Slashdot Mirror
Bono Hopes Content Tracking Will Help Media Moguls
Khalid Baheyeldin writes "In his New York Times op-ed column, Irish singer Bono, otherwise noted for his humanitarian efforts expressed dismay at losses music artists incur from internet downloads. He notes that 'we know from America's noble effort to stop child pornography, not to mention China's ignoble effort to suppress online dissent, that it's perfectly possible to track content.' He then goes on to wonder '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, where music, film, TV and video games help to account for nearly 4 percent of gross domestic product.'"
So he's worried about the new guys who haven't made it yet, not himself.
...And he's full of shit.
He's been around a while, and he knows the business:
1. Recruit new band.
2. Ride their asses with marketing demands.
3. Produce music that everyone's okay with but doesn't involve any innovation or creativity.
4. Profit!
But here's my message to all the Bonos out there: I want your ship to sink. Yes. Your music blows, because that's the way the current business model works. When we're done pirating all your crap and giving it away for free ('Cause it's not worth money.)... When you disappear for lack of a salary, a real musician will take your place.
A good musician that makes his/her own records. That's the guy I'm going to pay. ...And Bono's concerned about the film industry now, but as far as I'm concerned, they could use some reform as well.
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.
If you'd read TFA, you'd know that. But this is /. so..
You picked a great quote. A decode worth of file-sharing and swiping has left the industry... where, exactly? I haven't seen a failing music industry yet. In fact, it's an industry affected by rough economic patches but faring far better than many other industries hit by economic dips. And meanwhile - there are service providers with swollen profits perfectly mirroring this imagined loss in receipts? Oh. I get it. This is another one of these "Google is evil" things big media likes to slip under the door in the hopes nobody realizes it's their own gambit.