The prediction, in brief:

The Internet, and online interactivity in general, is going to have a profound impact on the music business … If we don’t adjust and adapt, we might get steamrolled. I’d like to see the industry start to attack the opportunity in an aggressive, coordinated fashion, so we have standards we can all live with.

Predictor: Teller, Al

Prediction, in context:

In a 1995 article for Wired magazine, managing editor John Battelle interviews Al Teller, former president of Columbia Records and at CBS Records before becoming chair of MCA Music Entertainment Group. Teller was a member of the National Information Infrastructure Advisory Council. Battelle quotes Teller saying:”The Internet, and online interactivity in general, is going to have a profound impact on the music business. So few people in the music industry want to deal with that concept. You have huge resistance to the Net throughout the record industry. Some very major players dismiss it as a silly notion … My belief is simple: the Net’s going to come in a very big way. If we don’t adjust and adapt, we might get steamrolled. I’d like to see the industry start to attack the opportunity in an aggressive, coordinated fashion, so we have standards we can all live with. The National Information Infrastructure Advisory Council is in the process of drafting our principles regarding copyright, but it’s a slow, tedious process. There are extraordinarily complicated questions and issues involved. We encounter opinions that range from complete copyright anarchy on one hand to intense copyright-protection belief on the other. And that entire range of opinion is represented on the council.”

Date of prediction: January 1, 1995

Topic of prediction: Getting, Sharing Information

Subtopic: Music

Name of publication: Wired

Title, headline, chapter name: Disc Junkie: MCA Music’s Al Teller Reveals Why Hollywood is Deaf to the Sounds of the Net

Quote Type: Direct quote

Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.07/teller_pr.html

This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney