Gotta Wear Shades?

So, the future may not be as dark as it sounds. Speaking at MIDEM, Vivendi's Jean-Bernard Levy says industry troubles are exaggerated. As reported by Reuters this morning:

Vivendi Chief Executive Jean-Bernard Levy has no plans to spin off the music unit Universal and he said on Saturday he believed the gloom surrounding the industry had been over done.

Levy said the music industry was going through a huge transition at the moment, with new business models for mobile and Internet services appearing all the time.

But he predicted there would still be a viable market for physical products like CDs for many years to come and he said the industry's future lay, as always, in spotting the right creative talent.

"I think altogether today there is an exaggeration in the industry," he told the conference.

Responses to Jean-Bernard's comments paint him either as a brave face in the major label world, willing to admit that the doom and gloom message coming from the industry is more propaganda than reality. Or, conversely, as a dinosaur wanting to justify his business' slow response to new music distribution realities.