APPETITE FOR SELF-DESCTRUCTION

Cover of "Appetite for Self-Destruction: ...

Early in “Appetite for Self-Destruction,” Knopper quotes former Warner Records and EMI CEO Joe Smith as observing, “This business ain’t full of Martin Luther Kings.” It says something about the emotional power of music that anyone would expect sainthood in its executives, but in the real world the absence of “Martin Luther Kings” is notable in virtually all businesses. Internet romanticists liked to ridicule the often implausible claims of record execs that they were looking out for the artists, since these were, at times, the same companies that had been successfully sued by artists for inaccurate accounting. However, the venture capitalists were not funding business plans to advance a utopian vision. The tech companies were every bit as self-interested and just as much driven by short-term profits as the most venal record company execs. At least the record companies sometimes paid artists something.
There is no denying that the major record companies made mistakes, which leaders of other media were able to learn from and avoid (although not with demonstrably better results). There is, however, no evidence that there was any strategy, regardless of who ran the record companies or what decisions they made, that could have stopped fans, especially young fans, from legally or illegally copying or downloading music instead of buying it….–Danny Goldberg on Steve Knopper’s APPETITE FOR SELF-DESTRUCTION