Universal’s CEO Interview

The Chairman & CEO of Universal Music Group, Doug Morris, recently gave an interview with Billboard. It is a fascinating interview that really shows the point of view of the labels. I know in my blog, I often rag on the labels, but reading this interview really helped me see that though they may be behind a bit, they are really going after the interest of their companies and their artists. Here are some highlights from the interview. Click here to read the entire interview:

Here Morris talks about the basics of the industry and what will never change:

“The biggest problem is always getting hits. That’s the one thing that has never changed. The way of delivering music has changed, the way of listening to it has changed, the way of distributing it has changed, but it’s always the music.”

Morris gives the industry perspective on the RIAA lawsuits:

“It was an act to try and publicize that this is stealing and this is wrong. That’s one way to look at it. Did it work? I don’t know. Maybe it stopped some people from stealing, maybe it didn’t . . . Did they deserve to get caught? Probably. People don’t like policemen. I understand that. And maybe they’re right. But when you see all the stores close and you lose half your employees and you can’t sign bands to record them because people are stealing, we do things to try and stop it. You have a lot of people who think that things should be free. I don’t know how they think we should produce it for free, but there’s a lot of people who aren’t logical.”

Morris on his role in regards to protecting his assets:

My job is to protect artists, the people that work here, the copyrights . . . they (haters) have a feeling that I stop technology by trying to stop companies from infringing on our products – that we stopped the growth of all these companies because we don’t like the use of our product without a license.

On taking equity in new start-ups:

No one’s going to build a build a business off our backs if I can help it without us being part of it. It’s just not fair. We had numerous situations of criticism by the techies that “we’re stopping progress.” And that’s not what happens. What happens is they come back and we say, “Well, we want to be in business, but we’ve got to be in business in a legitimate way and give these songwriters and these artists the royalties they deserve.” Is that being aggressive? Is it being aggressive or is it not being taken advantage of?

On making things fair with new start-ups:

My real job is that people work here: the artists, the writers and the repertoire-all copyrights. You have companies getting into businesses by the process of infringement. They put up our product with no license on a site to draw people hoping to get advertising. And then after they start drawing people, they come to us and say, “Hey! We’re in business, let’s make a deal!”

And finally, his thoughts on the man who changed his industry:

Steve Jobs. He came back stronger and smarter than anyone has ever done in any industry. Not only did he sell Pixar and become the largest stockholder in Disney, but he’s captured 85% of the digital market and came up with this device which has changed everyone’s lives. We work with him and we try and get what we want with him and I’m sure we aggravate the hell out of him sometimes, but when you look at the whole picture, we make a lot of money through iTunes. We consider him a friend . . . I talk to him about once a month. I like him very much. I have dinner with him occasionally, and he’s the kind of guy we’ll be talking about 100 years from now. He’s a brilliant guy.

It is very interesting to consider the point of view of the labels. If you were responsible for having a widget made, but then somebody came by, stole the widget, and sold it in stores, you would be really angry. That’s what is happening to the record labels when new start-ups use their music without a license. Morris’ point is that Universal should be compensated for that.

But that does bring up the necessary question of the necessity of Universal in that equation. On the one hand, they are the marketing & promotional machine behind the artists. On the other hand, they are an intermediary. Time will tell.

Stay tuned,
Erik
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