Paul McGuinness, the manager of one of the most successful bands on the planet U2, has just published a thoughtful and well reasoned article in British GQ on the topic of “free content” and the effect it is having on the music industry.
In the article McGuiness discusses some key points:
Backlash from bloggers – refers to how Lilly Allen and Lars Ulrich from Metallica were “savaged” by influential bloggers “whenever a well-known artist sticks their head above the parapet”.
Free music – how our perspective of “free content” has changed from what it was at the turn of the century. “But attitudes have changed. Today we take a far more sober view as we see what damage “free” has done to the creative industries, above all to music.”
The future – he describes a world of subscription services, improved digital files (Interscope/Beats Audio’s super-file), partnering with ISPs & Governments, Google, Facebook and Apple – “Great work being made, distributed efficiently and everyone in the value chain being fairly paid”.
Conclusion: All in all this a well rounded article from a highly experienced artist manager and loosely draws on the concepts first spelled out by Gerd Leonard and Dave Kusek in their 2005 manifesto ‘The Future of Music: Manifesto for the Digital Music Revolution’.
[Read full GQ.com article here]
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Tags: digital downloading | free content | lars ulrich | lilly allen | paul mcguinness | U2
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