Dropping Off The Beat (Forbes.com reports from the Digital Music Forum)

Louis Hau at Forbes has a good review of what transpired at the Digital Music Forum in NYC on Feb 26 / 27: Dropping Off The Beat - Forbes.com.

"While piracy is a serious challenge for the industry, the major labels have been so focused on combating it that they are stifling the emergence of new business models, argued Gerd Leonhard, a media consultant and chief executive of music Web site Sonific. "If you want to innovate in the music business today ... either you are illegal, in a gray zone or you don’t do it because you don’t get to do what you have to do to please the user," Leonhard said Thursday. "Everything that’s cool is forbidden," he added, arguing, for instance, that the major labels oppose services that allow users to share music without permission, even though doing so could potentially expand the audience for the music. "It’s not that we're against sharing, we just want to get paid," countered Syd Schwartz, senior vice president for digital strategy at EMI’s Capitol Music Group."

Some other good coverage: MarketingPopCulture  Washington Post Blog

My final comment, below ;)