Let’s take a look at the days before the digital age…

The music industry internationally was governed and controlled by the mega Record labels. Only those lucky enough to be selected by an A&R person
from those labels got the chance to be anything bigger than a local celebrity.
The commercial efforts of the Labels controlled what we heard what made it onto the charts…

I wonder how many people know that U2 started writing songs because they weren’t good enough to play cover songs… An admission from the boys themselves.
So they got a good manager… and got signed… Basically got very lucky… How much music was created and written but never ever got any exposure because they didn’t have any way of getting their music out there.
Musically speaking U2 had an original sound wrapped in very intense production… aimed at a purely commercial enterprise..
Talent? Bono has a voice… which from my listening is very normal and average without the wonderful production.
The songs… yeh clicky cliqued repetitous pop tunes. Like most of the music supported by the big labels.

So let’s blame all those nasty people for downloading (stealing) all those recordings from the mega labels.
The mega labels who had everything to themselves… all the control… all the money…

What has the digital age of music done?

From my reading and research, Computers and the WWW have given music freedom, and provided the opportunity for billions of people around the world
to listen to and enjoy the music they choose.

McGuinness talks of the music “industry” and whines about the digital age like someone has stolen his apple pie, yet happily gloats over the wonderful financial success of the tours…

He wants it all… He wants the old days back where Record labels created multi-millionares and mega stars…
Mega stars of what? A Mega Label’s Monopoly?

Doesn’t he see that the increase in Listeners for his live concerts is the direct effect of millions more people listen to music because of the WWW.

What he fails to acknowledge is that there are millions more artists taking a slice of his monopolic pie.

Millions more Artists have been given the chance to get their music to the ears of the world… No, they aren’t mega stars and we will slowly but surely see the mega stars of the mega era disappear over time.
Millions of wonderfully talented Musicians and Songwriters and Producers who now have a chance to bring music to the world and give people a freedom of choice, and not be reliant on Mega Labels to feed us what they decide is going to make them rich and prop it up with advertising and promotions…
And if they are seriously good and worthy of the mighty dollars they achieve then good on them..

We don’t need Mega Stars or Mega Labels, we just need good music and the freedom to get it out there, and hopefully distribute the wealth a bit so more artists can make a living out of it, instead of watching half baked talent and media moguls receive all the money.

To all of you at Silicon Valley and the creators of the http://WWW... YOU ROCK!!!

To Paul McGuiness and the boys in U2… Keep Touring! Be happy that people want to listen to your songs no matter how they obtain them.

The record industry needs to determine how to adjust to new technologies, instead of trying to get new technologies to adjust to the record companies outmoded business paradigm. For example, the English band “The Arctic Monkeys” inadvertently used peer-to-peer, YouTube, and other Web 2.0′ish technologies to create, support, and feed their fan base before they released their first album: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Monkeys#Formation_and_early_years

For small bands the Internet and file sharing can be a powerful medium that they can use to reach out to ever-greater numbers of fans. And because many of the up-and-coming bands have experienced these technologies they may have a better understanding of how they work, unlikes many of the senior Record Companies executives who still don’t know or understand what the Internet is (it’s what you make of it). And because of the Internet, we may have end up with a more diverse richer music environment than if we let our tastes be determine by the Recording Industry.

Also, just about every single DRM initiative so far has failed, look at Yahoo, anyone who bought DRM music from them is now unable to listen to their legally purchased music:
http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2008/07/drm-still-sucks-yahoo-music-going-dark-taking-keys-with-it.ars

I suspect that big established bands such as U2 and Metallica are so entrenched in the 20th century record company business model that all they see is the loss of potential sales of their work. Potential sales not actual sales, an “illegally” downloaded song does not represent a lost sale. Also, the way many younger people treat music is different and changing from the way that their seniors treat music; music is no longer something you buy and owe, it’s something that’s free and which you share with your friends. For many musicians I believe that they’d be happy to know that their music reaches a larger audience, however this doesn’t put bread on the table which means musicians need to be more innovative in how they earn money to support their music. (Which means there’s a niche there for people with the technology savvy & marketing skills to help bands with this).

To be honest I feel the (majority of the) record companies cares about one thing; profits, and damn be the fans and the musicians. To bad there aren’t more companies around like the former Factory Records.

A major public scam that seems like a “legit/nice idea for a nice cause” yeah right!

Richard Pryde Hughes
Production Music Library – Urban Dropz
http://www.ProductionMusicLibrary.com

I find it interesting that Mr. McGuinness speaks out on copying/downloading content today. Was his views the same when his client started recording? I would think Mr. McGuinness would have been only too happy to have his client’s intellectual property copied to other mediums (cassettes, CDs) as this may have translated to having more revenue generated for his client in the way of concert tickets sales, merchandising, and ultimately record sales.

As for the comments made about artists doing what they do for the love of their art or starving for their art, I have two words: spare me. No artist wants their intellectual property to be copied or downloaded without some form of fair compensation.

I do agree, however, there needs to a way for the parties involved (record companies, artists, and ISP entities) to provide a business model where revenue can be generated to protect intellectual property. I don’t believe the ability to prevent copying or downloading intellectual property will work long term. One can build a sophisticated mousetrap only to have someone else disable the mousetrap. This has proven to be the case over time.

The music industry has to come to terms that torrents sites and P2P is here to stay. Instead of fighting them, work with them to share revenue. ISP’s can help in charging additional fees for downloading from torrent sites or P2P. All the components to track where downloads containing copyrighted intellectual property is in place today.

In closing, the business model used in the recording industry needs to reflect all the potential revenue streams where the record company and artist can profit while preserving intellectual property. The ditigal age has exposed the need to change for all concerned.