File Sharing Bollocks

I see that perpetually media-hungry smug prick Bono has waded in to the argument over file-sharing, more or less suggesting that we become a totalitarian state where all online activity is monitored so that people don't download entire seasons of, say, '24' (the argument he uses) or download U2 albums so he doesn't get anything from those downloads and has to spend slightly less on his clothes than he did last year (the subtext). He claims that "A decade's worth of music file-sharing and swiping has made clear that the people it hurts are the creators...the people this reverse Robin Hooding benefits are rich service providers, whose swollen profits perfectly mirror the lost receipts of the music business." To my eyes, all this proves is that he is an even bigger cock than I thought, although my favourite bit of his piece was when he described how the technology does exist to monitor everyone's web activity, after all, look at China...Yes Bono, you've actually just suggested that we take the lead of one of the most oppressive and least humanitarian nations in the world in monitoring our citizens every web activity. Well done, Bonehead. Any intelligent person would have read back what they'd written and thought, "Fuck, I can't say that. Jesus. It's only a short jump from there to suggest that we open Soviet-style Gulags for filesharing dissenters. I'll scrap that." But not Boner. No, he stridently calls for the government to declare the internet version of martial law because he thinks that some people might be stealing some of his money.

Let's just take a look at some of the actual statistics compiled by the music industry in Sweden (one of the countries with a traditionally more 'relaxed' view on filesharing) for a second, Bono, if you'll permit me. The figures seem to show...why, they seem to show that musicians' take-home pay is just getting bigger and bigger over the last few years. Let me explain this, Bono, as you don't seem to be able to grasp this concept. Most musicians earn considerably more from live gigs than they do from sales of albums. Income from album sales is actually up - to the music industry - and yet the artists are seeing less of that money than they were four years ago. However they were never earning that much from album sales in the first place (say a figure of about 5% of the album's value) so compared to the mountain of cash they earn from playing, say, stadiums (like U2, Bono, you know when you play stadiums and everyone there has paid  £30 for their seat and you get about 50% of that sum), album sales only represent a small part of most artists' revenue. The figures show that the music industry's income from sales of albums is steadily rising, yet the amount they give to artists is shrinking. Who do you want to blame again for the loss of money you get from album sales? 

The music industry is like a bloated parasite that has grown enormous by latching its many vampiric tentacles into the talented for decades and bleeding them dry to fuel its coke habits, big cars (I'm reminded of an anecdote of a time when a certain well-known boy band, who were signed to Simon Cowell's label, were living on, effectively, less than minimum wage, relying on food parcels from their parents despite having had chart topping hits and a hit album, and one day, when they were on their way out of the label's office, Cowell drove past in a new Aston Martin, wound down the window, patted the side of the car and told them with a grin, "See this? This is the last single, boys!" before driving off like the epic cunt that he is), sex parties etc etc, and now that the ordinary person has at their disposal a means of bypassing them to get directly at the music, and through that, give the band more money by going to see them live once they've discovered them, it is the music industry itself that is whining and bleating about the imminent death of the music industry, and trying to wrap it up as a sob story about how artists are struggling now as a result of YOUR THEFT of their music. The figures don't support this, however, and the only artists who actually believe this are the cretins who either a) believe what their label tells them as they deliberately trim more money for themselves from the rising album sales and give the artists' less then lie about it being down to filesharing, or b) earn ridiculous amounts from their album sales, but nowhere near as ridiculous as the amount that the labels earn from them, ie Metallica, U2, etc. Sorry, music industry, I can't feel sorry for your corporate rape of music finally being stung after all these long years of you buttfucking artists to fund your lifestyles and billowing incomes. Time to pay the piper, you ignorant selection of overfed cocks. 

Nine Inch Nails mainman Trent Reznor was so disgusted by this aspect of the music industry that, when he released Year Zero and fulfilled his contractual obligations, he didn't bother signing to a label again and now sells his music directly from his website - which means his subsequent albums are a lot cheaper (he was always very outspoken about how expensive the labels made his albums, 'penalising the fans for being fans' as he saw it) and he actually gets a realistic cut of the money, as should have always been the case anyway.

The real impact of filesharing on musicians seems to be that more people are going to live gigs than before, thus placing more money in the pockets of the bands themselves. It's easy to assume that because people can check out the music of more new bands for free, they then like some of them so much that they buy a ticket to see them live. That's my line on this; go see bands live and put food in their mouths. Or buy albums and singles and put another Aston Martin in Simon 'Epic Cunt' Cowell's garage.