Jimmy Iovine Quotes

Look: I download music illegally, if I really want it. But I always then buy the record - I support art.

I see everybody arguing about what the value of music should be instead of what I think the bigger conversation is, which is that music has value, it's subjective and we're moving to a new era where the audience is taking more responsibility for supporting artists at whatever level.

People now have been conditioned to believe they should only buy one song at a time, that nobody can make an entire record that would merit you paying, you know, $7, $8, $10 when CDs in the '90s were $18, $19 and people bought millions and millions and millions of them.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't think music should be free.

Napster is great so long as they put out tracks on there that have been officially released. I don't really mind people downloading my music; I also see it as a compliment. And if you are a real music lover, you want to have the original CD anyway 'cause then you feel more connected to the artist.

The CD, it should be noted, was born out of greed. It was devised to prop up record sales on the expectation of people replenishing their record collections with CDs of albums they had already purchased.

If I put a value on my music, and no one's prepared to pay that, then more fool me, but the idea that the value is created by the consumer is an idiot plan; it can't work.

No one really buys records anymore. You can look at sales and do that math real quick. Unfortunately, it's fast food in the music industry. People don't ingest full records anymore.

It's pretty cool that people will pay for something even though they don't have to. It's totally different now to back in the day. Now you're paying for a record because you believe in the band. In the future that will be the only time people will pay for albums, because there's some kind of connection.

Today's consumer is less interested in possessing things and more in experiencing them. That's something the music industry needs to get its head around. Do we even need record companies any more?

For the most part, rock fans don't go and buy CDs any more, very rarely. It's pretty much about downloads and streaming.

Mick Jagger's fans bought records with their allowances. Sinatra's people bought them out of wages.

I pay for all my music.

If a kid goes and buys a CD at Best Buy, we have no idea who the person is, how many times they listen to it, or anything like that.

The way consumers interact with music is different now. It's not an albums business anymore; it's a singles business again, and the industry has gone through that before.

There's all this talk of music needing a monetary value, this ownership of music, even that it needs a physical form. But intrinsically... it's music. It should be better than that.

A lot of people don't know about music, but buy records. A lot of people that know about music can't afford to buy records.

I grew up in an era where the record companies just sold records to everybody, and the whole family bought songs.

Spotify wants to make consuming music simpler and at the same time pay the rights owners.

If you are a musician who has released albums, it would perhaps be morbidly interesting to know how much you would be owed if everyone who now has your music had actually bought your record.

I believe that once I put music out, it's owned by the listener.

The great thing about albums is it gives you a lot of choices, and we can all say that the album business is dead, but watch Taylor Swift. I don't think it's dead. I just think we've got to hit on the energies that make people want to collect albums.

People need service - great service where music is concerned.

There are those who say the music industry must adapt to a wired world. They point to the decades-long rise in CD prices, even as manufacturing costs came down, and to data that shows Napster may actually increase sales of CDs by music-hungry customers as evidence that the music industry is simply afraid of a new technology.

I think, as an industry, we should be supportive of a broad subscription model and not do anything to jeopardize the potential health of the music business - because we're not out of the woods yet.