Bono Upset About Piracy, But Doesn't Want To Protest Because He's Too Rich
from the interesting-reasoning dept
U2's manager, Paul McGuinness has made some news in the past few years for blaming absolutely everyone but the recording industry for the recording industry's problems. According to McGuinness, it's the fault of digital "hippies," cable operators, ISPs, device manufacturers, P2P software companies. Could it be the fault of an industry not adapting? Of course not. It's that everyone else needs to craft ways to help U2, a band that had just brought in $355 million in a single tour when McGuinness made those comments, more money.It's that last point that apparently has Bono being a bit more cautious than his manager in lashing out. Bono has made some statements in support of his manager -- including a letter last year that seemed to blame tech companies. This, despite the fact that he's supposedly a venture capitalist, whose firm has invested in numerous tech companies, including Palm -- and U2 has done deals with Apple for special iPods and more recently, with RIM. I guess it must be other tech companies he's talking about.
However, in an interview with USA Today, Bono has expressed his distaste for file sharing, while admitting that he really can't lead the fight since he makes so much money already, recognizing how easy it would be to target him for appearing to be a hypocrite:
"It's not the place for rich rock stars to ask for more money, but somebody should fight for fellow artists, because this is madness. Music has become tap water, a utility, where for me it's a sacred thing, so I'm a little offended."Of course, he might want to think about why that is. The fact that he's still able to bring in millions on tour, and has a huge multi-million dollar deal with Live Nation certainly suggests that perhaps file sharing isn't destroying the industry, as he suggests.
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Filed Under: bono, business models, file sharing, u2
