Sean Patrick Cooper

Most interesting thing here is (1) Parker’s involvement w/ Spotify and his interest in the catalogue of the label. How valuable will the catalogues become once the streaming services take off? WIll the streaming services have traction? It’s going to be a battle b/w the streamers and the lockers, Spotify vs. ICloud and the others. The field is wide open right now. 

“In the last 10 years we have presided over the greatest destruction in value in the history of the music industry,” he said, with a formerly $45bn industry “brought to its knees” to today’s $12bn worth. “Assuming we can stabilise things and restore growth, it shouldn’t be that difficult to preside over the greatest increase in value in the history of the recorded music industry.”

(Parker quoted in a FT blog post)

The subscription services will have be super slick, easy to use, and most importantly, iPod level popular for music listeners to put effort into building playlists online instead of with their stolen and legally acquired music on their desktops.

As people build libraries and playlists, they start subscribing to take that music on the move. Many are still sceptical about Spotify’s business model, but Mr Parker believes it’s a “dramatic paradigm shift” in consumption that “implies the traditional music companies are undervalued”.