U2’s bigmouth McGuinness on the “raging debate on the future of music in the age of ‘free’.” Again.
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- P2P| Freedom | Music :- Note: I originally ran this story earlier in the day but because of submission problems it appeared only very briefly.
Read on … [Last August] U2 general factotum Paul (right) McGuinness came up with a scheme he said would restore the moribund corporate music industry.
In a 2008 speech at in Cannes, McGuinness “called on governments to compel ISPs to introduce mandatory ‘three strike’ service disconnections to end unauthorized downloading, and specifically accused companies such as Apple, Google, Yahoo!, Oracle, and Facebook of building multi billion dollar industries on the back of our content without paying for it, and of being makers of burglary kits who have made a thieves’ charter to steal money from the music industry”, says a Wikipedia article. He “called on governments to compel ISPs to introduce mandatory ‘three strike’ service disconnections to end unauthorized downloading, and specifically accused companies such as Apple, Google, Yahoo!, Oracle, and Facebook of building multi billion dollar industries on the back of our content without paying for it, and of being makers of burglary kits who have made a thieves’ charter to steal money from the music industry”, said a Wikipedia article.
Now, in a puff atorial published ‘The end of ‘free’ is sweet music for artists’ in the golbe and nail, which never loses an opportunity to slag Canada as a nation of filesharing pirates, he writes “Three years ago, somewhere between U2’s No Line on the Horizon album and the 360 Degree world tour, I plunged into the raging debate over the future of music in the age of ‘free.’ Calling his self-serving bilge a campaign, he continues, “In many countries, Internet service providers have consistently and stubbornly resisted co-operation.
He continues, “Now comes good news, however, from the world’s largest entertainment market – the United States. The biggest U.S. ISPs have just agreed with the music and film industries to introduce a new system of “copyright alerts.” These are warnings that, with escalating urgency, aim to nudge broadband users away from piracy toward downloading and streaming music from legitimate services. There will be the prospect of deterrent sanctions for those who repeatedly ignore the warnings, which is a crucial distinction from the voluntary agreement that exists in Canada.
“This has been agonizingly slow in coming, but it is an important step forward in the international debate over music in the digital age. The idea of ISPs taking on obligations to stop copyright theft on their networks is moving into the mainstream.
The United States is not the first country where ISPs have started to co-operate with rights holders. Similarly sensible thinking broke out in France in 2007, thanks to President Nicolas Sarkozy. France, along with a growing number of other countries such as South Korea and New Zealand, has introduced a so-called graduated response law, obliging ISPs to take pro-active steps to help curb copyright abuse. Britain has passed its Digital Economy Act, which, if implemented effectively, will go down a similar route.
Different countries will approach this their own way, and there can be no one model for exactly how ISPs get involved. The U.S. agreement is a voluntary private-sector deal – elsewhere, the route almost certainly needs to be different. In virtually all other countries, private negotiations have proved worse than fruitless, leaving legislation as the only route possible.
Why is the needle on the move? First, no doubt because “free” is no longer just a problem for the music industry. Film studios, book publishers and newspapers are all now in the same storm, caught in a race against the clock to sort out successful business models before being sunk by illegal file-sharing or other forms of “free.”
Another reason is that it is now impossible to argue, as many used to, that there is a purely market-based solution to piracy. The music industry has led the field with new models for consumers – there are more than 470 digital music services worldwide, many of them “free to consumer” sites such as Spotify and We7. None of these services has much hope of long-term success while competing in a world where, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, 95 per cent of all music downloads are illegal.
For some years, “fighting free with free” seemed the answer to all our problems. That honeymoon is over. Spotify, which is in many European countries the champion of free-to-consumer music streaming, is now cutting back on its free offering. It is trying to migrate its fans into payers, offering a $15 monthly subscription. That is a huge challenge.
Like newspapers, which have hastened to erect website pay walls they prematurely abandoned years ago, the music industry has discovered the inconvenient truth that “free” does not really pay. It cannot sustain the artist royalties, the copyright fees and the investment that makes an artist’s career possible in the first place.
And that is the fundamental problem: Who will fund the future of music? This is not an issue that directly affects a band like U2, of course. Yet I still don’t see a clear answer to the question I asked in my maiden “ISP speech” three years ago – in a world of 95-per-cent piracy, where is the investment going to come from to fund the next generation?
To me, the answer is clear. A thriving music business needs a fair, responsible environment to work in, and ISPs, the Internet’s gatekeepers, hold the key to this. By the graduated response approach and other measures like systematically blocking infringing websites they can significantly reduce digital piracy. Surveys, the latest by Hadopi in France in May, prove what should be obvious: that when people see rules protecting copyright being enforced, they actually change their behaviour.
No one expects teenagers brought up in the age of LimeWire to convert overnight to legal download sites. Yet the migration to legitimate ways of enjoying music, respecting copyright owners, will happen over time.
The U.S. ISP agreement is good news for music and the creative industries. It is time now for action elsewhere. Michel Barnier, the European Union’s internal market commissioner, is reviewing copyright enforcement rules for the digital age. This is a chance for Europe to use its legislative clout to get ISPs to co-operate.
Other governments have long been debating their own approaches. Now is the time to stop the thumb-twiddling and the soul-searching. ISPs need to be active partners, not bystanders, in shaping a legitimate Internet where artists and creators can be sustained by their work. In the United States, they have made a welcome voluntary step in that direction. Elsewhere, it will need the pressure of government and
It’s ironic he should use the word free in the title of his piece since 2, The Irish band he Representsrepresents represents are accused of being Income tax Dodgers Plunge? Actually, he’s been blathering on since the year dot.
This time, his diatribe was sparked by This time by news of a memorandum of understanding on the parts of the RIAA and MPAA, the two’ trade’ outfits by the corporate movie and music cartels.
Jon Newton – p2pnet
July 20th, 2011 at 4:18 pm
I apologise for the frequent corrections and changes in this post. I’m still having eyesight trouble caused by ‘deficits’ following my recent open-heart surgery
Cheers and all the best … Jon
July 20th, 2011 at 7:18 pm
No worries, Jon. We all understand that you’re having a hard time due to the strokes and the surgeries. Now as to McGuinness, someone oughtta beat him over the head with a lead pipe. He’s nothing more than a loud mouth ass hat just like brain dead Bono and the rest of that despicable band U2. Didn’t they just have the most successful tour they ever had and he’s still whining about money?! People like him,Gene Simmons, and the asshats in the RIAA/MPAA oughtta be ashamed of themselves. But it’s only gonna get worse for them as more and more people realize that they are nothing more than greedy pricks. Bono seems to think that he’s too good to pay taxes, so I’d love to be the Irish taxman. I’d nail his sorry ass for everything that he owes in back taxes and if he refused to pay up, then I’d seize his island, his castle, his bank accounts and throw him in jail where both he and McGuinness could rot. McGuinness seems to think that the world owes him and his ilk a living and since U2 hasn’t put out a decent album in twenty years, it’s their own fault that still have to tour so they can make money for their drugged out groupies and their bone head manager.
July 21st, 2011 at 2:59 pm
It seems everything after “He continues..” should be on block quotes? Parts I am reading seem pro-IP industry and anti-p2p, as if it is quotes from McGuinness but with no quote marks. Jon, I can help you edit.
July 21st, 2011 at 3:54 pm
The problem is the entire copyright system. The initial meaning has long be grossly exaggerated, if not lost entirely. And the concept of temporary monopoly to allow for further creation of works is also lost.
Seriously, who gets paid continuously for their work even if they don’t create anything new? You want more revenue, then create something new! Write, sell it to publishers and performers who can’t write, or do all of it yourself.
Some artists who are in agreement with McGuinness like to say that the youth want it for free and won’t change because that’s how they grew up. It’s funny, because these same artists are stuck in the concept of lifelong royalties for a piece of work they created, when no other industry has that luxury. You want to use Windows, you pay for it, ONCE, and use it as often as you like. Licensing was created to make it easier for companies to manage many workstations and obtain updates, totally different from the licensing that artists or labels want for music.
If Microsoft stopped creating new products they would lose revenue to other companies making other products that people will buy.
There are just so many factors involved that people like McGuinness just can’t handle it so they over simplify and exaggerate and complain.
Video games took off in the 90′s too! Online games became the rage. There’s money that was transferred folks, money people used to spend on music because video games were not as popular when they first came out.
It’s not like the economy has enough money to support new forms of entertainment and keep existing forms with existing revenues. Sorry, doesn’t work that way. People switched from music to video games, among other things, so music takes a hit financially.
That’s just one factor. Sure, there are people who used to buy but won’t any more because it’s free, you can’t escape that as those people always existed. That’s another factor. There are likely other hidden factors from the industry itself, not just the quality of music which itself is a factor, but the hidden cost savings required for stock prices to continue to rise. Yes, I am saying that likely cuts to jobs occurred as a result of investment banks just as much, if not more, than the loss of revenue due to filesharing.
And let’s not forget the obvious contradictions from the ISP’s. In 2007 a Telus employee was explaining how Telus was preparing to provide video on demand, or TV at home, through the phone lines. Hmm… if you are preparing to do that, how could you support it if your networks were overloaded by filesharers and required DPI to throttle applications? TV through the phone line would require a huge bandwidth increase. So either a) you’re trying to stifle file transfers to offer what YOU choose to provide, instead of what people want (which they are accessing via sharing) or b) you’re planning to expand the networks to support the additional bandwidth. At which point I have to say, where’s the problem with sharing then, if you’re already planning to increase bandwidth availability?
Again, as Jon has said and other realize, but people like McGuinness won’t admit, this is all about content control, not profit. If you control the content you control the revenue streams and hence, profit.
How many more versions of Nickelback or Pearl Jam do we need? Cut the crap! Suck it up and adapt. No matter what laws you pass, you’ll only drive technological innovation to break them or work around them. You’ll always be playing catchup so just adapt and be progressive, for the first time in your industrial lives, be progressive and give us what we damn well want, you’ll still be rich I promise you!
Peace out!
July 22nd, 2011 at 2:03 pm
Copyright is an outdated concept. Those still flogging this dead horse are just becoming more and more hysterical, hyperbolic and ridiculous as we move closer and closer to the end of the whole system.
The death spasm’s of copyright will, when looking back on them, be nothing short of hilarious. Sadly it will take a while before these spasms are done with as living with them is infuriating for most of us.
July 22nd, 2011 at 5:55 pm
What happens when the 5000$ 3D printer (the one that prints in thermo-plastic) comes down in price to something affordable for the masses and they start printing Mopar parts for their Car? Or they start printing a Sears master-craft wrench? What happens when the downloadable plans for anything and everything for you to print is available on the pirates bay or ISO hunt? That proprietary plastic part that broke on your washer? No more worries about that. It will cost pennies on your 3D printer. Maybe print a new Ipod case! Fuck apple.
Copyright, in the way we know it today, is dead in the near future.
This above post was influenced by this SLAW article: http://www.slaw.ca/2011/07/22/the-friday-fillip-tea-earl-grey-hot/
July 24th, 2011 at 5:01 am
McGuinness is doing nothing but regurgitating the official RIAA/IFPI/BPI talking points. As usual, they’re still fighting the LAST war. Forcing ISPs to become copyright cops (at their own/customer’s expense) might seem like a brilliant strategy, especially since most customers have very little choice in broadband service providers if they ever get penalized. But the reality is that P2P is already rapidly dying out, being replaced by direct download sites. Search engines like FilesTube.com can find most any song and any album among the thousands uploaded to DDL sites –and enable downloading in complete privacy– so there’s really no need for people these days to have to install and use increasingly-risky P2P software anymore.
The out-of-touch recording industry executives can once again pat themselves on the back, give themselves a raise, and claim victory. Whether by extortion, political bribery, or abuse of the legal system, they’ve won every battle so far. Meanwhile, they continue to lose the war.
July 26th, 2011 at 3:50 am
McGuinness is a parasites and frankly U2 music suck and their lyrics are stupid.
July 26th, 2011 at 3:54 am
“I apologise for the frequent corrections and changes in this post. I’m still having eyesight trouble caused by ‘deficits’ following my recent open-heart surgery
Cheers and all the best … Jon”
As far as I am concerned P2pnet.net is back in full force and few mistakes is not a big deal. Most web sites have more mistakes than this one.
Great job Jon and welcome back! I mean this!
July 26th, 2011 at 8:38 am
There is a migration going on alright, and it’s not from file sharing to paid subscriptions. It’s a migration from file sharing to encrypted, privacy protected, anti-DPI file sharing.
July 26th, 2011 at 11:59 pm
When U2 pay their taxes (instead of pretending they are non-domiciled visitors to Eire), like their fans have to do then they may just glean some folks respect, however many of us have never forgotten why “Bozo” the self proclaimed group mouthpeice and lead singer requires so much cash.
http://www.p2pnet.net/story/37536
No need to stay tuned as Jon rightly points out when discussing these parasites.
August 5th, 2011 at 3:35 am
U2 are just corporatist parasite hypocrites, the tax avoidance just confirms this.
I have no respect for any business which relies on government imposed IP privileges to prop up a flawed business model.
August 5th, 2011 at 4:08 am
Sir (ignorant fucking bald arsehole McGuinness):
We in Canada pay a fucking levy in fucking advance for the music that we fucking copy, thanks to fucking extortion by your fucking imdustry. If you and your fucking band of fucking has-beens do not fucking like the fucking rates, fucking well take it up with fucking CRIA.
In summary fucking McGuinness: Fuck Fucking Off.