Union Square Ventures partner Fred Wilson is an investor in SoundCloud and Turntable.fm, and also a longstanding provider of constructive criticism to the entertainment industries. Here’s his latest salvo: “I think those industries will survive and thrive, they just need to move from a fairly monopolistic distribution system to a wide open distribution system.”
Wilson was speaking at the PaidContent 2012 conference in New York, where he called for a registry system for rightsholders to make their content available with rules, in exchange for copyright enforcement legislation. “If we have rules for TV, films, music, books, games we’d see an explosion of innovation. All sorts of services and business models could get created…”
The comments reflect a wider view among the VC community that entertainment rightsholders still aren’t as flexible as they should be when it comes to digital business models. That said, if he’s to convince more rightsholders of his views, the argument Wilson and others have to win is that labels and publishers will benefit from this shift – not just the startups he invests in.
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