back to article Warner Music supremo in Apple-fondling mea culpa

Two years after he publicly badmouthed iTunes, Warner Music Group CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. now thinks it's just peachy. Speaking earlier this week at the GSMA Mobile Asia Congress in Macau, Bronfman admitted that the music industry was dead wrong about the digital music revolution, before spewing some Apple sweet talk that still …

COMMENTS

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  1. Crash Override
    Alien

    iPod people?

    Surely this isn't the result of brainwashing, it's the emergence of the iPod People, simulacra helping the RoTM in the name of Jobs...

  2. Michael Hoenig
    Coat

    20/20 hindsight

    Well, DUH, Bronfman...

    Your consumers were telling you all along that they wanted what you were poo-pooing from the outset.

    Glad to see you've pulled your head out of your...<ahem>...sorry...I mean, the sand!

  3. PunkTiger
    Black Helicopters

    Hmmm...

    As much as I would go with the gun theory, I rather think that, as our British friends would say, the penny dropped. He's saying things here that many people have said all along; treating the customers as criminals, and the like.

    Could this begin a change of heart, or is Warner's setting themselves up to be ostracized by the rest of the music industry and an RIAA lawsuit?

    *shrug* Let's see if they continue with this line of thought a few weeks from now. Perhaps it's just the hangover talking.

  4. Mike Moyle

    Coming Soon: The Stepford CEOs

    Either that or, to forestall any further defections, he was grabbed as he left the conference, had a bag pulled over his head, was shoved into the trunk of a black limousine and is now being deprogrammed at a secret RIAA facility.

  5. Neil Anderson
    Jobs Horns

    Attributes

    Wow, think he could have squeezed one more adjective into that paragraph?

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Sucking up to Steve

    You'd think he was looking for preferential treatment for his company's titles on the iThing. Oh, wait a moment...

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Has anyone checked...

    the contents of the glass on his podium? I bet they'd find traces of Kool-Aid!

  8. AutumnForester
    Happy

    O'Rly

    Or could it be that self managed (including track sales) indie bands who give their fans ‘real’ live gigs, using real musicians and original songs are out performing ‘The Man’ and his boy / girl bands. Thus leaving them grasping at straws as their multi billion $ companies sink.

    Pssst want to know a secret? (These same indie bands five years ago who couldn’t make enough money to pay for their instruments, now are making lots).

    Remember: piracy killed the music industry.

    The music industry is dead, long live real music and net neutrality.

  9. Paul Talbot
    Dead Vulture

    "Inadvertently"???

    If memory serves, wasn't Warner, under the leadership of Bronfman Jr., the company that kickstarted the whole RIAA "let's sue our customers" thing in the first place? That's hardly inadvertenly stepping into a war, that's declaring it.

    Btw, I wish these guys would look at the damage they're really doing to themselves, even considering half-assed apologies like this. I don't use iTunes, I don't buy CDs and I now avoid RIAA labels like the plague. Yet, I still buy over £40 of music each month (thanks eMusic, Radiohead, etc.!). It's not the music industry that's in trouble, it's these thugs. Going after another locked-down platform (mobile/iPhone) won't help in the long term.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Horns

    Getting in bed with Apple

    Reminds me of Star Wars

    Luke: No, You can fight the evil Apple empire

    Darth Vader: Obi-Wan once thought as you do. You don't know the power of the Dark Side, I must obey my master

  11. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    I'll believe that guy

    when Disney puts its entire catalogue for sale and download in one go.

    No more missing titles, no more artificial rarity. Everything in one place, and I can buy whatever I want.

    Do that and I'll start believing you. Anything else is just wind blowing past my ears.

  12. Rob

    Things carry on like this...

    .... and it won't be long before Apple is hauled in front of the anti-competitive board for locking thier devices to the sole use of iTunes.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Don't Knock It

    I don't know how sincere this guy is, but even so it's a pretty rare thing for anyone to stand up in public and say they were wrong.

    It certainly never happens on El Reg's comments pages...

  14. lucmars

    No gun, no light

    This man just doesn't know.

  15. Colonel Panic

    that's reality distortion field at work

    Looks like someone just drank the kool-aid

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