Lyor Cohen's keynote at SXSW in Austin: YouTube, Warner and all the rest

Music insustry exec Lyor Cohen was the protagonist of a keynote at SXSW, yesterday, during which he outlined his vision for YouTube and revealed his reasons for joining the video streaming platform.

The exec also talked about his beginnings in music during the rise of US hip-hop, working at Rush Productions and Def Jam, in addition to his controversial exit from Warner Music Group in 2012 and the subsequent launch of his own label, 300 Entertainment.

As Music Business Worldwide reports, he said, among other things:

I really believe that YouTube and Google is critical to the music business ecosystem and to artists and labels. My great fear at the time [I was approached for the job was that] distribution was going to be too highly consolidated between Apple and Spotify, it was scary this could be two horse race. Thirty odd years ago some crazy person could rent a warehouse, buy a load of records and stick a name on that building. You can’t do that now, you have to have an enormous amount of resources, engineers and a global footprint. I wanted YouTube and Google to be successful in the music business in order to bring diversification to distribution. I realised this was an opportunity for me to help Google and YouTube work in harmony with an industry that I love and build a healthy business together.

ohen’s goal is to add a subscription business onto YouTube’s advertising business, which is on the way via a service codenamed "Remix".

Read the full report here.