Am engulfed in the madness of CES as we speak -- in between events -- going to my next soon. Earlier today, I moderated a “State of the Music Business” panel (with an outstanding heavyweight lineup) and spoke on another titled “The New Hollywood Equation” (which was surprisingly well-attended given that it was the first panel of the day and given all of the weather-driven flight cancellations).
On that first panel, I was joined by Craig Palmer, who is now CEO of a company called Wikia. But, I knew Craig from many many years earlier -- when he was CEO of Gracenote and I was President of online music pioneer Musicmatch. Today, I sat right next to Craig on the panel. Last time I saw Craig was 10 years ago, and that wasn’t exactly the case. 10 years ago, we sat on opposite sides of the table -- in a sea of lawyers -- embroiled in a massive and highly contentious patent dispute that cost each company millions of dollars. It was a nasty battle -- and, from my perspective, a completely needless one. Ultimately, the courts agreed with our position, but Craig and I both agreed today that it was just a waste.
In any event, all’s well that ends well. Musicmatch later sold to Yahoo! for $160 million -- and Gracenote was swallowed up by Sony for $260 million (which just recently sold it to Tribune for $170 million).
And, today, we put the past behind us -- had a chuckle -- and remarked about the power of the passage of time ....
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