Lyor Cohen Q&A

Billboard recently sat down with Warner Music Group Chairman/CEO Lyor Cohen for a Q&A Session.

Cohen On Apple’s upcoming variable pricing: “I think it’s important to make sure that the consumer has a choice and that we have the flexibility to give them an offer that makes sense. It’s very hard to explain to Jimmy Page why “Stairway to Heaven” is 99 cents and Chumbawamba is the same price.”

On Warner pulling all its content from YouTube: “At the beginning we believed wholeheartedly that we needed to be the enabler. We believe that there’s not going to be one magic solution to this but it’s important to encourage people to experiment. So we went and started being very easy to license with. [But] we just haven’t received enough compensation. They haven’t figured out how to monetize it well enough to make our share significant enough.”

On the RIAA suing people: “I always thought [suing people] was a little cockamamie. I think there are much easier and more caring ways of bringing consumers along.”

On 360 Deals: “360 deals take time to harvest. For us they typically involve new artist signings. We’re not interested as much in doing 360 deals where an act is fully established—it’s very costly to get into that business. So you’ll find out how we do over time. I think we’re going to be very successful with our strategy because we’re signing artists that we truly believe in.”

Check out the full interview at Billboard.biz