emi reinvents the wheel
Stop stealing music motherf*^%#er. Will Ferrell and Heidi Klum as imagined in the movie Music Fans vs The Music Industry.
I wasn’t inclined to pitch in about the story of EMI hiring an ex-Google exec to overhaul its global digital strategy. I figured it was a non-story - record labels are in trouble, have been for years while they buried their collective heads in the sand, then some bright spark at EMI says “hey let’s hire someone from Google, they seem to know what they’re doing….” Yeah that might work.
Here’s a story about EMI’s new guy. “Glen Merrill was Google’s chief information officer and one of the architects of the internet firm’s successful flotation in 2004. He has been appointed at EMI to a new role overseeing all of the company’s digital strategy, innovation, business development, supply chain and global technology activities.” It seems an odd fit to me yet other writers have validated Merrill’s hiring because of the way he dresses! This from News.com “On a personal level, the match might be more heavenly [heavenly!]. Merrill’s shoulder-length hair and casual attire makes clear he’s not a corporate “suit.” Plus he’s got a bachelor’s in social and political organization and a master’s and doctorate in Psychology from Princeton.” As I am an actual professional rock musician who dresses like one and has spent the last decade in the internet music distribution business I await the call from EMI.
But seriously, Mr Merrill has his work cut out for him. In the article he says - “”There is academic research that shows file sharing is a good thing for artists and not necessarily bad,” said Merrill. “We should do a bunch of experiments to find out what the business model is.” [Rick Rubin talks about setting up a 'lab' here.]
Readers of this blog don’t need a degree from Princeton to understand that indie labels long ago embraced the idea of giving away music files for free to spread awareness of their artists releases. He then goes on - “I think people will pay,” Merrill said. “There is evidence that people we think are not buying music are buying music. They’re just not buying it in formats we can measure.” That’s an odd statement, there are many tools at hand to measure music sales both online and off. I presume he means what I have held as a given for many years - that when someone is exposed to a music file online and they like that music they then go on to buy it either in digital form or as a CD.
Meanwhile - “Merrill plans to experiment with ad-supported music download services, pointing to Google’s success with targeted advertising, and subscription models.” Nothing new there.
All Mr Merrill needs to do is to persuade his new corporate bosses that by giving away non-DRM music files to music fans they are fulfilling what their customers want - free access to new music. Maybe he can find a way to compare that activity to the way labels have used another free format for their customers to hear their music - FM Radio. And also he might discuss how much money EMI loses by making music videos then giving them away for free to MTV. And he should remember that tap water is free but bottled water companies make a fortune. He’s smart, he’ll work it out.
April 8th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Man, I wish *I* could go work for EMI (or anyone) under the banner of “dude, I don’t know, let’s just try a bunch of stuff and see what works.” Doesn’t take a genius to do that, really.
I recognize you’re just making an analogy here, but tap water isn’t free at all.
Tax dollars provide(d) and maintain the infrastructure. And I don’t know about you, but I actually get a bill for the water I use at my home. Elsewhere the property owners get bills and pay for the water.
The key difference is tap water FEELS free, partially due to the heavy subsidy of both the infrastructure and delivery costs.
A paradox here is “that which is free has no value”. Bottled water companies exploit the amazing deal that is clean water in the developed world by selling less regulated water (frequently of lower quality) in environment-destroying bottles because they make people believe it’s “more convenient” and “more healthy” than going to the tap. The funny part here is you’ve already paid for the tap via taxes. And then the water companies go and trick you into paying more for less.