Stop moaning and get with the prog

A highlight at this years MIDEM was a keynote speech by Paul McGuiness - manager of twangly guitar ponces U2 - focusing on how the digital industry is single handedly destroying the music industry by allowing people to steal music from poor downtrodden artists, like twangly guitar ponces U2. Bo hoo!

I admit as an interested observer I have been somewhat expectant of this speech. Important and influencial industry figures have been grumbling about it for ages whilst completely missing the point of what digital distribution could actually be for them if managed correctly.

For a business that's existence is purely down to thieving away mechanical rights for "...any other physical format not yet in existence in perpetuity" it was pretty slow on the uptake when it came to digital audio format distribution. And when the digital industry went to talk to the music industry about it they was far.too.busy lolling around in fruit and flowers to see that 'technological advance' would one day make a truly accessible format for the masses.

Mr McGuiness spoke of the great CD scam of the 80's where the industry asked artists for a larger royalty cut to develop the new format. However he conveniently skipped past the fact that when the artists refused to pay up, the cost was simply passed on to the consumer, raising the price of an album to around £15 quid. You know, given the opportunity, I reckon they might try the same thing with digital formats. After all, consumer is there to be brainwashed by god awful dirge and then totally rinsed financially.

No surprise then that the consumer might be a little tired of being financially raped by pretty much every single part of the biz and thinking that helping themselves is ok. But whilst there may be a slight element of payback you can't ignore the fact that if there's free shit to be had, people will have it. It's human nature, you can't control it.

So I buy a track on iTunes, make an MP3 version then share it with my missus via email/cd/memory stick. No point in me putting it on a P2P network because she, like the average consumer, has no idea what that means (and she works in digital). So who's monitoring me effectively breaking the law? And who, other than me, is accountable? This is just good old fashioned home taping. It's quick, uncomplicated and immediately accessible to all. If there is a threat to the financial stability of music sales then it is this.

Except it isn't is it. As single sales consistently rise year on year it is apparent that, despite protestations, home taping isn't actually killing music. If anything the industry has become more profitable from the creative freedom that digital technology offers the world of music. The global market has not only become bigger but has come closer to hand for both the majors and the independants.

Social media has created an audience that is easily accessible and totally exploitable for all, meaning that far more independents can grow organically outside of the confines of a major label deal. The only thing keeping the majors in profit is the fact that artists don't know enough about how to exploit these tools without it costing the earth. But they are learning... Fast!

I'd like to believe in some sort of utopia where, rather than moaning about piracy and blaming the ISP's, the music industry invested in a platform that assisted artists in their independence, working together towards fairer controls on distribution, pricing and financial returns. But that's never going to happen.

So I say to Mr McGuiness, it's not the ISPs and the software manufacturers that are your main concern. When anyone can create their own global market, sell their music themselves and retain 100% of the royalties, who's going to need the Record Companies, the Distributors, the Managers, the Lawyers?