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Comments on news posted 2008-06-05 14:11:05: U2's long-time manager Paul McGuinness blames Silicon Valley's "hippy values" (see his post at the band's website) for the collapse of the music industry. He has long argued that ISPs and all technology companies should pay the music industry. ..
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 | | rocket1
join:2008-02-03
Dallas, TX | Re: The Music Indusry does not understand their market. Thanks for taking the time to actually make an argument rather than just insult the artist/person in question. When this issue comes up, all too often it's "if (insert artist) didn't suck..." | |
| 
insomniac84
join:2002-01-03
Schererville, IN | sad Lets just ignore that the music industry is too stupid to correctly compete with open mp3s. If they dropped the drm and offered redownloads in the event of lost music people could actually justify paying for it. | |
| amungus
Premium
join:2004-11-26
America
clubs:
| read much? Agree w/above post.
ISP = Internet Service Provider. Simple acronym there. No really hard words involved.
Also, if anyone's a hippy, it'd be this guy.
Look, people still buy music - IF IT'S WORTH BUYING...
I just bought the Raconteurs new album, for instance. On CD, AND on Vinyl... They should've just bundled the CD with the vinyl, but oh well.
Comments like this guy's are only detrimental and seem to offer very little in terms of a workable, real, honest solution. It's also so far after the fact that it's not funny.
They had their chance before killing Napster. That was how many years ago now? Almost a decade.
Look what happens in a decade. In this case, not much. Sure, services are good (I like Rhapsody), but the labels and the artists, and the lawyers, and the RIAA still won't let things go.
What they don't seem to grasp is that it's already too late. They might as well accept it and try to make a buck.
Not everyone wants total crap. Some people want the cool b-sides, the rarities, the extras that are hard to find.
Anyway, yeah, they missed their chance bigtime with Napster and its users. Should've just made streaming free, downloads limited to 112-128kbps, and offered people a monthly/yearly plan at a reasonable rate. They'd have been far more profitable, and far less stupid in the eyes of the common internet user. | |
| | 
NANCY S
@comcast.net
| Re: read much? I agree with the above.....
Let get the facts. Oh by the way, Napster profited 12 million in 2006. They have conformed to the pressure of the RIAA, and more will follow. Money is the key. For shame for shame...
I have quoted several sources in my research in helping me form this opinion, so if I have broken anyones copyright law…SUE ME! – Nancy S.
Touring, more than ever, is where the money is: The vast majority of artists in our Top Thirty made the bulk of their cash on the road in 2005. Album royalties pale in comparison. "The music business has changed," says Paul McGuinness, longtime manager of U2, who came out on top last year, taking in an estimated $154.2 million after selling out more than 100 arena and stadium shows around the world. "Our recording income is not insignificant, but it's less than we make from touring. The figures used to be closer together."
U2 made an estimated $15 million in advances for each album they release, plus additional royalties; they grossed $139 million on the road in North America in 2005 -- including as much as $150,000 per night in merchandise sales. Touring is simply far more profitable than selling CDs, explains Jim Guerinot, who manages Gwen Stefani (No. 16, $23.9 million). "With CDs, you're making between fifteen and twenty-five percent royalty," he says. "On the road you get a royalty of eighty-five to ninety percent" [from ticket sales].
Rock's Top Thirty Moneymakers (Rolling Stone Magazine)
1. U2, $154.2 million
2. The Rolling Stones, $92.5 million
3. Eagles, $63.2 million
4. Paul McCartney, $56 million
5. Elton John, $48.9 million
6. Neil Diamond, $44.7 million
7. Jimmy Buffett, $44 million
8. Rod Stewart, $40.3 million
9. Dave Matthews Band, $39.6 million
10. Celine Dion, $38.5 million
11. Kenny Chesney, $31.5 million
12. Green Day, $31 million
13. Coldplay, $30.1 million
14. Destiny's Child, $24.8 million
15. Diddy, $24.3 million
16. Gwen Stefani, $23.9 million
17. Toby Keith, $22.2 million
18. Motley Crue, $22 million
19. 50 Cent, $19.7 million
20. Bruce Springsteen, $19.6 million
21. Eminem, $17.8 million
22. Jay-Z, $17.5 million
23. Barry Manilow, $17.2 million
24. Hilary Duff, $17.1 million
25. Kanye West, $16.9 million
26. Dr. Dre, $16.9 million
27. Rascal Flatts, $16.3 million
28. Aerosmith, $16.3 million
29. Bon Jovi, $15.8 million
30. Tom Petty, $14.9 million
The list was compiled using interviews with record executives, managers, lawyers and agents. It uses figures from Nielsen SoundScan, Pollstar, the Recording Industry Association of America, Amusement Business/Billboard and other sources. Net figures reflect performers' earnings after expenses have been deducted and managers, agents and lawyers have taken their cuts. Do these guys look broke?
But the online song downloading service that recently expanded to Europe has become valuable to Apple because it leads to iPod sales. Download sale revenue for the fourth quarter should be about $2.1 billion.
In 2007, Music Earnings Report concludes that file-sharing is responsible for the entire decline in record sales that has occurred, and that except for file-sharing there would have been an increase in sales since 1999 instead of the strong decline. Internet blogs when contributors state that finding (a positive association between the number of P2P downloads and CD album purchases for the sub-sample of downloader’s) is trivial and can be explained away by the fact that people with a high interest in music, do both: purchase CD albums and download P2P files.
Overall earnings of the industry are on the increase, not on the decrease (PWC, 2007). The broader music sector, is now worth more than $US 130 billion globally. Its economic importance extends far further than the recorded music sector, ranging from radio advertising revenue, record company revenues, musical instrument sale, live music sector, music retail sectors, portable digital payers, to music publishing (IFPI, 2007). The so called "demise of the music industry" is highly contentious; indeed and completely disingenuous, for example, Price Waterhouse Cooper argues that the media industry, including music, is in a strongest position since 2000; and predicts a 7.3 per cent growth annually up to $1.8 trillion in 2009 (PWC, 2005). While sales of recorded music (physical retail) have been on a declining trend since 2002, the sales of digital content have been on a notable increase (by 60 per cent since 2006). Some music companies and musicians, hold file sharing uniquely responsible for the decline in record sales i.e., largely unauthorized downloading, is basically erroneous and far too simplistic. Moreover, such an assertion indicates a lack of understanding of the dynamics of the current process of creative destruction and transformation to the digital paradigm in the "recorded" music industry(in other words they charge to much for a CD, which on average costs music companies 8 cents to manufacture). While record sales have declined, that does not imply that the entire industry is in the decline. Indeed, other segments have risen in volume and in earnings, more than offsetting the decline in record /CD sales.
There is no empirical basis for such a facetious assertion that downloading or P2P is the ultimate reason. Additionally, there may be many other reasons for decline in record sales (the white elephant in the room), other than increase in file sharing (e.g., transformation to the digital technological paradigm, excessively high prices of CDs, i.e., excessive mark up, standardized quality, decline in purchasing power for luxury goods, lower degrees of choice and diversity, etc).
File sharing and downloading not only increases market exposure but significantly reduces marketing and advertising costs. File sharing, as the imminent dominant mode of music consumption, is proving to be more "efficient" than simply purchasing pre-recorded music. Owing to diffusion of technical change, it is far cheaper, as it reduces the costs of intermediation and allows consumer’s greater choice over listening patterns; facilitating the growth of demand-driven patterns of consumption thereby enabling greater consumer participation, and more interactive modes of consumption. Global consumers as well as new producers can benefit greatly from the new P2P file sharing technologies that should be facilitated and legalized, rather than hindered.
Institute for Creative Industries and Innovation
Queensland University of Technology
Forbes Magazine
Rolling Stone Magazine
NYU
U2.com | |
| 
guitarzan
Premium
join:2004-05-04
Skytop, PA
 ·epix
| Paul McGuinness IS a Crazy Hippie and has smoked to much mind altering drugs in his crack pipe, and is blowing it out both sides of his azz mouth to suggest such a drug induced idea.
Paul McGuinness: F YOU, you retarded burned out acid casualty of a hippie.
U2: No it's FU2.
RIAA: F you as well.
As a matter of fact: F the whole damn music industry,its worthless crap and you hippies know it.
If I have to pay a "piracy tax" to an ISP or anyone. Someone at the RIAA or this retard will get a computer jammed up his azz sideways and pulled out their nose.
Signed: Fed Up with this bullshit. John Q Public
--
It's easier to manipulate non-religious people, Ever hear of Communism?
With out religion your are more suceptable to manipulation. Look at china, they banned religion. It's much easier to manipulate people who don't have any religious convictions. | |
| |
DrHillbilly
@direcpc.com | Re: Paul McGuinness IS a Crazy Hippie You like jesus and capitalism, boy?! Take take you medicine!! | |
| JDAC
join:2007-02-24
1 edit | Oh I love irony And I used to be a U2 fan, but I can only take so much.
When U2 shift their operations back to Ireland and pay their own damn taxes, then I'll listen to McGuinness.
Edit: Actually, no I won't. | |
| wispalord
join:2007-09-20
House Springs, MO | this is just dumb....
Charging a tax to a isp seems no different then taxing all roads you drive on because someone MIGHT be carring an illeagle substance on it. Ohh wait we do pay that, it's part of our fuel tax mandated by the feds.. Hmmm.... | |
| 
chronoss2008
Premium
join:2008-03-29
·TekSavvy Solutions..
·Bell Sympatico
1 edit | Dont HUM A TUNE Dont hum a tune
we'll mak eit illegal to think of one or you must pay,
we'll install a device to your noggin to make sure.
We'll put wiretaps from george bushes guys in you computer, your house and up your wifes butt just to make sure she dont sing one while you have sex.
let BONHEADO join metallica now in a slow painful death.
there next albumand concert will now be DUST IN THE WIND
btw the solution of an isp levy would also mean you could get movies ( remember USA copyright =95 years canada = 50 years) and software for NON commercial use.
I made a post about how a system could fair and transparanent and end the copyright wars as i call htem in a supremly cheap fashion
NO human i have met wouldnt pay 5$ a month for this.
Only people that hate it are pirates that make money off there downloads and the RIAA themsleves , oddly warner borthers likes hte idea however there take of course is a tad bit expensive.
With a simple world wide 1$ a month theyd get almost 10 billion OR more.
More hten enough and we could create stats setups to pay the "artists" by the percent of downloads. NOTE one person = one downlaod even if you grab it twice kinda hting.
and a council to look after it with elected REAL users of the very system as well as the industry we hate and the ISPs, some portion of the cash could also goto ending traffic shaping and caps. | |
| | Walter Dnes
join:2008-01-27
Thornhill, ON
·TekSavvy Solutions..
| Re: Dont HUM A TUNE said by chronoss2008  :NO human i have met wouldnt pay 5$ a month for this. You obviously haven't met me.
said by chronoss2008 :Only people that hate it are pirates that make money off there downloads and the RIAA themsleves You've been reading too much MAFIAA propaganda... anybody who disagrees with you is a pirate... sure. BTW, I am paying over $7/month for live365.com. In return, I get to listen to the niche music I like, and no commercials. BTW, P2P sucks. You have to manage it, pay for humoungous bandwidth usage because P2P is inherently inefficient. Then you have to manage a multi-terrabyte raid array, and categorize and arrange all the music and movies. I prefer internet radio and renting/buying DVD's. It costs me a lot less time.
Your piracy tax sucks for several reasons.
- not everybody is a 12-year-teenybopper totally lacking musical taste and money, who likes potty-mouthed rappers and Britney the Bimbo. Some people surf the web, read news, hang out on forums, read email, etc.
- It's not fair to punish the innocent 95% with a piracy tax for the sins of the 5%. Even the ISPs admit that 5% of their customers use 50% of the ISP's total bandwidth.
- You're assuming that everybody is capable of cranking down hundreds of gigabytes per month. I don't have a honking big RAID array, and Bell is throttling my ISP, so any "permission" from your scheme is moot.
said by chronoss2008 :With a simple world wide 1$ a month theyd get almost 10 billion OR more. Bwaahaahaahaahaahaa. I defy you to collect your "worldwide" tax from each Chinese and Russian customer.
And let's not forget that you're setting a very ugly precedent. Give the RIAA an monthly piracy tax, and the lineup will be a mile long...
- the MPAA will want its $5/month
- Microsoft will want its $5/month because "every who didn't buy Vista is a pirate". I already paid the MS tax for OEM Vista on my current PC, which I immediately wiped and loded linux on.
- Adobe and Autocad and others will be in line, because "everybody pirates Flash developer and Autocad"... bleagh.
- All ebook publishers will be lining up whining about how piracy is killing them
- etc, etc
By the time every man and his dog gets through with their piracy tax, I'll be paying more taxes than the original cost of my ADSL account, $29.95/month | |
|
EYE2
@comcast.net | Ear wax tax Go to the source. Never mind "pennies on your eyes;" tax the ears. Then we hear no more noise, such as the odiferous tones wafting out of the wrong end of Mr. Drankguinness. | |
| megatron266
Premium
join:2007-08-11
Miami, FL
·AT&T Southeast
| Let me see... a "Piracy Tax" on my broadband bill. I will cancel the service with the quickness. That's just my two cents. Wait I am keeping that two cents cause I don't want them to get that either. I like surfing the net like the next person but I honestly can do without it if it comes to a "Piracy Tax." | |
| | 
elios
join:2005-11-15
Springfield, MO | Re: Let me see... if a piracy tax shows up on my bill im going to take that as its open season to download ANY THING AND EVERY THING i can legally
so dont worry itll never happen | |
| | | megatron266
Premium
join:2007-08-11
Miami, FL | Re: Let me see... You know what? I didn't see it like that. Hmm I am going to rethink this. LMAO | |
| 
ramsfansam
join:2002-08-27
Springfield, MO
·AT&T Southwest
| Damn managers! OK, Paul McGuinness, since I am not in California, nor am I a hippie, I have a deal for you...
I am in the middle of the country, a place where the majority of the people still have personal values. Since you are obviously not smart enough to figure out that the reason the music industry is collapsing is due to the music industry failing the consumer, I'll be sure to explain it slowly so you can understand.
BTW, the following is only an example, simplified just for you:
In 1997, I purchased a CD - Pink Floyd "The Wall", for $11.99. I did not own a computer until 1999, so part 1 of your argument is bullshit. Anyway, that CD is still in my CD rack. But - some RIAA genius has determined that even though I PAID for the CD, never shared it, never copied it, it's not really my property, but somehow it still belongs to the RIAA. Well, Paul, fair's fair, so I guess I'll let you in on a little secret.
Since your RIAA buddies claim that the property I legally purchased is now their property, and I did not sell it back to them, then I believe that is almost like them admitting that they are stealing my legally owned property. Perhaps I should call the prosecutor and see about pursuing charges for theft. Then again, maybe I'll use a page from the RIAA book, and charge $150,000 per song in my collection in yearly rent, since the RIAA clearly thinks I am a storage yard operator.
In other words, Paul, pull your swollen head out of your rectal cavity, take a good look at the crap coming out of the so-called 'music studios', and ask yourself one question:
"Can I HONESTLY expect the consumer to buy this shit we are calling music?"
Before you burst an artery in your brain (a.k.a. RIAA hemorrhoids), let me and millions of others answer it for you:
We don't buy your CD's because they suck! | |
| Core0000
Premium
join:2008-05-04
Somerset, KY
 ·New Wave Communica..
·Windstream
| And here I thought.... Well, I don't know if I would agree with the man. It's a free market. If I don't want to buy a shitty cd, well I don't. As someone who grew up listening to eighty's and nintey's music as a kid.. well I am not saying that stuff was great, but a lot of its better than todays music.
Some of the stuff I hear on the radio today makes me want to bang my head out of frustration. The music I hear today seems something lacking/missing/absent.
Glad Amazon.com exist, I find a good tune every now and then. | |
| nydwarf1
join:2008-04-11
St Catharines, ON | Hahaha Well that was good for a laugh. | |
| | 
ifarrell
join:2000-08-10
Willow Spring, NC
 ·Vonage
| Re: Hahaha said by nydwarf1 :Well that was good for a laugh. Yea, then the guy went off to his AA meeting and sobbed all night. | |
| 
tc1uscg
join:2005-03-09
Saint Clair Shores, MI
| U who? Didn't this band like come and go a couple decades ago? Shouldn't they move on and produce movies or something? The RIAA is the reason the music industry has faltured. NO let me correct that, RIAA and GREED is what has killed the industry. There are some good bands out there, if your will to go to underground bars to find them. | |
| MeKuN
join:2004-07-21
Eugene, OR | U2 lost its way? Well at least U2 didnt move out of Ireland to keep from paying taxes the country needs. To bad everyone cant do that. But taxes are just for the poor only. Thx paul. | |
| 
Kylemaul
Lovin' My Firefox 1.5.x
Premium
join:2001-03-30
North Port, FL
clubs: | Hippies? Whoah, like, flashback, man! | |
| cornelius785
join:2006-10-26
Worcester, MA
| just another reason... to never pay a dime to listen to U2 (or perhaps any music of today). i'm glad i haven't spent a penny (except for a local group's CD that has some friends in it) on any music. until they are living like the rest of us (ie not living in gigantor houses with millions in the bank/invested and +$100,000/year paychecks for contributing essentially jack feces to the world) i'm not going to have any sympathy for the 'pain' of piracy (or anything else that happens to them pretty much) of any actor or today's musicians. | |
| dude34221
join:2002-06-13
Galena, OH | modern music if u2 didnt suck present day, maybe they would sell more cds? | |
| | 
heat84
join:2004-03-11
Fort Lauderdale, FL | Re: modern music I thought artists made most of their money from concerts. Except for the American Idolers that is. Fox has them by the balls (or the female equivalent thereof). | |
| | | dude34221
join:2002-06-13
Galena, OH | Re: modern music true, riaa and etc. take the majority, but record sales are a good indication of marketability / not sucking | |
| DoctorBit
join:2007-12-29
Culver City, CA
| From Silicon Valley to U2: "Same to you!" You think you "bought" the electronics in your guitars? Hahahahahahahah! It was only licensed. You have to pay a monthly royalty to National Semiconductor of $1 per hour per listener when you play your guitar. A concert of 10,000 people? That's 10,000 per hour for each guitar during the concert. Forget to pay the royalty this month? No problem, the guitar's DRM will stop the guitar from working until you pay. Want to sell your guitar or let another member of your band borrow it? Hahahahahahahah! A fingerprint scanner on the guitar neck will detect the license violation and permanently disable the guitar. What, you want to play your guitar for free? You hippie, pay now! By the way, your microwave oven, refrigerator, cellphone, washing machine, car, television, and printer also contain chips. You didn't forget to pay your monthly bill for those did you? And I'm sure you remember that storing any unapproved food items in you refrigerator will cause your refrigerator to halt and incur surcharges by the minute. | |
| 
tomj1225
Premium
join:2001-12-17
Allentown, PA | music industry is a joke What's really ironic is that U2 had no moral qualms taking the million dollar royalty check to have their song used to advertise Apple iPods. I think maybe they should sue Al Gore, since he invented the internet. | |
| Tigerpaw509
Premium
join:2006-07-15
Huntley, IL | WTF So if I'am selling cd's out of my car then the auto industry should be paying them also ? | |
| | 
BetaTron
Sinz
Premium
join:2002-08-18
Brooklyn, NY
| Re: WTF said by Tigerpaw509 :So if I'am selling cd's out of my car then the auto industry should be paying them also ? Maybe they should sue the makers of patch cables or NICs.
:P | |
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The Music Indusry does not understand their market.
The music industry is it's own worst enemy. They refuse to admit that their customers have found other products to spend their spare cash on. We have RIAA paranoia. Back around 1980 there was an article published in an audio magazines about the music industry. The record labels complained that many of the major department stores were eliminating their record departments. Why? There was a recession and nothing novel was being released. What did the record labels consider the cause of their problem. Of course it was home taping. Little Bobby was copying their friends recordings on their new cassette recorder. The real reason for the decline in sales was that the music itself was poison to their sales efforts. Because of the nature of many performances, the customer could not hear the difference between a high quality recording and a low quality cassette dub of the same performance. If you look back before 1980 you will see that many songs that were classified as rock were performed by many orchestras that recorded music classified as easy listening. For example most Beatles songs were recorded by the Boston Pops. After 1980 most of the music being created and performed by the latest rock band could not be arranged for the easy listening market. As a result the music industry shut out the middle aged, middle class segment of the market. That segment had deep pockets and would spend big bucks expanding their music collections but had no incentive to do so. The music industries mistake was to direct their products to a segment of the market that had no spare cash, the high school and college student. They also set prices so their customers could not afford their product. The invention that pulled the music industry out of it's nose dive in 1983 was the Compact Disc. There were customers in all segments of the market (Classical, Jazz, Rock, etc.) that wanted to replace their entire record collection with Compact Discs. The last time an invention was released that induced the music collector to replace their entire collection was in 1960 when the Stereo Record was introduced. When the music industry introduced other new formats like SACD and DVD-Audio, their customers did not embraced the new high quality formats but instead selected lower quality formats recorded using lossy codecs like MP3's. What really irritates me is that the music industry is engaging in treating all customers as if the are guilty of violating copyright laws until the customer proves themselves innocent.