Music's Swan Dive: Self-Inflicted Wounds

Filed in archive Business , Commentary , Industry on August 14, 2007

Rolling Stone published an in-depth feature on The Record Industry's Decline. Now that a new generation of executives is driving the record companies, they can admit what everyone else has known for many years - digital technology has transformed the business, they're turned off a huge number of their fans, and they've missed key opportunities.

It all went downhill with Napster seven years ago. The top execs, including Edgar Bronfman Jr. of Vivendi Universal, Nobuyuki Idei of Sony, and Thomas Middelhof of Bertelsmann, told Napster CEO Hank Berry they wanted to license the service and split the revenues. But in the end they weren't ready to jump to a new business and didn't close the deal. The rest is painful history.