Edgar Bronfman, When Will You Ever Learn?

from the nobody's-home dept

BusinessWeek has a fairly superficial interview with Edgar Bronfman that's notable on only a couple points. First is his contention that things written about him in the press don't bother him, which contrasts his later contention that "the press" doesn't accurately portray how he squandered his family's fortune. Of course, Edgar is a control freak, whether it's trying to control music pricing or how people can use content they've purchased, so to see him upset at something he can't control isn't surprising. Of course, our response to that would be don't say stupid things and not expect to get called out for it. And speaking of music pricing, Bronfman still doesn't seem to understand that he doesn't get to set retail prices, talking about the folly of Apple's insistence on uniform pricing. He says, though, that his company will experiment with what it will offer for different prices, things like "tracks with lyrics, tracks with videos, all kinds of things". This highlights a fundamental problem of the big record labels: their chronic inability to innovate at anything other than repacking the same content over and over, and trying to get consumers to pay for it multiple times.
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  1. identicon
    Michael Birnholz, 15 May 2006 @ 12:53pm

    When will the people learn?

    What exactly is wrong with Edgar Bronfman or any other business owner wanting to make their share of revenue with respect to media, the arts, or any other product or service? The movie studios, record labels, and other media segments that were hit over the head with digital distribution as a result of the NET are in a losing battle at the moment.

    If we need to rant and rave about something, let's rant about Tom Cruise's 100m paycheck (now for the second time) for a single movie. If Tom keeps earning like this, Mr. Hubbard just might rise from the dead, like Jesus is supposed to do (no disrespect to either of them).

    Artists and athlets should earn a % of the revenue they bring in, similar to the rest of the folks on this planet in traditional business.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    JerseyRich, 15 May 2006 @ 12:59pm

    Edgar got PWNED! Go Carlo! :P

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Ben, 15 May 2006 @ 2:33pm

    Re: When will the people learn?

    I completely agree that TC is over payed, and that artists should only make money based on how much the art makes. But to expect people to buy the same content over and over because it has an added feature or a new cover is greedy. Edgar shows his greed when he tried to set retail prices. Supply vs Demand doesn't apply to digital media, or atleast it shouldn't and as much as i dislike Apple, Mr. Jobs has helped to prove that.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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