Any time that you can give the consumer more of what they want, it's a good thing. I said from Day 1 that the unbundling of the album is a good thing.
— Edgar Bronfman, Jr.
The history of the music industry is inevitably also the story of the development of technology. From the player piano to the vinyl disc, from reel-to-reel tape to the cassette, from the CD to the digital download, these formats and devices changed not only the way music was consumed, but the very way artists created it.
I made the decision when I came to Seagram that it had to be OK that my public persona would be bad. It's the downside of a family business: anything good is because I'm somebody's son; otherwise, I'm a schmuck.
It's interesting that the book publishing industry, on the iPad, has much more flexibility than the music industry had.
Commercial success still hasn't come to an artist that isn't signed to a record label. There are very few artists that can succeed without the help of a record label. The role of the record label is still required, it's still necessary.
If you look at the market cap increase in Apple since it created the iPod versus what's happened to the music industry, you have to say Apple got the better part of that deal.
Frankly, right is right and wrong is wrong, particularly when a parent is talking to a child. A bright line around moral responsibility is very important.
You need to look no further than Apple's iPhone to see how fast brilliantly written software presented on a beautifully designed device with a spectacular user interface will throw all the accepted notions about pricing, billing platforms and brand loyalty right out the window.
Any time you can give consumers more of what they want, it's a good thing. Unbundling the album is a good thing. In the case of music - because it is content that you can slice into songs - doing that is of huge benefit to consumers.
It strikes me as hubris that Universal will buy EMI. What it will do is create a super-major that will have far too much power... I think when Universal goes up over 40 percent market share, I don't see how reasonable regulators can countenance. It will impact not just labels, but artists and cultural diversity.
And since discriminating fans can pick and choose exactly what they want to buy, artists and their labels are more conscious than they've ever been of making sure that every song on a new album is as good as can be.
As my other obligations are beginning to take an inordinate amount of time, I have asked to step down as WMG's board chairman, effective January 31, 2012. However, I will remain a director of the company and in that way, continue my association with Warner Music and its extraordinary people.
By packaging a full album into a bundle of music with ringtones, videos and other combinations and variations, we found products that consumers demonstrably valued and were willing to purchase at premium prices. And guess what? We've sold tons of them.
The iPod made music mobile, but today, how many devices do you need to walk around with? You want it on just one. And inevitably that's going to be the phone.
We must restrict the anonymity behind which people hide to commit crimes. As citizens, we have a right to privacy. We have no such right to anonymity.
