NEW YORK -- In his opening keynote address here at the two-day Jupiter Plug.In conference, BMG president and CEO Strauss Zelnick said the future of music will look very much like the present, despite all the buzz over digital music and distribution.
"'Disintermediation' means that record companies will be squeezed out by new virtual labels," said Zelnick. "But the key activity of a record company is finding talent, making great music, promoting those artists, and selling their work around the world."
The Internet doesn't change that, he told attendees.
"This [marketing, promotion, and overhead] all adds up to billions of dollars a year for a company like BMG. The Net can enhance many of these activities, but it can replace precious few of them."
Read Wired News' ongoing MP3 coverage
