U2 manager attacks ISPs
p2pnet news | Music:- ISP’s “snouts” have been in the music industry “trough” for “too long.”
Who says?
U2 general factotum Paul McGuinness says.
“In a passionate keynote speech delivered Monday during the International Managers Summit at Midem, McGuinness said it was time for artists to stand up against what he called the “shoddy, careless and downright dishonest way they have been treated in the digital age,” says the Hollywood Reporter, going on:
He spread the blame between record labels that ‘through lack of foresight and planning allowed a range of industries to arise that let people steal music’; Silicon Valley companies that create marvelous devices but ‘don’t think of themselves as makers of burglary kits’; and governments who ‘created a thieves charter’ by agreeing that ISPs should not be responsible for what passes along their pipes.
Thieves by charter, eh?
No doubt McGuinness was hoping the European Court of Justice would rule ISPs have to hand over details about these wicked people on demand to the corporate pirates, the labels and movie studios.
But that didn’t happen.
The court has just announced its decision that EU law doesn’t compel ISPs to disclose the identities or other data of people targeted by the cartels,” p2pnet posted.
‘ First, protect the music, second, share the enormous revenues’
“There’s a lot of money in the music business but it has stopped coming to the artists,” McGuinness went on, also saying U2 long ago determined it would be, “pathetic to be great artists but not be great at business”.
Really? Like you can’t have one without the other?
But McGuinness isn’t all mouth and trousers.
“Decrying ISPs that hold up their hands in innocence when music is downloaded via their systems, he offered a comparison,” states the Hollywood Reporter.
It quotes him as saying;
If you were a magazine advertising stolen cars, handling the money for stolen cars and seeing to the delivery of stolen cars, the police would soon be at your door. That’s no different to an ISP, but they say they can’t do anything about it. If you steal a laptop from a store or don’t pay for your broadband service, you’ll soon be cut off and nicked.
Riiiight.
Wonder if McGuinness is in any way related to MPAA master spinster Dan Glickman and/or RIAA ace sophist Cary Sherman who are handy with this kind of thing?
To, “great applause from the audience of music managers, McGuinness insisted that disconnection enforcement would work,” the story says, and, “I call on ISPs to do two things,” declares U2 McGu.
“First, protect the music, and second, to make a genuine effort to share the enormous revenues. They should share their ingenuity as well as the money. We must shame them. Their snouts have been at our trough for too long.”
Not at all, incidentally, as well as looking after the interests of Bono and friends, he also manages Art of Noise.
No need to stay tuned.
Also See:
Hollywood Reporter - Student lawyers act for students in RIAA case, December 22, 2007
p2pnet - ISPs don’t have to reveal user details, January 29, 2008
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January 29th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
He has quite a snout himself
January 29th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Remember Metallica and Lars Ulrich?
January 29th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
What the hell is a U2???????
Is it a washed up has been band that my parents listen too???
Or is it another RIAA flagship band gone crazy for blood in a sue everyone on earth campain??
January 29th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
“What the hell is a U2???????”
Die Linie U2 beginnt am S+U-Bahnhof Pankow, fährt durch das östliche Zentrum mit dem Alexanderplatz über den Potsdamer Platz zum westlichen Zentrum (Wittenbergplatz, Bahnhof Zoo) und weiter zur Endstation Ruhleben.
Die Linie hat 29 Stationen, ist 20,7 km lang und gehört wie die Linien U1, U3 und U4 zum vor 1914 eröffneten Teilnetz der Berliner U-Bahn. Allerdings wurde der Abschnitt Pankow - Vinetastraße erst im September 2000 eröffnet.
January 29th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
^ LMAO that comment made my day!
January 29th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
^^ “Die Linie U2 beginnt am ……”
“The line U2 begins on S + U Pankow, runs through the centre of the eastern Alexanderplatz on Potsdamer Platz to Western Centre (Wittenberg Platz, Bahnhof Zoo), and continue the terminus Ruhleben.
“The line has 29 stations, is 20.7 km long and, along the lines U1, U3 and U4 to before 1914 subnet opened the Berlin subway. However, the section of Pankow - Vinetastraße only in September 2000.”
Good one, A_F
January 29th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
enormous revenue? arn’t the record labels being “killed by piracy” or are there previous comments not valid in this conversation?
January 29th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
“If you were a magazine advertising stolen cars, handling the money for stolen cars and seeing to the delivery of stolen cars, the police would soon be at your door. That’s no different to an ISP, but they say they can’t do anything about it. If you steal a laptop from a store or don’t pay for your broadband service, you’ll soon be cut off and nicked.”
Technically it would be a copied car. The original would be right where it was no worse for the wear.
January 30th, 2008 at 2:25 am
A u2? Is it not a world war II German submarine?
What ? Someone copied an old Gernan submarine on internet illegally?
And the old bag of shit on the picture, is he the captain? He look nasty!
Let Drop the death charges Bro!
Hopefully this will kill a lot of RIAA/MPAA sharks as possible at the same time!
January 30th, 2008 at 2:29 am
Paul McGuinness is an infamous pirates riding a U2 submarine that he downlaoded illegaly on internet
with hids friends.
All the Navy in the word are after him now!
January 30th, 2008 at 3:49 am
McGuinness said it was time for artists to stand up against what he called the “shoddy, careless and downright dishonest way they have been treated in the digital age,”
YEA! LEAVE THE FRACKIN LABELS WHO FAILED TO ADAPT!!
“They should share their ingenuity as well as the money” LOL WTF >.
January 30th, 2008 at 4:49 am
I wanted to be a rock star, but U2 stormed into the studio and stole all the money put aside for my sandwiches. I can’t perform without snacks!
As for that asshole singer come knob end, Bono:
Some people put their money where their mouth is, others, particularly those suffering a late mid-life crisis brought on by too much coke and shrivelling panty contents, constantly put their nonsense mouths predominantly where the money is.
U2 have always sucked.
At least I have the consolation of knowing that I should live long enough to see Bono’s death on the news, hopefully through a rare form of self strangulation caused by an overdose of verbal diarrhoea reacting with sunglasses light impairment syndrome. “I’m so Coool, cough, unnngh, for the childrennnnnh, save the plannnetshh, my private jett nnnn, feed the wornnnunngh, tonight thank goddnnn it’s themmm instead of.. thud.”
All imho, of course.
Ya godda larf
January 30th, 2008 at 8:41 am
This just confirms that U2 has now joined the ranks of Metallica and others
of their ilk. Though I’m sure many already knew that even before this rant.
January 31st, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Didn’t I read somewhere tht U2 moved it base of operations once they were expected to start paying taxes?
Also if the mp3 player makers are going to ’share’ the proceeds shouldn’t the ‘content creators’ also share the proceeds with mp3 player makers, and computer makers?
Oh right it’s all about whats flowing into their own pockets.
January 31st, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Ah yes, apparantly U2 did move assests out of Irland cause they werre going to have to pay taxes.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/08/08/nbono08.xml
January 31st, 2008 at 5:01 pm
^^ http://www.p2pnet.net/story/7163
Cheers!
February 1st, 2008 at 3:23 pm
What Paul McGuinness really is saying is a voice for all of the artists out there, not a greedy money grubber.
As a professional composer and performer who isnt in the top 1% of success and MTV rock monsters I am THRILLED that someone with clout is making these issues be vocalized. Its not the U2s and the Mettalicas that suffer, its the indie artists, score composers, and working musicians that are being destroyed by the wide open not even attempted at regulating illegal downloading of all kinds of media, including music, song & albums, films, art, scores, etc
Thank you Mr. McGuinness for bothering to talk about the issues that are a nuisance to you but are life threatening to thousands of us!
I also was a dot com boom programmer and I was an original pre-IPO member of InfoSpace and I understand the tech side very much. I will say that what happened is a natural evolution of technology and human nature. Clicking on files and getting that intellectual property of another person was SO EASY and since it was just digital it felt to have to real value. But we all listened to those MP3s and watched those quicktime movies. And we LOVED the fact that we could stuff a 200 gig firewire drive to the brim with all the music we ever wanted to listen to and not pay a dime. If you didnt do it on some level you are probably either a priest or someone without internet
And so Mr McGuinness is saying lets not blame individuals and human nature, but something MUST be done about this and soon before we lose many facets of modern art and culture to the destabilizing and deflation of its economy.
Its no joke and its not like yea yea whatever, its like EMERGENCY *DINGDINGDING* EMERGENCY. Right now the AFM (musicians union) performance fund (which is the fun for retirement and emergency funding for professional musicians) is about to die, because it is based on CD sales. There are *countless* programs similar to this that are dead or dying quickly because of illegal downloads.
Certainly non-”mainstream pop” art forms like non-synthesizer orchestral film music, among many others are going to become extinct and then fade away completely the farther this goes without being checked.
There absolutely needs to be legislation that forces ISPs and tech companies to create technology to stop non-paid-for illegal downloading of music, film and art. This would be relatively very easy to create. All it needs is ubiquitous agreement and cooperation from all sources that host and transmit data.
Without it our world is going to become a shallow grey world without culture and professional art. That is a place I don’t want to live in.