For quite some time now, Bono has been one of the main figures against ISPs and P2P file sharing. These two (relatively old) technologies put together have been the reason for music industry's dwindling income over the last 10 years. Personally, I have been using P2P file sharing since the birth of the original free Napster in 1999 (wikipedia.com). My sister downloaded the application on our family HP and digital music became the musical medium of our entire household. We then bought a CD burner and took those CDs to our cars, friends, and parties.
So here's how it works: about 10 years ago, Napster flew on the scene offering free file sharing - mostly music - between all connected users. This means that if I my computer is connected to the internet, anyone in the world can download from my shared file. Most of the content in my shared file could be music for example. Let's just say I have U2. Everyone that is searching U2 on a P2P file sharing software can find my files and download for free. Hence eliminating the need to go buy a CD.
Flash forward to 2001: iTunes. Apple launched its revoluitonary music application iTunes. It was the second statement that the music industry has changed. While Napster was ruled illegal in 2001, Steve Job's idea of selling music song by song for around $1 over the internet (Music Store launch in 2003), showed big label music that the internet will be the medium of the future (wikipedia.com).
Yet, somehow, they just don't get it.
Lets take an example from the Grateful Dead:
Back in the late 60s & early 70's the Dead began a subculture called "tapers". They let their devoted fans come to live shows and record the show, pass the tapes to friends as long as they didn't sell their tapes. WOW! What a concept! The Dead is one of the most successful bands in history and they promoted P2P sharing some 20 years BEFORE the internet. Thanks to thier "tapers", some of the most spectacular live moments in Dead history have been recorded.
So, what is Bono complaining about??
Here's a nice cut from Softpedia.com.
The music industry has been content with blaming everyone else for its lack of vision and has been issuing the same arguments over and over again without much proof on its part and without addressing the numerous critics. Many artists, even established ones, are starting to wake up to new opportunities and make the best of them, but there are those who see it differently. U2 frontman Bono is one of them and has stirred quite a few people with his op-ed in the New York Times, in which he goes after ISPs which, he believes, are getting rich at the expense of budding artists while doing nothing to stop the scourge of file sharing.
"A decade’s worth of music file-sharing and swiping has made clear that the people it hurts are the creators — in this case, the young, fledgling songwriters who can’t live off ticket and T-shirt sales like the least sympathetic among us — and the people this reverse Robin Hooding benefits are rich service providers, whose swollen profits perfectly mirror the lost receipts of the music business," he writes.
It certainly paints a bleak picture for struggling artists whose hopes and dreams are being squashed by the greed of the Internet service providers. But while aspiring songwriters are forced into a life of mediocrity and delusion and reduced "to write jingles," the ISPs are raking it in.
"Perhaps movie moguls will succeed where musicians and their moguls have failed so far, and rally America to defend the most creative economy in the world," he ends his plea. One can only hope.
Luckily, Bono sees hope yet and finds a great example in an unlikely candidate. By his own account, we should all be learning a thing or two in how to deal with troublesome pirates from China, who's "ignoble effort to suppress online dissent" proves "that it’s perfectly possible to track content." If China, home of the world's largest Internet population, can monitor and restrict access for its citizens to all manner of 'illegal' content, it should be perfectly feasible for ISPs all over the world to do it as well, despite their claims otherwise.
With more than two decades of successful songwriting for U2, it's to be expected that Bono would write a convincing piece of fiction. And, indeed, he doesn't let us down this time around. The only issue is that he's presenting his claims as facts even as numerous accounts show new artists embracing or at least coming to terms that piracy is now a fact of life and learning how to not only cope with it but use it for their own advantage by using peer to peer networks as great and free avenues for promotion.
"A decade’s worth of music file-sharing and swiping has made clear that the people it hurts are the creators — in this case, the young, fledgling songwriters who can’t live off ticket and T-shirt sales like the least sympathetic among us — and the people this reverse Robin Hooding benefits are rich service providers, whose swollen profits perfectly mirror the lost receipts of the music business," he writes.
It certainly paints a bleak picture for struggling artists whose hopes and dreams are being squashed by the greed of the Internet service providers. But while aspiring songwriters are forced into a life of mediocrity and delusion and reduced "to write jingles," the ISPs are raking it in.
"Perhaps movie moguls will succeed where musicians and their moguls have failed so far, and rally America to defend the most creative economy in the world," he ends his plea. One can only hope.
Luckily, Bono sees hope yet and finds a great example in an unlikely candidate. By his own account, we should all be learning a thing or two in how to deal with troublesome pirates from China, who's "ignoble effort to suppress online dissent" proves "that it’s perfectly possible to track content." If China, home of the world's largest Internet population, can monitor and restrict access for its citizens to all manner of 'illegal' content, it should be perfectly feasible for ISPs all over the world to do it as well, despite their claims otherwise.
With more than two decades of successful songwriting for U2, it's to be expected that Bono would write a convincing piece of fiction. And, indeed, he doesn't let us down this time around. The only issue is that he's presenting his claims as facts even as numerous accounts show new artists embracing or at least coming to terms that piracy is now a fact of life and learning how to not only cope with it but use it for their own advantage by using peer to peer networks as great and free avenues for promotion.
Softpedia.com has hit it on the nail! P2P has become a way of life and in my opinion does not classify as piracy. Should the Grateful Dead tapers be called pirates? Are my family members music pirates? Free P2P music sharing has been practiced for over 40 years by law abiding citizens that contribute to their community. As far as I'm concerned Bono has become a greedy musician. He has made himself a rich punk (remember he started out playing punk rock) by recording and playing live music for big labels. His current statements show his lack of education in technologies and public trends. What's even more interesting is how recorded music has changed mediums over the years and how quickly it has adapt to those changes, until now.
Recorded music has been sold in many formats over the years - LPs, 8-tracks, cassettes, CD, and now, digital. The big labels have adapted well to previous formats because they could control the dispersment of recorded music. Now in digital format and internet/search technology, this content cannot be controlled. The big labels are having a hard time adjusting to the changing industry and creating a flexible business model to accomodate to free P2P shared music.
In my opinion, free shared P2P music is the result of a changing society based on technology. So to all those greedy musicians out there and those that wish to be great:
GO PLAY LIVE MUSIC!
Get out of the label bought studio, make a wicked tour, and be creative with your recorded music. As Bob Dylan says: "The times are a changing". Create live music with higher value buy decreasing the label recorded output, perhaps "tapers" are not a bad idea. Devaluate big labels (another words - don't sign to a label) create your own team to promote, record, tour, and produce. But don't expect to get rich like Bono. He's a label baby.
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