The Universal Music Group Flexes Its Perspective Power

Has anyone else noticed the dramatic shift in perspective within the music industry? In December, Universal Music Group - the world’s largest record company - will begin offering it’s entire digital catalogue to people who want to download music, for free! The corporation announced recently that it had struck a deal with an online music company, SpiralFrog.com. In return for being able to download songs for free, users will be required to watch 90 seconds of ads per music track and revisit the site at least once a month to retain access to their downloads.

This is an excellent example of Perspective Power principle #1 in action: Every one of your thoughts, feelings and actions is driven by your outlook.

Universal Music Group’s current approach to the issue of downloadable music reflects a long-needed change in perspective. It stands in sharp contrast to the response by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) when Napster, by enabling peer-to-peer music file sharing, threatened the profitability of the association’s membership. In the Spring of 2000, the association sued Napster and then thousands of individuals for copyright infringement.

The perspective that drove the RIAA to target its own customer base can be summarized as follows: ‘Unauthorized downloading of our intellectual property represents theft of our most valuable resource. Our intellectual property must be defended at all costs.’

Given that millions of people were blatantly ignoring issues of copyright and choosing to download music files illegally, this is a perfectly reasonable point of view. However, neither we, nor the music industry, gets to decide how other people behave. And so, while the RIAAs perspective drove a response which did nothing to stem the tide of illegal downloads, it did alienate their customer base. For example:

• At the beginning of 2000 Napster’s file sharing service was being used by several hundred thousand users. A year later - despite RIAA vigorously asserting its legal rights - this figure had exploded to fifty million users!
• When the record companies finally shut down Napster, other file sharing sites - like Grokster and KaZaA appeared - and the illegal file sharing continued.
• The RIAAs response also gave Apple an extended window of opportunity to dominate the market with its iTunes 99 cent downloads.
• It’s been estimated by KMPG - an organization providing audit and advisory services - that, since 2000, the music industry’s approach to internet piracy has cost them $8 - $10 billion per year. A higher level of thinking is clearly needed.

A Higher Level Of Thinking

Albert Einstein once observed: “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them”.

The alliance between Universal Music and SpiralFrog represents a higher level of thinking driven by a different perspective: ‘How can we make money from our intellectual property in a world where music will be downloaded for free?’

This ‘go with the flow’ approach is a huge step for Universal Music Group because it represents a totally new viewpoint on intellectual property. This fresh perspective will enable them to profitably ride a tidal wave of social change - much as Apple have done - rather than continue with their feeble attempts to dam back the inevitable.