{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://frankhecker.com/2007/11/27/universal-cluelessness/",
  "path": "/2007/11/27/universal-cluelessness/",
  "publishedAt": "2007-11-27T11:14:15.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:77mn3ult3b72tpvtqqva6tat/site.standard.publication/3mpfmfpu4u72n",
  "tags": [
    "music"
  ],
  "textContent": "I know it’s only marginally eMusic-related (though it does include a quote from David Pakman, as noted below), but I can’t help commenting on the recent _Wired_ interview with Doug Morris of Universal (not yet online, but excerpted in a [blog post on the _New York_ magazine site][blog po]).  Two points struck me in particular: First, the willful cluelessness of Morris and associates about technology and its effect on the music business; as _New York_ magazine notes, it’s “like if your grandfather were accidentally hired to run Google.”  Second, Morris’s claim that the major labels are just poor innocent victims in all this, comparing them to Al Capp’s famous [Shmoo][]:\n\n> The Shmoo was a nice animal, a nice fella, but if you were hungry, you just cut off a piece of him and put onions on it.  . . .  You could do anything to him.  That’s what was happening to the music business.  Everybody was treating the music business like it was a Shmoo.\n\nThis was in turn followed by some hand-wringing about the “the artists.”  Puh-lease.\n\nFortunately David Pakman turns up at the end to inject a note of sanity into the discussion, pointing out that, “Locking things up is actually good for piracy.”  I don’t think Pakman is a digital music genius (among other things, I don’t think he’s really clued into Web 2.0, social networks, etc.), but in this context he’s a giant among pygmies.\n\n[blog po]: http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2007/11/universal_music_ceo_doug_morris.html \"Universal Music CEO Doug Morris Speaks, Recording Industry in Even Deeper Shit Than We Thought\"\n[Shmoo]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmoo\n\n  *\n\nJames - 2007-11-27 18:39{#1adbab9b-001}\n\nShmoo? This guy is clearly operating in the last century.",
  "title": "Universal cluelessness"
}