Ministry of Sound chief executive Lohan Presencer is no fan of music-streaming service Spotify, but in his latest public speech he reserved more criticism for the major labels that license it.
“Ever since the 80s and the beginning of the consolidation of the record industry… the way that the people who run those companies are contracted and remunerated and rewarded is all short-term,” said Presencer, speaking in Brighton at a Fireside Sessions event alongside industry conference The Great Escape.
Lohan said the fact many people are on three- or five-year long contracts cause them to make very short-term decisions.
“As we have seen from the Sony Wikileaks emails, they are incentivised to deliver short-term goals. So what they do is all driven by that … and the decisions they have made have completely fucked everyone up the arse.”
Presencer also criticised Sony’s rival Universal Music, suggesting that a recent change of heart over free, on-demand streaming music by its boss Lucian Grainge – who has been publicly critical of the free tiers of companies like Spotify – has caused panic lower down the company’s managerial ranks.
“All of a sudden the guy at the top has changed his mind, and all the executives below are saying ‘I was saying this, now he’s saying that, and … Am I going to keep my job? Oh fuck!’,” he said, before praising Grainge but attacking his company’s strategy in licensing free streaming services.
“I’ve got a tremendous amount of time and respect for Lucian. I think he’s a great executive. He’s consistently taken risks, taken chances, rolled the dice, done big deals, signed great artists – right at the heart of Lucian is music and he really gets that,” said Presencer.
“I think some of the things they’ve done digitally are awful, and they have created a landscape for themselves that they’re now trying to dig themselves out of, and they don’t quite know how. That has massive, rolling implications for all of us.”
Presencer claimed that major labels were too keen to license free, unlimited streaming services as a response to online music piracy, and contrasted their approach with other creative industries.
“The music industry’s response to piracy was: ‘Lets give everything away for free legally’. The movie industry didn’t do that and the TV industry didn’t do that. Even the book publishing industry hasn’t done that. And newspapers have managed to put paywalls around their content,” he said.
A combative speech also saw Presencer accuse the major labels of being reluctant to license music services that adopt different models to Spotify, to protect their investments in that company ahead of its anticipated IPO.
“Clearly there are other models, but they’re not interested in licensing those other models. The services all exist, they’re all out there … but when they go to the big content owners and say ‘we’ve got a different model’ the big guys go, ‘hmm, we don’t want to damage Spotify because we’ve all got a piece of that … so the only way we’ll consider this is if you give us a massive advance or an equity stake, and we’ll give you a one-year licence’,” he said.
“Why would anyone want to start a fucking music service?! Why would anyone want to go and negotiate with those beasts?”
