U2 manager wants illegal downloaders to be banned by ISPs
By Dave Parrack
Paul McGuinness, the manager and so called fifth member of Irish rock band U2, has called for people who download music illegally, to have their ISP connections severed, and be effectively banned from the Internet.
McGuinness has been manager of U2 for 30 years, and has helped lead them to album sales of 150 million, yet he now seems determined to alienate the band’s fans by proposing that some of them lose the ability to surf the web, period.
He is attending the Midem music industry conference in Cannes along with all the big music industry bosses. The conference has already sparked controversy by being the epicentre of the Qtrax fiasco, and this latest news will only add to the issues being discussed.
McGuinness wants Internet service providers to be much more involved in the policing of what their users do online, especially when it comes to illegal file sharing, and music downloading. He has even called their inability to act so far “the single biggest failure in the digital music market”.
According to The Telegraph, McGuinness said, in a speech titled ‘The Online Bonanza: Who is Making All The Money and Why Aren’t They Sharing It?’:
“A simple three strikes and you are out enforcement process will see all serial illegal uploaders who resist the law face a stark choice: change or lose your ISP subscription.”
“If you were publishing a magazine that was advertising stolen cars, processing payments for them and arranging delivery of them you’d expect to get a visit from the police wouldn’t you?”
“What’s the difference? With a laptop, a broadband account, an MP3 player and a smartphone you can now steal all the content, music, video and literary in the world without any money going to the content owners.”
I still don’t really see why the ISPs should have to be the worldwide police force for this, and I really hope the companies rally against the charges that they are somehow directly responsible.
What’s more, I think this is very rich coming from a man who has made made millions from the music industry, and from consumers who have bought and paid for his band’s singles and albums over the years.
U2 themselves are one of the richest groups in the world, and while Bono is visiting remote countries preaching about ending global poverty, his bank balance is swelling to ever more ridiculous levels due to his fans loyalties.
I’m not saying nothing should be done about file sharing online, as music sales are definitely on the way down, as a direct result of piracy or not. But this just stinks of passing the buck, as well as trying to shut the barn door after the horses have well and truly escaped.
As for U2… Metallica anyone?
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Stumble It!
January 29th, 2008
Yeah, go on then.
Lets see on-line commerce & the telecommunications industry burn itself over the ridiculously outrageous greed of the music & movie industry.
…..or how about those self-same companies just quit being the hypocrites they are and charge a fair price for their movies & music in the first place?
If we can’t just tell these greedy corps to go to hell (I gather many of them are making record profilts) then we ought to do what some enlightened countries do, accept that burners and discs will be used for copying and charge a (very tiny) additional sales tax to CD/DVD sales to go to supporting the poorest parts of the music & movie industry
(& not the most profitable robber barons in it).
It should also be pointed out that many of these companies are total hypocrites and have different divisions of the same company making computer discs & burners and other parts of that company either wholly or in partnership having music & movie connections.
The biggest thieves any artist ever faced is not the individual who shares & copys for personal use & not profit but the con-men in ‘the industry’ who take an outrageous share of the cake, leaving the genuine artist little.
January 30th, 2008
What a joke a guy who has made millions from the music biz and never written a song in his life, who is the theif again?
“If you were publishing a magazine that was advertising stolen cars, processing payments for them and arranging delivery of them you’d expect to get a visit from the police wouldn’t you?”
The ISP’s arnt like publishing a magazine, that would involve creating content. What he is saying is “If a company sold paper to another company who advertised stollen cars for another company who delivered them, stollen by another company, shouldnt they go to jail????”
OFCORSE NOT YOU CRAZY ASS!
The music industry needs to get its head out of it own ass and start creating the best digital distibution system while it still can or else they will destroy itself in a battle they have already lost.
Surley alarm bells must start ringing when your sueing/attacking your own customers?
no? carry on doing the same thing then see what happens…
February 24th, 2008
Sheesh. U2 – greedy f*ckers. And Bono is the hypocrite of his generation.