wax&wires

Universal Music Group Chief On iTunes, DRM, and Android

Universal Music Group GM & VP, Rio CaraeffCNET posted a great interview with UMG chief Rio Caraeff a few days back.

In the interview, Caraeff discusses everything from internet radio, to DRM, and mobile music platforms.

Some noteworthy points:

Caraeff admits that the industry has come a long way in the past few years. He views streaming music as the critical step that the labels must be on board with, citing UMGs deals with last.fm, iMeem, and MySpace as examples. All of those services were structured to be free-to-consumer, being ad supported. Caraeff also mentions how subscription-based music services have not caught on with the success that many hoped for. People are not willing to pay for things that they can get elsewhere for free.

Furthering that thought, Caraeff sees the solution to music piracy coming from the labels providing a superior alternative to piracy, rather than litigation. As you all know, that has been my stance from the start. Steps that UMG has taken in the aforementioned streaming music markets are ways in which consumers can get music legally, but still for free. I truly believe people would rather do things legally, they just put their comfort ahead of the law at times.

In a surprising stat, Caraeff reveals that 40-45 percent of UMG’s overall digital business comes from mobile channels like Verizon and AT&T, especially in urban markets. UMG does not believe that the mobile platform is the sole platform of the future though, but rather a single revenue stream amongst dozens.

Caraeff goes on to talk about the UMG YouTube deal, the impact of Apple and much more.

You can read the full article here.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 14th, 2009 at 7:57 pm. It is filed under wax and tagged with android, drm, itunes, universal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.