UMG CEO Criticized - But Who Has the Right Answers?

Antony Bruno writes in Billboard - "It's as if the new journalistic formula for generating web traffic these days is either a) write something trivial about the iPhone or b) call a record label clueless. Every blog in the universe will link to it and generate dozens of comments from readers gloating about how badly guys like Morris just got 'pwnd.'" Clearly, I've been doing it all wrong. He's referring to a recent Wired profile of Universal Music Group CEO Doug Morris, which Bruno says comes "across as lazy and, well, mean." The article's writer - Seth Mnookin - paints the picture,

How is it that an old-school music mogul who can barely hide his indifference to technology or his contempt for the download-loving public is out front on so many digital initiatives? Clearly, it's not because he wants to improve the music experience for consumers. It's also not because he finally understands that MP3s are fundamentally changing his business, whether he likes it or not. . . . He wants to wring every dollar he can out of anyone who goes anywhere near his catalog. Morris has never accepted the digital world's ruling ethos that it's better to follow the smartest long-term strategy, even if it means near-term losses. As far as he's concerned, do that and someone, somewhere, is taking advantage of you. Morris wants to be paid now, not in some nebulous future. And if there's one thing he knows how to do, it's use the size of his company to get his way.

Bruno's main critique is that "Painting Morris as an indifferent dinosaur and focusing on the industry's past mistakes is much easier and less interesting than actually trying to understand what he and the other label heads are going through, and learn how they're trying to adapt."

Though not all share Bruno's take - on the New York Magazine Entertainment and Culture Blog, Morris takes another beating -

Even though we shouldn't be, we're actually a little shocked [by the article]. We'd always assumed the labels had met with a team of technology experts in the late nineties and ignored their advice, but it turns out they never even got that far — they didn't even try! Understanding the Internet certainly isn't easy — especially for an industry run by a bunch of technology-averse sexagenarians — but it's definitely not impossible. . . . We give this industry six months to live.

Alas, this probably plays into Bruno's initial quote at the beginning.

We can all agree that - in retrospect - the major labels did not have a clue. Right now, however, no one has a great solution. Bruno writes, "There are lots of voices loudly criticizing what labels have done in the past, and few are sticking their necks out offering ideas for the future." The fact is that no one - artists, majors or indies - has found the solution for running a successful business in the digital age. It's easy to be hasty and call every "intriguing" marketing strategy the next great "business model." But while it's fun to discuss the merits of letting fans decide what they pay for your record, the ideas that come out are more 'theoretical' than they are 'financial.'

Everyone in the industry is seeking the next great musical business model - at the present moment, however, the only thing we can agree on is what the major labels should have done.