Mobile industry could learn from AppleThe wireless industry needs to borrow a page from Apple's playbook if it expects to exploit the huge potential in mobile music, EMI Group's chief executive said recently.
"Apple makes stuff that people love to own," Nicoli said. "They love the simplicity and user-friendliness of the iPod and iTunes. Apple doesn't employ any sorcery or dark magic to achieve this. They listen to what consumers want. And that shouldn't be Apple's unique privilege." Nicoli also touched on the issue of digital rights management. He said that his company's experiment with selling a select catalog of unprotected music by a few of its artists has already had some interesting and promising results. He did not say whether EMI might expand or abandon this practice. Digital rights management, or DRM, has been an explosive topic for years as copyright owners, device makers and music distributors grapple with how to protect content that is distributed digitally online or over the airwaves. Earlier this year, Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO, ignited a firestorm when he urged the record industry to abandon DRM technologies. Music executives lashed out in response. At the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona in February, Warner Music Group's CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. called for more DRM interoperability rather than a ban on the technology. At the end of the day, EMI seems willing to try different models to see which one fits the best. But in Nicoli's view, one thing is already clear: the industry needs to make changes now. "The status quo is not an option if we hope to exceed our goals," he said. "We have in our grasp an incredible opportunity to create a colossal business through mobile. But we only have a chance to achieve this if we work together in a more thoughtful way."
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