Edgar Bronfman, Jr. Reported to Talk Straight

Edgar Bronfman, Jr. Reported to Talk Straight: Edgar Bronfman, Jr.'s efforts to become a powerful figure in the entertainment world, via money derived from his father's Seagram empire, are long-standing. [...] The boss of Warner Music has made a rare public confession that the music industry has to take some of the blame for the rise of p2p file sharing.

"We used to fool ourselves,' he said. "We used to think our content was perfect just exactly as it was. We expected our business would remain blissfully unaffected even as the world of interactivity, constant connection and file sharing was exploding. And of course we were wrong. How were we wrong? By standing still or moving at a glacial pace, we inadvertently went to war with consumers by denying them what they wanted and could otherwise find and as a result of course, consumers won."

(Via The Patry Copyright Blog.)

It only took ten years for him to start getting a clue. Efforts to work with him and other music executives on digital distribution go back much further than the start of Apple's music store. It's a sad reflection of their stewardship of their business that instead of leading the charge to digital, they dug in their heels for a decade and only started waking up when p2p and Apple pushed them into a corner. I'm sure their shareholders are delighted.