All Things Digital

QOTD

We compensate artists and publishers extremely well. There are millions and millions of dollars that are being made and paid. There’s a misunderstanding of the value we bring to the catalog. What happens to your catalog in digital downloads? What happens to your merchandise? What happens to your ticket sales? When you look at the impact it can have on an Aerosmith, Van Halen or Metallica, it’s really significant, so much so that you sort of question whether or not, in the case of those kinds of products, you should be paying any money at all and whether it should be the reverse.”

– Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick says the recording industry shouldn’t look a Guitar Hero gift horse in the mouth

This year’s D conference had its share of great lines–tired ones, too (we’re all clear on the subject of Facebook and information sharing, right?). Here’s a selection of the former…

Guys like us avoid monopolies. We like to compete.”

–Microsoft (MSFT) Chairman Bill Gates

AOL is the Rodney Dangerfield of the Web. We don’t get no respect.”

–Jeff Bewkes, president and CEO, Time Warner (TWX)

I will probably never be a CEO again.”

–Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Jerry Yang states the obvious

It’s a company that creates technology.”

–Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg answers the question, “What is a technology company?”

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Seems the Yahoo board’s “unanimous” rejection of Microsoft’s $40 billion-plus bid for the company may not have been so unanimous after all. According to the New York Post, the board is actually split over the issue.

On one side is Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, Eric Hippeau, a managing partner at Softbank Capital Partners and a longtime Yahoo (YHOO) director, and Robert Kotick, chairman and CEO of Activision, who all oppose the bid. On the other is a group led by Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock and billionaire investor Ron Burkle, who fear Yang has allowed his emotions to get the better of him and forgotten about his fiduciary duty to Yahoo shareholders. And in the absence of a compelling alternative strategy, that could expose the company to litigation.

“The emotional part of Yang would rather do anything but sell to Microsoft,” (MSFT) a source close to the company told the Post. “But he doesn’t have the cards to come up with a value-creating, competitive alternative for shareholders.”

Trip Hawkins, Founder & CEO of Digital Chocolate, and Robert Kotick, CEO of Activision, take the stage to discuss “core gaming” with Webb Alert host Morgan Webb.

A bit slow getting started here, but Hawkins soon gets things moving by claiming traditional content is dead. We’re headed toward a world of immersive, social content, says Hawkins, a world in which content isn’t something that we pay to watch or listen to, but something we pay to participate in–a social experience.

Rumor has it Kotick is a huge fan of Activisions Guitar Hero game, but you wouldn’t know it from his demeanor. No axeman, he’s perfectly suited to discussing “casual gaming.” Webb asks if Kotick feels threatened by such gaming, which isn’t really Activision’s forte (at least not yet). The video business as you would traditionally define it is a $30 billion business, says Kotick, and we’re the No. 1 player in that market. To the extent that anything extends that market, we’re happy, he adds.