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U2's manager Paul McGuinness addressed the music industry with a rather pathetic speech at MIDEM's first International Manager Summit this week. McGuinness believes ISPs (Internet service providers) are largerly responsible for the decline in music sales and should start filtering p2p traffic and take responsibility for the content their customers are downloading and files they share.
Oh boy. Here we go again!
Today, there's a bigger issue and it's about the whole relationship between the music and the technology business. Network operators, in particular, have for too long had a free ride on music — on our clients' content. It's time for a new approach — time for ISPs to start taking responsibility for the content they've profited from for years.
It's amazing to see and read about those ultra-rich music moguls who think they are too poor, hurt and don't get their fair share. Give me a break! As I said many times before, the problem itself isn't that people do not want to pay for music anymore — the reason why record sales are falling year after year is that there simply isn't demand for crappy music. It is THAT simple.
For ISPs in general, the days of prevaricating over their responsibilities for helping protect music must end. The ISP lobbyists who say they should not have to "police the internet" are living in the past — relying on outdated excuses from an earlier technological age. The internet has moved on since then, and the pace of change today means a year in the internet age is equivalent to a decade in the non-internet world.
McGuinness doesn't get it. He says that "the internet has moved on since then..." — it sure did. So why not the music industry?
It is time for ISPs to be real partners. The safe harbours of the 1990s are no longer appropriate, and if ISPs do not cooperate voluntarily there will need to be legislation to require them to cooperate.
So now when your job is on the line you're forcing others to fix your shit? Come on, man! You can't be serious...
Online Bonanza: Who is making all the money and why aren't they sharing it? [U2.com]
I’ve got a sub gig in Park City Friday night with sort of a new band. The guitar player is a guy I’ve played with before, but the (lesbian) female singer I haven’t gigged with as of yet. Should be interesting or at least I hope it will be.
Then I have a gig with my regular band Saturday at a bar I like to call “Tattoos-R-Us”… There’s more paint on the patrons flesh than on the walls of the club.
… so I’ll make this a two-minute post. Yes, it seems the Monome 64, the cute, new, and improved 8×8 Monome, sold out its short initial run in one hundred twenty seconds and fried the order system. I’m guessing the low price, growing Web buzz, and attractive compact design with wooden edges all contributed. The Monome will be getting another 100 units soon, though, so I think if you’re looking for Monome love, you won’t be disappointed in the long run.
That raises an important question, though: with hunger for alternative music-making devices, why was so much new tech at the NAMM show (and elsewhere) so conservative — and, speaking of designs that do look different, can we dare to hope for a worldwide launch of Yamaha’s Tenori-On? (I promised I wouldn’t compare Tenori-On to Monome again, but let’s put it this way: creative designs sells, and both designs count as creative design.) Things you’ll notice the Monome doesn’t have: giant decals of its logo, or a logo, period, weird acronyms for included technology (OSC! VAST! V.LINK! AWSUM! MUSIQCK! MLFY039! is not tattooed anywhere), there’s no unreadable LED screen, no input for a mouse … I’ll stop. Apologies to the major music manufacturers, but you’ll notice even among the products from the Big 3 (Yamaha, Roland, Korg), it’s often the small and simple devices that people love over the long haul — things that are beloved rather than disposable. Sure, 100 units to those guys is nothing, but I think the point still holds.
So, let’s ask you: what’s the favorite music-making gadget you own that you can pick up in one hand? Tuners and metronomes count.
© Peter Kirn for Create Digital Music, 2008. | Permalink | 21 comments
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