COMPANY SonyBMG Music Entertainment
www.sonybmg.com
POSITION Executive Vice President, Global Digital Business
LOCATION New York, New York

COMPANY BACKGROUND
SonyBMG Music Entertainment is a global recorded music joint venture with a roster of current artists that includes a broad array of both local artists and international superstars, as well as vast catalog that comprises some of the most important recordings in history. The company is 50 percent owned by Bertelsmann A.G. and 50 percent owned by Sony Corporation of America. SonyBMG Music Entertainment continues to aggressively move its business from the traditional sale of product through traditional retail channels of distribution to new and evolving digital platforms.

REPORTING RELATIONSHIPS
The Executive Vice President, Global Digital Business will report to the President, Global Digital Business and US Sales.

RESPONSIBILITIES
The Executive Vice President, Global Digital Business will be responsible for the US business development team. He/She will oversee global deal terms (in coordination with Business and Legal Affairs); industry-wide projects, such as Total Music (a joint venture with another major record company), and build the company’s investments in independent companies, such as SonyBMG’s Music’s stake in DADA, MOG and others.
Specific duties and responsibilities will include the following:

• Identify opportunities, structure, negotiate and close deals;
• Develop and coordinate SONY BMG’s business model across multiple existing and new product and licensing opportunities around the world – formulate strategies about how alternative exploitation models and product windows affect each other; drive product/ business model innovation;
• Develop specific business opportunities/partnerships which can be implemented in the near term; creatively help existing partnerships evolve through the challenges and changes in product and usage right configurations;
• Submit sound and achievable budget projections and recommendations; ensure that the Company is managed with strong financial accountability and integrity;
• Create and manage deals that are going to make an impact on a global basis;
• Monitor and evaluate digital business operations outside the US on a consistent basis to ensure plans and objectives are met, expected results are achieved and digital deal guidelines and policies are observed;
• Prepare and distribute information up, down and across the organization to ensure effective communications and information flow and to enable informed decision-making;
• Recruit and train an exceptional team in accordance with the budget and strategy;
• Bring significant experience in developing and understanding businesses and will have a strong grasp of the overall internet and mobile landscape.

PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS
Prospective candidates will be seasoned “business development” oriented executive who does not necessarily come from the music business, but could. He/She will more likely be an executive from the more broad-based entertainment and media field, but with an appreciation for the unique characteristics of the music industry. The successful candidate should be a strong negotiator with an acute sense of strategy and strong business acumen. He/she should be a strong “closer” in terms of getting deals done and take a pragmatic approach of what can be done.
Specifically candidates will have the following:

• Outstanding negotiation skills;
• Ability to develop and continually refine a vision and to identify strategies, tactics, and the resources required to achieve that vision;
• Strong leadership and management skills which include a hands-on style and the ability to build alliances;
• Solid experience in business and relationship development on a global basis; the ability to forge new relationships in the broad-based entertainment and media sector;
• Strong verbal and written communication skills with the ability to enhance the organization’s culture;
• Highly capable of independently handling complex negotiation situations. Strong “closer” in terms of getting deals done and take a pragmatic approach of what can be done.
• Demonstrated “change management” experience.

PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS AND COMPETENCIES
Prospective candidates will be passionate, business development oriented executives who can articulate both the vision and market position in a clear and compelling way. Strong leadership characteristics are a must. He/She needs to be able to quickly grasp financial models and capable of rapidly and thoughtfully drawing conclusions about the viability of different alternative business models. With excellent judgment of people and the strategic opportunities, the candidate will have built and crafted an organization to achieve significant revenue goals while focusing on the efficient and effective operation of the business. The ideal candidate must be a focused, proactive and collaborative leader, who can refine and extend the Company’s vision.

• Be a strong contributor to the overall strategy in further developing the music business model.
• Be mindful of the longer implications of changing the company’s business models but also strongly focused on optimizing the short term.
• Have a keen eye to find money on opportunities at hand.
• Be an intelligent, decisive, quick, forward-thinking, strategic and tactical executive; bring exceptional business acumen, common sense, wisdom and insight;
• Have the proven ability to work across an organization at all levels with technical, creative and executive team members; have excellent diplomatic and political skills to build collaborative working relationships across a wide array of constituents.
• Have strong interpersonal skills, good judge of character and great at building lasting and productive relationships.
• Be a strong motivator for the business development team and have a high energy level to drive things forward.
• Be realistic and not over-promise, yet drive, communicate and believe in a bigger vision.
  Most importantly, the successful candidate will have an unquestioned level of personal and professional integrity, as well as an intuitive understanding of and unbridled enthusiasm for the challenges and rewards arising from this unique opportunity.

EDUCATION
Prospective candidates will have an undergraduate degree. An MBA is highly desirable but not required. Experience in the professional culture of a major consulting firm or investment bank would be a plus though again is not required.

COMPENSATION
Compensation will be competitive and commensurate with experience. A customized package, including base salary and incentive bonus will be developed to attract the finalist candidate.

(Photo by pgoyette)

While each of the defendants has the right, ability and legal obligation to prevent infringement of plaintiffs’ copyrighted works, they have allowed infringement to go unchecked, content to profit handsomely from advertisements that appear side-by-side with infringing content.

What's particularly about the suit is that EMI's strategy seems to imply that because VideoEgg used technology like Audible Magic and human review to filter copyrighted content from the company's servers, it's more liable, not less.

No wonder YouTube took so long to install filtering software, which has long been demanded by rightsholder organization like the Recording Industry Association of America. In a prepared statement, VideoEgg argues the suit is without merit and asserts that it upheld the law under the DMCA:

VideoEgg has consistently worked to employ best practices to protect content owners. We took all the steps necessary to avoid copyright infringement issues, including systemwide deployment of Audible Magic, the leading provider of content identification services. Moreover, we have never received a takedown notice from EMI nor any of its affiliated companies.

Moreover, the company's deal to provide Hi5 with video uploading services for the social network's users ended in April, so it can not be accused of continuing to enable new cases of infringement. What's worrisome is that EMI is going after a company for doing exactly what the RIAA asked — pro-actively policing its network for infringement. And where's ostensibly tech-savvy former Googler Douglas Merrill in all of this? Somebody needs to explain to EMI's legal team how bad it looks trying to punish one of the companies actually doing their bidding.

With Douglas Merrill's hiring of Second Life cofounder Cory Ondrejka at EMI, at least one label is wising up to the fact that making music more difficult to buy and find is no way to compete with online file sharing. Say what you will about Second Life, but within the context of the virtual world it was very easy to participate in the economy (maybe even a little too easy) and buy and sell ephemeral, digital goods.

Now that labels have realized that their core business will no longer be moving units through outlets like the now-defunct Tower Records, they're moving towards "360 degree" deals that ask for a piece of event income, licensing and merchandising. Which in the old model used to be the artist's bread and butter, as musicians didn't actually see much of a cut from album sales. The album was, as they say in Hollywood, a "tent pole" upon which other business opportunities were supported — and now the labels want the whole tent.

Reznor had the foresight to go independent as the old circus collapses around him. Owning his own production studio and promoting and distributing his content digitally means his costs are minimal. And production, promotion and distribution was exactly what labels used to lured artists into contractual cages. Reaching beyond the concept of moving units in mass volume and instead servicing hardcore fans with what they want, when and where they want it while making it easy for people to find and listen to his music, Reznor's got an opportunity to make a lot more money for himself than he ever would have with a label — and more creative flexibility as well.

It's called radio, and more recently, music videos. In both cases, record labels basically paid to promote album sales — either through payola, in the case of radio, or through seven-figure film budgets, in the case of music videos. The content itself was given away for free. Thankfully, digital tools make recording and mastering that much cheaper as well. The only change in thinking (and artist contracts) required is to see the recordings themselves as a loss leader for stuff you actually can sell, like tickets and T-shirts, fan club memberships and licensing rights.

The new MySpace Music, like industry-backed efforts with MusicNet, PressPlay and Bertelsmann's Napster, is doomed to failure because the labels persist in seeing recorded music as a profit center, not as a promotional platform for leveraging artists' brands. Of the four majors, only EMI hasn't signed on with that effort yet, and if former Googler Douglas Merrill has any sense, he'll tell the company not to bother. (Photo by AP/Peter Kramer)

Best of all: Qtrax CEO Alan Klepfisz claimed he wasn't trying to mislead anyone: "We feel we have been unfairly crucified because a competitor tried to damage us." Klepfisz didn't name names, but we're reminded of Pogo: "We have met the enemy, and they are us."

Hands said to look to Radiohead, a band which spurned EMI when it allowed fans to download a low-fidelity copy of a new record and pay whatever price they chose. (Photo by wwhyte1968)

The recording industry is suffering from a bit of an image problem lately. Beyond digital ineptitude, as illustrated by Universal CEO Doug Morris and Warner CEO Edgar Bronfman, the RIAA is wasting money on lawsuits while attempting to hack publicly funded universities. Bad press isn't the best way to win consumer goodwill, and by cutting ties with the rest of the industry, EMI could send the message that it cares more about selling music than suing its customers.

1. Is EMI crazy for doing this?
No—for once, they're actually ahead of the curve. Positioning DRM-free music as a premium product—with better encoding rates and higher per-track prices—has its risks, but they'll likely pay off. After all, this move is one of the few times that a major label has actually acted as if it trusts consumers, and teaming up with the market leader in digital-music distribution is a signal that EMI wants to forge forward in terms of musical distribution. Sure, DRM-free files will make it slightly easier for a user to e-mail a copy of "Smile" to her friend who just went through a breakup, but we don't see entire chunks of people running off to trade their recently purchased files. And those listeners who want to swap entire discographies through private BitTorrent networks will probably continue to do so, whether for reasons of frugality or out of desire for even higher-quality formats like FLAC.

2. Why didn't rates for albums change?
Apple has been getting a lot of flak for offering per-track downloads and taking a bite out of the album market. The EMI deal makes high-quality DRM-free albums standard on iTunes, and not changing a premium price for a premium offering is yet another way for the iTunes Store to encourage people to buy albums instead of cherry-picking songs, thus showing the major labels that they're in at least one fight together. (See also the "Complete My Album" incentive offered to single-track buyers last week.)

3. What does this mean for consumers? Do they even care about what label an artist is on, or about DRM?
People who want to pay for music (yes, there are still a few out there) will have even more incentive to buy EMI's albums digitally, and consumers who were, in the past, stymied by attempts to move their iTunes-purchased music around—whether to different computers or to portable players that aren't necessarily the iPod—will have a slightly easier time doing so now. (Even the Zune will be able to play the unprotected AACs offered by iTunes.) And again, the idea of a major label viewing a consumer as a trusted entity, as opposed to a potential target for lawsuits, should pay off in PR points, at the very least.

4. Are other labels going to follow suit?
It makes sense that they would, although we'd expect indies to migrate to the DRM-free world more quickly than the majors. Many of them already distribute their music in unprotected format through services like eMusic and the forthcoming Other Music digital store. Hypebot today also mentioned rumblings from Universal Music Group about offering certain parts of its back catalog—including its classical offerings—without digital-rights protection. But even though Jobs has said that he expects half of iTunes' catalog to be available without DRM by year's end, we don't see all four major labels moving to DRM-free downloads for at least another two years, if not longer.

5. What about other stores?
So far, the UK store 7Digital has announced that it will offer restriction-free downloads at an even higher quality—although it's clearly appealing to the demographic of Damon Albarn fans, as its entire DRM-free catalog at this point consists of The Good, The Bad, and The Queen. (UPDATE: A reader e-mailed us to let us know that 7Digital is actually run by EMI—which makes sense, given that Albarn's outfit played the launch press conference announcing the DRM-lift.)

6. So when will I be able to buy those Beatles MP3s?
Nicoli said today that Apple and EMI were "working on" getting the Beatles catalog—which will allegedly be remastered—to the iTunes Store's shelves. If the Beatles show up on iTunes first, you'll actually have to buy Beatles AACs. AAC stands for Advanced Audio Coding, and it's the format that iTunes uses for its downloads; audiophiles aren't completely sold on the quality of those files, though, so if you have extra-sensitive ears, you might want to wait until the remasters come to CD.

Earlier: EMI Goes DRM-Free, Says To Online Retail, "C'mon, Jump In"

The London-based EMI is believed to have held talks with a wide range of online retailers that compete with Apple's iTunes. Those competing retailers include RealNetworks Inc., eMusic.com, MusicNet Inc. and Viacom Inc.'s MTV Networks. People familiar with the matter cautioned that EMI could still abandon the proposed strategy before implementing it. A decision about whether to keep pursuing the idea could come as soon as today...

According to people familiar with the matter, EMI initially began exploring the issue in earnest in late December, when it circulated proposals to online music retailers. Part of its proposal was a request for a one-time, multimillion-dollar "risk-insurance" payment that would not be tallied against future sales. Three people familiar with the talks said online retailers generally balked at the request.

EMI then returned with a new proposal in late January, around the time of a music conference in Cannes, France. EMI asked the online retailers to tell it what size advance payments they would offer in exchange for the right to sell its music as MP3s. Those proposals were to be submitted yesterday, said one person familiar with the matter. This person understood that EMI would decide whether to forge ahead with the MP3 strategy based on the offers' aggregate worth.

We're pretty sure no one at EMI is reading this, but if so, for God's sake, do it! There's no time left for "risk-insurance" dilly-dallying or advance-payment fussing about; the music industry as we know it is has about three or four more years left before it becomes a small-scale equivalent of the drug trade, and this is your chance to be its Newton Blade: You can control the product, set up the street rules, and still feel justified if you need to bust some heads now and then. Plus, you can buy a $25,000 salt-water tank, and fill it with baby hammerheads.

EMI Mulls Lifting Online-Music Restrictions [WSJ]