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Paul McGuinness, longtime manager of rock band U2, has called on Internet service providers to immediately introduce disconnection policies to end illegal music downloads and urged governments to make sure they do…
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…
To great applause from the audience of music managers, McGuinness insisted that disconnection enforcement would work. “I call on ISPs to do two things. 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.”
Does McGuinness have a clue about how the Internet works? Where does he see this boatload of folks paying extra to their ISP because they’re downloading music?
Hmmm… U2. Didn’t they used to be a band?
The wave is just before cresting, millions of musicians, graphic artists and videographers, all busy at work in their garages, homes, bedrooms, appartments, tents and maybe even cardboxes spread over the sidewalk heating vents, creating art in prodigous amounts, all streaming to the homes with billions of kids, old folks and everyone in between, and the big studios standing alone in the cold, cold rain, wondering where all the people went. If ya got broadband, then ya got Youtube, Brightcove, Veoh, Revver, and all the other outlets for art, and it won’t be long before someone comes up with a revenue plan that enables talented, hard working artists the opportunity to make a decent living from their art, which is all most of them want. Fame is for the corporate sluts and sex symbols, most everybody else can get by with making the rent, and the newest and coolest studio gear.
It seems all the corporate content providers have this weird idea that there’s some huge online underground music/movie/video/game/whatever-stealing organization with millions of former drug dealers raking in trillions from sharing files. It’s like some surreal scene from one of those 1930s propaganda films:
—–(scene from McGuinness’s vision)—–
“Psst! Dude! I’m desperate for some ‘kicks’ — I’ll pay you a thousand dollars if you let me download a seventeen-dollar CD!”
“Dude! You’re on!” (Laughs all the way to the bank, all the while kicking little kids and puppies.) “Now I’m twice as rich as Bill Gates!”
———-
These are nothing less than paranoid delusions. If you add up all the “losses” these people claim, it amounts to several times all the money there is in the world, and each and every one of these lunatics is insanely jealous because it’s not all theirs. And Orrin Hatch is one of the worst!
IMHO, of course….
#35, I thought it was a plane they were named after… but I could be wrong.
They have some good tracks, in my opinion, their early stuff being the best.
McGuinness on the other hand should just stfu.
Free Downloads represent FREE PUBLICITY FOR THE BANDS !!! No different from Radio Broadcasts… And look, U2 took in 355 MILLION DOLLARS !!! Not too shabby !!!
Yes, if it weren’t for all that piracy, Bono and the lads could’ve made some REAL money. It’s a wonder they have time to play all those dates, what with having to queue up for their benefits cheques and relying on public transport and all…