Advice from the top: Warner chief says fighting with your customers is not a good idea

PC Pro reported today on a rare sighting of (an unprompted) corporate mea culpa and a fairly common volte-face. Speaking at the GSMA Mobile Asia Congress in Macau, Edgar Bronfman, chairman and CEO of Warner Music Group, admitted that the music industry screwed up on digital downloads and cautioned the mobile industry not to make the same mistake.

Quotes PC Pro:

“We used to fool ourselves,’ he said. “We used to think our content was perfect just exactly as it was. We expected our business would remain blissfully unaffected even as the world of interactivity, constant connection and file sharing was exploding. And of course we were wrong. How were we wrong? By standing still or moving at a glacial pace, we inadvertently went to war with consumers by denying them what they wanted and could otherwise find and as a result of course, consumers won.”

Of course, one quick admission of guilt is not going to fix things overnight, and as the article points out, Warner is still only toying with DRM-free music. It’s going to be a long time before the music industry snuggles its way back into consumers’ affections.

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