UK IP Minister Defends Kicking People Off The Internet, As Rockstars Come Out Against It

from the who-is-this-protecting-again? dept

Despite the UK gov't insisting recently that a policy of kicking file sharers off the internet was off the table, a nice dinner between UK Business Secretary Peter Mandelson and Hollywood bigshot David Geffen created a sudden new interest in the subject, which quickly turned into it being right back on the table -- creating massive complaints from just about everyone not associated with the RIAA or MPAA. Mandelson has tried to defend the idea, but his reasoning came up short, and demonstrated that he got his talking points direct from Hollywood and that he hasn't actually spent much time actually understanding the issue at all.

But, it's not just Mandelson in the gov't pushing this now. The UK's Intellectual Property Minister, David Lammy, got to hang around with the MPAA and gave a speech "defending" kicking people off of the internet. Now doesn't that seem strange? It's the MPAA that's among those pushing for such a plan in the first place. So, Lammy is preaching to the choir. Why not "defend" the plan in front of actual consumers or ISPs or musicians who are up in arms about this idea? You don't "defend" the idea to the people who already want it and who were already wining and dining you to get it back on the table after you'd taken it off.

And, yes, I said musicians who are up in arms about this -- and not just small indie musicians either. Michael Geist notes that folks like Paul McCartney and Elton John have come out against the proposal as well. So, ISPs think it's terrible. Music fans think it's terrible. Musicians think it's terrible. Who's left? Oh, just some dying industries who have done everything possible not to innovate for a decade. But they sure do spend money on lobbyists.

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Paul McCartney's Confused About The Pirate Bay

from the speaking-out-of-turn dept

Paul McCartney is making some news by speaking out in favor of The Pirate Bay verdict, claiming he thought it was "fair," but the details of his comments suggests he is speaking about these things without being particularly knowledgeable about what The Pirate Bay does or is.

"Anyone who does something good, particularly if you get really lucky and do a great artistic thing and have a mega hit, I think you should get rewarded for that. I'm in favour of that sort of thing."

He says that as if there is anyone out there who claims that artists shouldn't get "rewarded" for doing something great. The problem is no one is saying that. We're just debating how they will (not should) get rewarded. And, of course, plenty of artists who embrace things like The Pirate Bay are getting rewarded for doing so. Claiming that they're not is simply false and suggests ignorance of the subject.

"The problem is you get a lot of young bands coming up and some of them aren't going to last forever so if they have a massive hit that's going to pay their mortgage forever. They're going to feed the children on that and if they don't get that money, if they don't see that money, I think it's a bit of a pity."

It's a pity that they might actually have to continue working, rather than living off one single hit? Perhaps we have different ways of thinking about things, but I think it's a much bigger pity when you think about all the musicians in the past who didn't have a wonderful free promotion and distribution system, and were unable to make any money because they were limited by gatekeepers known as the major record labels.

The fact that new musicians are popping up today and getting attention and (yes) making a living by embracing these tools and using them to their advantage, again, suggests that McCartney is speaking from a position of ignorance rather than knowledge.

"I've been very lucky because my main era with the Beatles was at a time when everyone did get paid."

That's simply not true. Most bands of his era did not get paid. That's because the only path to getting paid was to sign to a record label, and many bands were unable to do that. Today, on the other hand, bands have many more options to create their music, to distribute it, to promote it and to get paid for it. And one of those tools is The Pirate Bay... which McCartney wants to take away.

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Why Paul McCartney Would Have Been Better Off Giving Away His Latest Music For Free

from the promote-the-other-things dept

Earlier this year, we noted that Starbucks was going to start its own record label to sell CDs, with Paul McCartney as the first artist to release an album on it. This came after the relative success of promoting a few albums exclusively in Starbucks when they launched (on other labels). However, as Bob Lefsetz points out, McCartney's album looks like it's a money loser for Starbucks -- though McCartney likely made money from Starbucks who probably paid him a nice sum to put the album out on the new label. However, as Lefsetz points out, he could make a lot more in concert revenue much faster. Lefsetz goes on to point out what we've been pointing out for years: McCartney would have been better off giving away the music for free everywhere, and actually getting people to hear it. In fact, Lefsetz suggests that he might have put more effort into making better music if he knew that there was a much bigger likelihood that people would hear it and care about it. Where I disagree with Lefsetz is his belief that it makes sense to offer the music for free for now, while you still get a promotional bump just for announcing that you'll be giving away music for free, that it won't make sense in the future when lots of artists are doing it. Instead, it seems likely that more and more new models will arise, where the music acts as the promotion, and bands make their money elsewhere. The more popular and widespread the music is, the more opportunities there will be to make that money elsewhere. Once bands start seeing success using that model, more and more will pile on, and people will wonder why anyone pays just for the music if they're not given anything else of value with it.

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