This is less than a news item, more of a rant! Letters have started to turn up from ISPs to their customers warning them that they will be disconnected from the service if they continue to infringe copyright by illiegally downloading music. The BPI state that 'society can no longer allow the free consumption of content'. You can read the BBC's coverage here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7486743.stm

Why are the ISPs capitulating to the BPI. The simple truth is that there is the 'recording' business offers no credible commercial alternative that would attract consumers away from free services like limewire. And whilst they offer no alternative, consumers will migrate to poor quality free ones that have resulted from the technology available. Would the BPI prefer to ban P2P technology, we all know that they would do that in heartbeat to preserve their 20th century way of doing business with music consumers. We are talking about an organisation that has actively sued its own customers for using P2P technology, such arrogance will be mocked in the future when the current situation has been resolved and confined to distant memory.

Before another music consumer gets harrassed, threatened, sued or persecuted by the 'recording' industry there has to be a credible alternative in place. That means there needs to be a flat fee license that is paid into a pool that the BPI can manage that allows consumers to download music in any quantity they wish in line with their current internet surfing habits. It needs to be really cheap, say £5 per month. The downloads need to be intercompatible with the users kit (remember those ridiculous wma drm'd files!!!). And it needs to be paid just like people pay their TV & radio license.

Until the BPI jump into the 21st Century and legalise & monetize P2P consumption of music then they will simply be fiddling whilst Rome burns. And artists ... You trusted these people with the rights to your music. Did you think they'd be suing your customers and seemingly incapable of making you real money for the online use of your music? Make a stand!!!

 

 

Well not quite ... The Streets have put up snippets of a selection of trax from their forthcoming album 'Everything Is Borrowed'. And it sounds absolutely shit to me but I've never been their biggest fan. The problem I have always had is that the beats are mind-numbingly stupid - the product of inept producers. I'm sure it'll be massive ...

http://www.myspace.com/thestreets

Coldplay have sold 394,000 copies of their current album in the US. That's the highest download sells for an album ever. That's creeping towards 40% of the total US sales figure.

If recent reports are correct in suggestion that only 1 in 20 downloads are paid for that would lead us to believe that the real figure for downloads of the album would be closer to 8 million.

And therein lies the perfect argument for record labels to legalise P2P, get on side with their consumers, add some value to fanbases and stop living in the last century. If i was in Coldplay, I'd immediately want to know why the label I signed to was so inept that it couldn't figure out how to take advantage of a new business climate and either compensate me for their gross negligence or adopt a policy that monetised how my fanbase wanted to consume my music. Its a shame Mettallica didn't think like that ten years ago!

Again from Wired ...

Mercury Rev are giving away what appears to be an instrumental version of their forthcoming album. Entitled 'Strange Attractor', the instrumental set is the companion piece for the full release entitled 'Snowflake Midnight'.

Both are due on 30th September. Check the official site for full details: http://mercuryrev.com/

Wired Magazine possibly has the best internet site on the entire net. So when Wired list the top 10 music sites, they are definetly worth checking out ...

http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/07/listening-posts.html

Now its rumoured in various autobiographies that David Crosby had the best drugs that could be found in the sixties! This may explain why his colleague Stephen Stills forgot that he recorded an album with Jimi Hendrix!!!! Apparently, Graham Nash discovered the lost album and is preparing its release. All this does beg the question of how high were Crosby, Stills & Nash during their time together?

And loads of thanks to CMU as they are brilliant. If you don't get their daily music newsletter then you are seriously missing out - subscribe here: www.cmumusicnetwork.co.uk

 

 

 

Its sad but true, but a bands myspace figures do make an impression on industry types like A&R men. In fact Myspace are probably guilty of bringing the 'by numbers' approach into the arena. And the band's went with them, thinking they could create a fanbase, thinking they could get connected, even signed as a result of their impressive friend score and enormous daily plays. What a joke! In fact, making your myspace profile appear that your band is a happening band has become big business with all labels engaged in some counterfeit marketing 'experimentation' at some point on some band.

But Myspace are making it clear that if you cheat you get booted off the service. Check out the following series of Wired articles on the matter that spell out exactly what has been occuring (as if we didn't know): http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/07/artists-complai.html

Let me give you my 2ps worth - fuck myspace!! Social networking has very little to do with music and everything to do with getting laid!! If it was about music then Tilla Tequila would be a huge star but the truth is people just like her tits! Fans do not tick boxes, fans part with their hard earned money and sought after time to be your band's fan. There's no means to build loyalty via myspace, its irrelevant. All those bulletins, messages and add requests - noone cares!

Write brilliant songs, be brilliant live. Get on those radio shows we have in the UK that make a perceived difference. Track down Alex Miller and any of his contemporaries that are relevant to your band. Your first single isn't going to sell shit so give it away. Get it out to the blogs, get it out to the indie sites (like this one) - just get it out there. Then people will start to gravitate towards you and they'll use the Internet to do that. Then, with a fanbase in tow, there is now a myriad of ways to go about taking over the world thanks again to the Internet.

Of course, that all assumes that your band passed the first two criteria - does it?