U2 Band Manager: ISPs, Music Industry Should Forge 'Commercial Partnerships'
Date : 2008 06 06 Category : Web News
Says they must share revenues in a way that reflects what music is doing for them, and that Silicon Valley's "liberal hippy values" is to blame for its inability to figure out how to create a system for paying for music.
Paul McGuinness, U2's longtime band manager, gave a speech at a Music Matters confab in Hong Kong a few days ago criticizing ISPs around the globe for not doing more to combat the flow of copyrighted material on their networks.
He argues that they and others have been rewarded handsomely over the years at the music industry's expense.
"Where has all the money gone?" he asks.
"The answer is that it has gone to corporations – cable operators, ISPs, device manufacturers, P2P software companies - companies that have used music to drive vast revenues from broadband subscriptions and from advertising.