and let the consumer decide who wins.
Ha! It’s always gratifying (while sad at the same time) to watch people come groveling back… I would imagine that such an about face would make people question one’s decision making abilities…
I guess the board of directors let him know who really is the boss. Change your tune or find a new job…
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It’s because Madonna dropped him and his label.
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Way to go Madonna!
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Looks like Bronfman’s been reading MDN.
If this is legitimate, Bronfman is actually a smart businessman, recognising that change is necessary, and embracing it over a deeply entrenched business model, probably over the virulent protests of many on the board.
We’ll see.
The fact that he views things as a war with consumers….his own customers…in which he lost because he’s no longer able to dictate to them what they will listen to and buy tells me that he still doesn’t have the right perspective on his own business.
MDN Magic Word: “Wrong”. How appropriate.
Let’s see how soon Zucker comes around. Frankly, I’m heartened to see Bronfman’s turnaround. I hope it presages an end to Hollywood’s war against Apple’s success. While it might be interesting to read about, it does consumers no good to see major producers and studios hold back content and resist change to DRM models.
Apple has agreed to some of the music industry’s demands. We will see the changes take place at MacWorld.
You will begin seeing more support from all the record labels in the next couple of months.
Bizarro Jeff: The fact that he views things as a war with consumers….his own customers…in which he lost because he’s no longer able to dictate to them what they will listen to and buy tells me that he still doesn’t have the right perspective on his own business.
QFT … well put.
At least he admits they lost and that they are now trying to respond to consumer preferences rather than trying to dictate them.
Still … this guy is a total douche.
I hope this signals a sea change in the content industry. The studios and record companies are getting squeezed powerfully on all sides: artists are bailing, distributing their own music. Writers are striking for their fair share of the pie. Customers demand easy-to-use, portable media in formats that make the most of their hardware. Bronfman sees it, and hopefully Zucker and the rest will, too.
Since I know the muso industry very well… I can say that he has something up his sleeve. To much slim to come clean now.
MDN = easy as in Broffman’s words are too easy to sound all true. However diarrhoea of the mind and mouth does flow pretty easy.
Let’s see what happens with NBC, too. Heeh.
‘MacDailyNews Take: Circling the bowl ever more rapidly seems to be helping Middlebronfman quickly straighten out his thinking.’
Or, he started taking his meds on a regular basis…
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Fsck you, Bronfman.
We are going to allow people to put ringtones on their phones for free, and next, we’re going to make links to Handbrake and ATShows.app available…
you’re fscking toast, bitch.
Yes it’s PR spin. For one it’s difficult to criticize the incumbent when trying to emulate them. A bit of apparent crow now may get a few more people to buy from his service and word really has gotten out about how corrupt the music industry is.
Also looks like face-saving before resignation, replacement or ‘promotion’ to Chief Music Sales Architect. Gotta protect that pension and bonuses, make the shareholders think he’s on the ball after all. Maybe he’s angling for a slice of the mobile phone business, like Chief Music Sales Architect there, showing he’s had the bitter experience and knows how to deal with it.
I wouldn’t trust Bronfmann’s words with a barge pole even if it reached to teh moon.
I like this change of mind. It’s great to see people getting it.
It is silly to say that he made such a huge mistake. None of his colleagues made much of a move either. What makes sense from our perspective might be difficult to grasp when you are CEO of a music company.
I find it great that he is making this shift, with no negativity in the sauce.
Gandalf: I wouldn’t trust Bronfmann’s words with a barge pole even if it reached to teh moon.
I don’t trust his words either. Bronfmann knows that the digital media player market is dominated by Apple for better or worse. However, compared to DMP market, cellphone market is way bigger. With these flowery words about iTunes, he is telling the players in the cellphone market to get their act together or else, Apple would dominate cellphone download market too. Bronfmann certainly won’t like Apple flexing their muscle in this market too, especially considering the success of iPhone.
I think this whole thing is about raising a competitor to iTunes that Bronfmann can kick around. If Bronfmann is really serious about his words, let see if he walks the walk. Put Warner Music’s tracks on iTunes without DRM or shut up.
He just proclaimed himself an idiot for not understanding the customer and waging war against the people that feed his company. Fire the idiot! —7U
If they fire him, they have to give him 500 gazillion dollars for his clueless leadership! Isn’t that what all big companies are doing nowadays?
This is really sick, of course. When a worker bee does his job incompetently, the company just fires him. But when the CEO screws up, they praise him to the skies and shower him with boatloads of cash! Is it because the company is too embarrassed to admit that they hired a turkey to lead the company in the first place?
Wow… never expected to see this kind of dramatic change in attitude. It’s almost suspicious… Next news headline: “Mind-control device found in Cupertino R&D;facility.”
Steve Jobs and Apple have given in to some of the music industry’s ideas. In exchange, Steve Jobs is is gaining their cooperation in implementing a few ideas of his own…
“”For years now, Warner Music has been offering a choice to consumers at Apple’s iTunes store the option to purchase something more than just single tracks, which constitute the mainstay of that store’s sales,” he explained. “By packaging a full album into a bundle of music with ringtones, videos and other combinations and variation we found products that consumers demonstrably valued and were willing to purchase at premium prices. And guess what? We’ve sold tons of them. And with Apple’s co-operation to make discovering, accessing and purchasing these products even more seamless and intuitive, we’ll be offering many, many more of these products going forward.“”