Wired profiles Universal Music CEO

Posted by aubin on Tuesday, November 27, 2007 at 9:00 PM (EST)

To get some idea of where the music industry is going, it would seem logical to talk to the most powerful music CEO in the business, Universal's Doug Morris, but the interviewer at Wired walked away from the interview thinking otherwise.

Of some note is this quote:

There's no one in the record industry that's a technologist. That's a misconception writers make all the time, that the record industry missed this. They didn't. They just didn't know what to do. It's like if you were suddenly asked to operate on your dog to remove his kidney. What would you do?

I wouldn't be able to recognize a good technology person - anyone with a good bullshit story would have gotten past me.

The article is available here.

Universal Music Group (27 comments)

Please login or register to post comments.What are the benefits of having a Punknews.org account?

Share your opinion by posting comments on the stories that interest you
Rate music and bands and help shape the weekly top ten
Let Punknews.org use your ratings to help you find bands and albums you might like
Customize features on the site to get the news the way you want.

Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not respon sible for them in any way. Seriously.

Splendidtune (November 27, 2007)

1st

Dante3000 (rich) (November 27, 2007)

God, let's hear another old, washed up, hack, dinosaur tell us what is wrong with the music industry. Let's run the list, he tried to (or did) sue, myspace, Yahoo, youtube and Microsoft. It's not that he's technology ignorant, he's like a caveman huddled in a corner attempting to smash any introduction of the outside world. The only reason they've paired up with Amazon is in a hopes to drop iTunes so they can have a bigger share than what Jobs throws them.

Fact is, they parade around as if they care for the artist and that's bullshit. I believe downloading can hurt musicians but he only cares because it impacts his bottom line. They've made money for decades ripping off artists for what they've spent years creating and now they bitch and moan because someone else is ripping off the artist before they can.

The real shame is that the only people w

show rest of comment

Thus_Spoke_Sean (November 27, 2007)

it is a shame. for sure, your point about them being pissed someone else is ripping off the arist is exceptional.

on another note, i for one think its great all these articles are coming up on the 'org. this is by far the biggest issue in music right no, and the more educated we all are the better.

TheDude (November 27, 2007)

"They've made money for decades ripping off artists for what they've spent years creating and now they bitch and moan because someone else is ripping off the artist before they can."

couldn't have said it better myself, sir. you are dead on.

MsJustinChris (November 27, 2007)

Hell yes.

Whatever happened to the artist owning the music and the record labels just put out the records.

eran_zombis (November 27, 2007)

I like that quotation, too, because he's comparing the victimization of the Jews to the plight of the record industry.

TheMarc (November 27, 2007)

An absolute must-read for all the wrong reasons.

HumanUnkind (November 27, 2007)

I can't remember the last time I bought a cd with the Universal logo on it...

The guy's not earning my sympathies. I just get the feeling its about money. That sounds obvious but he tries to come across like its not JUST about money.

NotPatriotic (November 27, 2007)

This guy and people like this guy are my arch enemies. You can tell from reading the article that this guy is as fake as it gets. This guy does not give a fuck about his artists, he does not care about society, and he doesn't care about music. This guy and Tom Gabel would probably have a swell time hanging out. Fuck the music industry. Support the people who support the scene.

jacknife737 (November 28, 2007)

uh.... what does Tom Gabel have to do with this?

justinius (November 28, 2007)

everything.

thebigtakeover (November 27, 2007)

it's funny that he mentions the shmoo in the article. that's the same analogy morgan freeman's character in lucky number sleven used when he was telling josh hartnett's character what to do. Interesting, seeing as how freeman's character is an absolutely despicable villain in that movie.

victim (November 28, 2007)

I don't get you guys. The level of outrage and vitriol in this thread is totally unwarranted.

I'm here to tell you, this guy is you. All of your griping amounts to assuaging your own consciences. You can't support Empire, capital, and the plutocracy and then expect your complaints about one greedy, unscrupulous asshole to ring anything but hollow.

This guy epitomizes capitalism, a system almost every one of you will spring up to defend. Sure, you'll say it needs a little "tweaking" here or there or, if you're really bold, an "overhaul"

Ignoring the truth that countless numbers of your brothers and sisters the world over are DYING on a daily basis to prop up a system that allows you to come here and bitch about the music industry and the corporate flacks who run it.

The comments in this thread are a joke. Supporting Ron

show rest of comment

TheDude (November 28, 2007)

who the hell are you and how are you reading everyone's "pro-capitalist" minds?

you can throw all your 5 dollar words out there and try and fly over the heads of everyone who reads this site, but the fact of the matter is that it would be highly improbable that someone who finds fault with this article would "spring up to defend" capitalism.

the whole debate brought forth by this rich white dude's complaints is about spreading the wealth. if you feel that a corporate CEO should not make millions of dollars while the artist who actually creates the product gets a minuscule percentage, then i would hardly consider you pro-capitalism.

it's the same thing with the writer's strike in hollywood. why is it that the artists creating the material are given as little as possible while shareholders and CEOs continue to rake in millions. finding outrage

show rest of comment

victim (November 28, 2007)

So denouncing CEOs = capitalism?

TheMarc (November 28, 2007)

Five stars for this guy not getting it!!

Dante3000 (rich) (November 28, 2007)

A married couple are laying in a bed. The wife says, "Why don't you come over here and give me a kiss?", the husband says, "I would but I can't move since I'm bound by the chains of my capitalistic oppressors".
BA-ZING!
-Dante

Scruffy (November 28, 2007)

Just like communism and socialism are not embodied by what happened in the USSR, capitalism as a concept is not embodied by the gluttonous monster it has become here in the US.
One can defend capitalism while at the same time demanding that it have a soul. Both economic systems, when taken to their extremes, are soulless and unfair.
Criticizing this man, or any others in the music industry, for being greedy, selfish and hypocritical is not the same thing as criticizing capitalism, no matter how badly your illogical activist heart might want it to be.

Scruffy (November 28, 2007)

I'd like to add that I am not all uber-capitalist. I just refuse to say that it is without merits, much as I refuse to say socialism is not without merit.

victim (November 28, 2007)

Of course capitalism has merits, but its a question of perspective. Merit to who? Who has to lose in exchange for those merits?

Why do we only ever hear from the cheerleaders but never those who get the shit end of the deal?

manitou1 (November 28, 2007)

What comedy. I loved the part where Morris, head of multi-billion dollar UMG tries to garner sympathy for the "poor artists who should be paid properly for their work."

I'm sure no one at Universal or any of their subsideraries ever:

1. Handcuffed an artist in their contract, refusing to release their record, leaving the artist poor, limbo, and unable to go to another label.

2. Swindled any artists out of their publishing, making fat profits while paying the artists as little as possible.

3. Used their immense power to leverage ridiculous rates for recouping the advances given to artists. Under a buck a disk back to the artist. Which then has to be paid back to the label until recoupment is achieved. "Having a major label contract is like a having a credit card at 50%."

4. Pushed popular artists to make rushed, subst

show rest of comment

oneboycircus (November 28, 2007)

This guy is stupid. he gives the "if Coke came out of your sink faucet, how much would you pay for coke?" speech. Water comes out the faucet asshole and people still buy bottled water. Go eat a dick you greedy old hack! Music doesn't need "the industry" anymore.

wellplannedattack (November 28, 2007)

i wonder how that'd work through a brita filter?

Scruffy (November 28, 2007)

Totally awesomely.

wellplannedattack (November 28, 2007)

am i the only one that thinks that if the music industry were to implode, music in general would kick ass? it seems like without an industry, local scenes would be forced to bloom. this means that instead of focusing just on the bands that labels like universal and channels like mtv force feed us, we could spend more time checking out local bands. there's a lot of music out in the world right now that we don't listen to because we don't have to. if everyone was forced to discover their own artists, bands that may not have gotten as much exposure might just get more exposure.

also, i just think that it is damn logical to put out your own cd. artists make a ridiculously low amount per cd sold on a label as opposed to making 100% of it when self-released. sure, you may not get nationwide recognition, but who cares? rock stars aren't anything more than normal peopl

show rest of comment

karmabad (November 28, 2007)

I took one look at the article...pass, who cares..."all i hear is blah blah blah i'm a dirty whore!"

oh, that comment by victim is pretty funny too!

http://thisblogisover.wordpress.com/

Tobin_Ownlife (November 28, 2007)

I was watching Seinfeld with a friend last night. We got in a conversation about grumpy old men and how you they seem to blame everything on other people. Sometimes you have to reason with them like little children. That's exactly what this guy is. It kind of made me laugh. "This business has been the same for 25 years". Hahahaha, what the hell, so it should stay the same forever. What a stubborn old asshole. I dind't think it worked 10 years ago the way they treat the artists, so when the majors are lying 6 feet under, I will be laughing and still putting out records without profit in mind.