Tell-All Author Riffs on Music Industry in Crisis

Second of two parts

People like to throw virtual stones at record company executives — but who are they, and what makes them tick?

In the second half of this discussion about the music industry and one of its key figures, the author of Fortune’s Fool: Edgar Bronfman, Jr., Warner Music, and an Industry in Crisis, Fred Goodman tells us how his research led him to believe that subscribing to artists, rather than to generic music services might offer the best way forward.

Goodman also explores how Apple’s poor penetration on the desktop helped Steve Jobs convince major labels to license their music to iTunes. He asks whether massive bonuses are justified when a company’s stock sinks. And he presents evidence that the major labels might need to abandon adversarial relationships haunting them from the past if they want to solve problems in the future — within the bounds of antitrust law, of course.