Wednesday, September 13, 2006

One again, the recording industry gets it wrong.

Universal Music Group is going after MySpace and YouTube for playing their silly artists' videos.

Their chairman, one Doug Morris (probably beat up as a young boy) was crying at an investors conference about the two sites. The conference was closed to the press, but as the above link shows, according to a transcript obtained by Reuters: (Morris blubbered) "We believe these new businesses are copyright infringers and owe us tens of millions of dollars." HA! Right.

We can remember NBC crying about YouTube before because a bunch of people uploaded and were watching this (very funny) video from SNL. Before this aired, about the same number of people were watched SNL that listen to NPR in the morning. In other words, about 12 nationwide. After people got a good laugh, they actually like, you know, tuned in.. Who knew that SNL was even on anymore??

Now, you would think that these dumb assholes would get it through their thick skulls at some point that they should treat this technology as a blessing and embrace it, for crissakes.
NBC finally wised up to a certain extent (though the above was pulled) and they now air some stuff on there for people to watch. Because, duh, if I see something I like, I might want to see more.

Here's a great quote from genius Morris about MTV: "(MTV) built a multibillion-dollar company on our (music) ... for virtually nothing. We learned a hard lesson."
What a fucking crock of shit.
MTV helped the record companies sell hundreds of millions of records and concert tickets for famous artists and ones that no one has ever heard about.
Fuck them.

And now, for your enjoyment and from YouTube, the latest video from Universal Music Group artist, Beck:




8 comments:

Diane said...

Back in the late '70's, the record companies were trying to ban the sale of blank cassette tapes b/c all the teenagers taping their albums to share with friends was going to put the record companies out of business - funny, didn't quite work out that way. You are so right - they should embrace the technology and use it to expand the fan base for their artists. Friends passing around new songs, videos etc., is the best advertising they could have. And while I was never a big Metallica fan, I really, really hated them after their whiny attacks on Napster.

Mike V. said...

People for some reason have the hardest time seeing the big picture.

Technology is ever-changing and always will be.
Use it.

Unknown said...

Let the music play my friend! The music industry is so stupid that I'm surprised they're still standing. They have no idea how much free marketing they're getting out of it. Millions could be potentially saved by this.

Unknown said...

And one more thing, I'm tired of these companies treating people like thieves when all we really want to do is salute out musical heros. MTV hurt them. Bull, MTV MADE THEM in order to survive the video age.

Tom Harper said...

LOL. I remember that from the late '70s. Not only taping each other's albums, but taping songs off the radio. I still have zillions of tapes I recorded off the radio. They're very unprofessional, with the pause button clicking on and off, and some DJ patter getting recorded, and sometimes coming in right in the middle of a song. But I've got thousands of songs on tape.

And I single-handedly brought the recording industry to its knees by using all these cassettes. I did it.

Mike V. said...

I understand completely now, Tom.
Not only do you hate America and love the terrorist, but you are also anti-capitalism!! I knew it!!

LA said...

I think the most amazing thing to me is that the chairman of Universal Music Group is so short-sighted. He thinks MTV was a "hard lesson?" I can't believe this guy passed marketing 101.

This is actually a subject very close to my heart in that I have a lot of friends who are indie artists, self-recorded, self-published, and self-distributed, out there peddling their wares on cdbaby.com and iTunes, etc. They remain unsigned while Paris Hilton actually has a label behind her (and whose album is dropping faster than Bush's approval rating after Katrina). If the record companies ever do in fact come tumbling down, they'll have no one to blame but themselves for many, many reasons.

Clay said...

I think the recording industry is very greedy in general and should lighten up a bit. I've bought several dvds and cds merely because of something I heard or saw on the internet. Those are sales that would have never happened if this type of material was blocked.