U2 Claims It's Working With Apple On A New Music Format That 'Can't Be Pirated'

from the because-that-will-work dept

Apparently U2's deal with Apple goes further than taking a bunch of cash and dumping unwanted music files on hundreds of millions of iTunes users. The band has said that it's working on a brand new music format that "can't be pirated." Oh really? We've heard that before, many, many times. And every time someone claims that, whatever new DRM they created gets broken without hours. I imagine the same will be true of this. The format sounds like a rehash of other things that have been tried and failed before:

[The new format will be] an audiovisual interactive format for music that can’t be pirated and will bring back album artwork in the most powerful way, where you can play with the lyrics and get behind the songs when you’re sitting on the subway with your iPad or on these big flat screens. You can see photography like you’ve never seen it before.

Of course, we've been hearing this for years. Five years ago, the major labels were all going to team up to create "CMX", a new music format that had all those audiovisual components. Where's that now? Every few years we see startups claiming to have created a similar new music format that builds in all those audiovisual components... and no one cares. Is it possible that Apple with the help of U2 will suddenly figure it out? Sure. It's possible. But I wouldn't bet on it. Especially if it includes annoying DRM that no one wants.

Apple itself figured out long ago that DRMing its music was actually a bad deal since it made the music less valuable to consumers. Would the company really switch back in the other direction? While U2 claims that this magical new music format "will prove so irresistibly exciting to music fans that it will tempt them again into buying music — whole albums as well as individual tracks," it once again shows how little U2 understands about the way fans interact with music these days. The ability to share what you're listening to with others and to build on that experience is what excites people -- and that's true whether its unauthorized sharing or through streaming services like Spotify that allow users to share what they're listening to. Locking stuff up with fancy graphics isn't "irresistibly exciting." It's just something most people will ignore.

Besides, we already have an "audiovisual interactive format for music that can't be pirated," and it's called a concert.

Filed Under: business models, copyright, drm, music formats, u2
Companies: apple

Apple Finally Allows iPhone-Ers To Nix That U2 Album They Never Wanted From Their Phones

from the me-three dept

In the wake of the somewhat confusing move by mega-band U2 to release their latest album for free on iTunes, we noted the comments from frontman Bono, who rushed to decry the concept of free for music and who insisted that because he was paid it didn't really count as free. These comments must have been especially confusing for those that suddenly found the band's album in their iTunes cloud account, despite never having requested or wanted it there. Indeed, given some of the comments reacting to the promotional move, it seems the problem with free might not be on the content producer's side, but on the consumer's instead.

If you’re trying to convince me that the stuff I store in my cloud is safe, don’t open up my cloud without permission. It’s easy to imagine Apple’s thinking here: What’s better than a free gift? A free gift that you don’t have to go get! But a gift on my doorstep is one thing. A gift that you left in my house, after letting yourself in, is something different.

Indeed, and it's not difficult to understand why some reacted less than favorably to the free album. First, despite Bono's insistence to the contrary, this was indeed the use of the concept of free as a promotional tool. Perhaps not for U2 as much as Apple, but that's what it was nevertheless. The problem wasn't that the album was free, but that the album appeared unbidden in the repository for a service that feels quite personal to the consumer. These were our cloud accounts that Apple invaded to leave their free stuff. You know what it's called when someone leaves you something you didn't want for free in your domain? It's called litter. And, in this case, it was litter that you couldn't even clean up. Just browse through a few of the reactions on the site WhoIsU2.com to get a sense:















And, just like that, Apple is walking back the "gift" by actually writing some code to delete the "gift," which, until that happened, was unremovable (though you could hide it).

It should take a couple steps, but it shouldn’t be that difficult. Head over to this page, which Apple put up this morning. Now you can make your collection Bono-free, or just “Songs of Innocence”-free, or whatever. The only catch appears to be that if you decide you do want your new free U2 album, you’ve only got a month to change your mind: After October 13, the only way to get it from iTunes will be by actually spending money.

Think about this for a second. For the first time in history, it seems, someone had to write some code to deliberately remove free music that was forced upon people. Like it was malware. How many people expected the digital music revolution to end up here?

Look, it's a great thing to see musicians and distributors continue to experiment with this sort of thing, but it's also important that lessons be learned as they do so. Today's lesson is that the internet is a back-and-forth, not simply a distribution channel that can be used to force products into the consumer's space. Perhaps next time they'll get this a bit more right.

Filed Under: deleting, free, free music, music, u2
Companies: apple

U2 Still Insists No Value In 'Free' Music, Despite Making Millions From It

from the it's-all-part-of-a-business-model dept

As you may have heard, earlier this week Apple announced a bunch of things -- and that included that U2 was releasing a surprise new album that everyone who uses iTunes would magically get automatically for free in their library. That struck some people as interesting, given that the band has long crusaded angrily against "free." Four years ago, we wrote about how Paul McGuinness, the band's long-time manager, was railing against "free." Here's what he said at the time:

If you had to encapsulate the crisis of the music industry in the past decade, it would be in one momentous word: "free." The digital revolution essentially made music free. It is now doing the same with films and books. For years we (and by "we" I mean the music business, musicians, creative industries, governments and regulators) have grappled with this new concept of "free." One minute we have fought it like a monster, the next we have embraced it like a friend. As consumers, we have come to love "free" - but as creators, seeking reward for our work, it has become our worst nightmare. In recent years the music business has tried to "fight free with free," seeking revenues from advertising, merchandising, sponsorship - anything, in fact, other than the consumer's wallet. These efforts have achieved little success. Today, "free" is still the creative industries' biggest problem.

Bono has repeatedly attacked the idea of free music, complaining that it's "madness."

Music has become tap water, a utility, where for me it's a sacred thing, so I'm a little offended."

Funny, it seems even more ubiquitous under this deal.

Of course, the other side will argue, this is different. This is "okay" because they got paid upfront. Bono himself still seems offended by the concept of free, but insists this doesn't count because it's not really free:

“We were paid,” Bono tells TIME. “I don’t believe in free music. Music is a sacrament.”

Yup. Of course. Bono repeated a similar story to the NY Times, and current manager, Guy Oseary, says more or less the same thing:

Bono, U2’s lead singer, alluded to the deal himself at Apple’s event. After the band performed, he and Mr. Cook playfully negotiated over how the album could be released through iTunes “in five seconds.” Mr. Cook said it could if the album was given away free.

“But first you would have to pay for it,” Bono said, “because we’re not going in for the free music around here.”

Mr. Oseary, who took over management of the band less than a year ago, stressed in a phone interview after the event that the music still had value even though it was being given away.

“This is a gift from Apple to their customers,” Mr. Oseary said. “They bought it and they are giving it away.”

But, as per usual, this (once again) misunderstands the nature of "free." For years we've tried to hit back on this notion. As we've said free is not the business model, but free should be a key part of the business model, with the idea being that "free" helps the artists make more money. And that's exactly what's happened here. Now, of course, because of U2's stature and Apple's billions in cash, this could be done as a big upfront deal (rumors are saying that Apple will pay somewhere around $100 million total). But for others it may involve giving away stuff free to build a larger audience for shows. Or maybe it involves getting money upfront via a crowdfunding campaign and then sharing the music widely. Or maybe it involves using a tool like Patreon to get people to pay for each new track released, but still making them more widely available for free.

The point is that "free" is not some evil. It's something that the public really appreciates, and when done right fits very nicely in with a smart business model. For U2 that's collecting millions in cash from Apple. For others, it's other things. Free is not evil. It's a tool, and one that can be used to make people lots of money -- as U2 and Bono are realizing, even if they don't "realize" it. Amusingly, since these tracks are automatically showing up in everyone's iTunes, some are actually arguing that it becomes the equivalent of junk mail. In other words, there's an argument to be made that this promotion which effectively pushes "free" tracks even to people who don't want them does a lot more to decrease the value of the music than any sort of unauthorized files sharing. At least with file sharing, people get the free music because they want and value it.

In the end, though, I tend to agree with Amanda Palmer's take that everyone should be doing all kinds of business model experiments, so I certainly have no problem with this particular one. In fact, I think it's great.

It would just be nice if U2 and its managers could admit that maybe "free" isn't automatically evil.

Filed Under: bono, business models, free, free music, give away, guy oseary, itunes, music, paul mcguinness, u2
Companies: apple

U2 Manager Paul McGuinness: Google Should 'Take Down' Sites And 'Keep Them Down'

from the be-careful-what-you-wish-for,-www.u2.com dept

Paul McGuinness, U2's manager, ("World's Richest Band Seeks Handout") has been a longtime critic of Google, whose search engine he views as being nothing more than a portal for pirates. That's when he's not blaming pretty much everyone else (ISPs, any tech company connected to the internet in general) for not making U2 incrementally richer. But Google is never far from his mind, not even when accepting an Industry Icon award from Billboard Magazine for his 35 years as the band's manager.

McGuinness (again) thinks he has a quick fix for the piracy problem, and it all revolves around Google.

What needs to be done is simple, take the sites down and keep them down. If the pirates can manage to replace their sites instantly with legions of bots, Google, with their brilliant algorithm engineers can counter it. We need the technology giants like Google to do the things that labels, the publishers, the artists, the writers repeatedly ask them to do. They need to show corporate and social responsibility. Take down the illegal sites, keep them down and clear the way for the legal digital distributors like iTunes, Spotify, Deezer, the new Jimmy Iovine Beats service, which promises to be a very serious competitor.

Yes. It's all so "simple." Just "take sites down" and "keep them down." Like many people who frequently confuse "Google" for "the Internet" (see also: many people in the UK government), McGuinness overstates the simplicity of his request while granting powers to Google that it simply doesn't possess.

Let's tackle the "simplicity" aspect first. If McGuinness is only referring to delisting sites (and that's somewhat unclear), it's not nearly as easy as he (or the RIAA, MPAA, UK government) thinks. There are several ways this could go wrong (see also: site blocking/web filters), not the least of which is that it puts internet access in the control of agencies and entities that can't even seem to issue DMCA notices without taking down legitimate content sources. So, if labels and studios (and those represented by them) can't even send out failure-free DMCA notices, they're hardly in the position to tell a company that indexes millions of sites how "simple" it would be to "block" or "take down" pirate sites.

Then there's what's actually in Google's power to do. McGuinness does mention "algorithms" but shortly thereafter he's deploying wording that sounds suspiciously like a call for Google to take down sites, as in do a private ICE job and lock up the domain, thus keeping it out of searches and "clearing the way" for legitimate offerings. That's something Google simply can't do, and even if it could, certainly shouldn't do. Google's main product is a search engine. It crawls and indexes sites. It is not in the "internet police" business. That's not what it's product is intended to do and that's not what a majority of those using the search engine want Google to be doing.

But the RIAA, MPAA and others insist this is Google's job -- to sniff out infringing content and remove it from the web (or at least, its search results). Google processes millions of DMCA notices per year, but this is always viewed as a sign of failure on the company's part. If it was "better" at the job McGuinness and others think it should be doing, it wouldn't be receiving so many notices.

Somehow, it always comes back to the claim that Google "owes" millions of content creators something for indexing the web.

I would like to see them open their hearts a little and be more generous to the ecosystem that started their success a few years ago. Google talks a lot about Internet freedom -- that's fine, we all support Internet freedom don't we* -- but let's not confuse freedom of speech with the freedom to steal pirated stuff.

*Note: Paul McGuinness does NOT support internet freedom.

I don't think anyone confuses freedom of speech with piracy, but just like the above situation, it's not nearly as simplistic as McGuinness and others believe it is. Shut down a whole site because it hosts or links to pirated content and you're also shutting down everything that surrounded it, a lot of which greatly resembles "free speech."

McGuinness likely won't be happy until every search engine is completely subverted by IP-heavy industries, but that's apparently acceptable collateral damage if it results in incremental sales increases.

Filed Under: censorship, copyright, engineering, open internet, paul mcguinness, search engines, u2
Companies: google

U2 Manager Still Blaming Everyone Else For Not Giving Him More Money... As U2 Sets Record For Highest Grossing Tour Ever

from the contrast dept

Ah, Paul McGuinness. U2's manager has been on something of a crusade over the past few years. Every few months, he pops up to blame every other industry for not paying musicians enough money. There was Google, ISPs and device makers, governments and, of course, evil bloggers. He's also claimed that free is the enemy. Anyway, he's at it again. In an interview with Sky News, he once again says that tech firms aren't doing enough to give money to musicians:

"I really wish those geniuses who bring us Google, Facebook, Amazon and Spotify would get their act together," he said.

"It's not the downloading that's the problem. It's a bit of ingenuity and generosity that's required from the people who are making money from the internet."

The very next sentence in that article:

Mr McGuinness was speaking after learning that U2's 360 tour, which began in Barcelona in June 2009, has now become the highest grossing of all time.

So, let me get this straight. He wants the people who are making money to "get their act together" and start figuring it out how to share with others because of "generosity." So... um... can I ask, how much of this tour revenue is U2 sharing with other musicians? Just curious. And how much are they sharing it with the internet companies whose services they used to spread the news of the tour and the album? Again... just curious.

Filed Under: blame, music industry, paul mcguinness, u2

Bono: We Should Use China's Censorship As An Example Of How To Stop Piracy

from the out-with-the-old... dept

It's no secret that Paul McGuinness, U2's longtime manager, has been making bizarre and easily refuted claims that everyone but the music industry is at fault for not making U2 even richer than it is. And that's because they're all conspiring to bring piracy to the world, which is destroying music revenue while pumping up the revenue of lots of other companies. Of course, none of that is true. Music-based revenues continue to climb quite nicely, and the revenue that ISPs and Google and others are making from "piracy" is barely worth mentioning. Does anyone really think that broadband would have noticeably fewer customers without music piracy going around?

Still, there had been some question about what U2's outspoken frontman, Bono, felt about these issues. Back in 2008, he did say that he mostly agreed with McGuinness that somehow ISPs were to blame for all of this. Then, in early 2009, there was an amusing interview where he basically said that piracy is bad, but he couldn't really speak out against it because he was too rich, and people would point that out.

Apparently he forgot that part.

As pretty much all of you are sending in, Bono has posted his regular NY Times column, about 10 big things that are important for the next 10 years and apparently, protecting his royalties... I mean... stomping out piracy makes it to number two on the list. It's the same McGuinness blather, of course. Apparently, piracy is really all the ISPs' fault:

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.

Hmm. So, apparently all the money that people used to spend on music, they now spend on internet connections? If only there were some evidence to back that up. But, as we noted, the music business has been growing, just not the sales of CDs. Considering how much U2 made on its last tour, you would think that Bono would be aware of this. As for his claim that the internet is harming the up-and-coming songwriters, again, all this shows is how incredibly out of touch Bono is. In the past, the "young, fledgling songwriter" couldn't live off ticket or t-shirt sales either. He had to hope that he got the lucky golden ticket from a record label and that they didn't then crush his spirit and originality before discarding him as an unrecouped has-been.

Today, however, the opportunities for the young, fledgling songwriter to build a following, build a business model and make a living have grown tremendously. Ask Jonathan Coulton. Or Corey Smith. Or Matthew Ebel. Or Moto Boy. Or any one of thousands of other songwriters who didn't go the major label route, but have figured out ways to make a living (or better) that simply would not have been possible just a few years ago.

So what's Bono's solution to this non-problem? Apparently it's for ISPs to spy on what everyone does and to fork over money they get to the musicians (well, he says musicians, but what he really means is the major record labels):

But 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.

Now, Bono is technically (beyond his role with U2) a venture partner at the venture capital firm Elevation Partners, and you would think that would require some basic level of technological knowhow. But, you get the feeling Elevation brought him on for his star power, rather than his keen technology insights, or he might realize that neither America's efforts to stop child pornography, nor China's efforts to suppress online dissent have worked very well. Neither has shown that it's "perfectly possible to track content." In fact, they've shown the reverse. They've shown that the more you try to track people, the further underground they go.

And is Bono really (really?) suggesting that we force ISPs to use the same tactics used to try to silence dissent in China to protect his royalties? Yikes.

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.

The problem here is that, again, Bono seems to equate file sharing with a loss of money or decrease in output from the wider creative industries. He's flat out wrong. The overall industries continue to grow. It's just a small group of the more powerful middlemen, who have refused to adapt and change with the times, who are stuck in the past. And it's because of their own unwillingness to adapt, that they may be losing some money. But the creative output, and the economic impact of those overall industries continue to grow, no matter how confused some rockstar on a crusade might be about them.

So if we're looking for big trends over the next ten years, how about we learn to stop listening to out of touch rockstars who insist they know stuff they are clearly uninformed about (or, rather, informed by a few biased and factually-challenged parties)?

Filed Under: bono, censorship, china, copyright, piracy, u2

Irony: U2's 'Free' Concert At The Berlin Wall, Blocked By A Big Wall

from the u2,-tear-down-that-wall dept

Dementia writes in to point out the rather ironic situation of a "free" concert put on by the band U2, at the remains of the Berlin Wall in order to celebrate the demise of the wall... but MTV decided to put up a big temporary barrier around the event so those who didn't have free tickets could not even see the event. Yes, they erected a special "wall" to block out a free concert about The Wall. As Dementia noted with the submission, "you're doing it wrong..."

Filed Under: berlin wall, fans, free, music, u2

U2 Manager: Free Is The Enemy Of Good; And It's Moral To Protect Old Business Models

from the morality-has-nothing-to-do-with-it dept

While Radiohead's manager has noted that file sharing is great for music and should be legal, it appears that his counterpart, Paul McGuinness, is sticking to his guns that it's evil, evil, evil... and it's all those darn ISPs' fault. He kicked this off over a year ago when he gave a speech blaming everyone but the recording industry for the industry's problems. You see, the problem was that ISPs, Google, Apple, Microsoft and Facebook weren't coming up with ways of just giving the record labels money. Apparently McGuinness has such a sense of entitlement that he thinks it's everyone else's responsibility to fix his broken business model. Since that time, he's continued to stand by this position even claiming that no other business models were possible other than having ISPs hand over money to any content creator.

In a new interview with News.com's Greg Sandoval, he stands by this position, even when Sandoval asks him about the examples of Radiohead and Trent Reznor. McGuinness totally ignores Trent Reznor -- which is too bad, since his business model experiments are a lot more complete and well thought out than Radiohead's little experiment -- and simply says:

I admire what Radiohead have done tremendously in seeking a new model. They would take the view, and I would share it, that perhaps price has been a big problem for the music business. The music business has tried to hold onto a price that was unrealistic for a long time now. I think wider distribution of lower priced things is probably the future.

But that didn't answer the question. He says Radiohead is "seeking" a new model... ignoring that they found one and that it worked amazingly well, without requiring an ISP tax. I'm wondering if he's simply ignorant of Trent Reznor's wide-ranging experiments.

But from there, he starts saying a bunch of questionable things, including the claim that we somehow need big record labels:

It's important to remember that the traditional worldwide star-making functions of the big record companies. There's nothing on the horizon to replace that.

Oh really? Has he not been on the internet? It's true that so far nothing has been able to totally replace big record labels' marketing clout, but there are plenty of interesting new services and tools out there that are quickly improving and quickly changing the marketing equation. To claim that there's "nothing on the horizon" simply suggests he hasn't been looking at the horizon very closely. If he wants a pair of binoculars, he should call us and we'll ship him a pair and even point him in the right direction of where to look.

Amusingly, when asked about the role of new technologies, McGuiness again displays his ignorance of technology. He doesn't discuss how it's made it much cheaper to perform, record, promote, distribute and share music. Instead, he only focuses on one thing: how can tech companies give bands money:

I would really like them to willingly go to the movie studios and the music companies and say this is how we can collect money from the people who are listening to your stuff and watching your movies. We acknowledge that it's the fair thing to do and we have some responsibility for doing it. Let's do it together and let's make some money.

How about he goes to those companies and explains why he isn't paying them for decreasing the costs of recording, promoting and distributing U2's music... all of which has helped to keep the band in the headlines, selling out concerts allowing them to bring in hundreds of millions. Earlier this year, we noted that Bono had said he was upset about piracy but didn't want to complain because he was too rich. Apparently McGuinness refuses to recognize that part of what helped make them all so rich were these tools that help promote and distribute U2's music for free.

And then, of course, he pulls out the old myth: that this somehow removes money from the hands of artists:

Artists are entitled to get paid, whatever kind of art they do, the same way technologists are entitled to get paid.

You know how technologists get paid? It's not because of any entitlement... but because they build a product with a business model that makes sense. There's no entitlement. There's simply setting up a business model that makes sense. And it works for musicians too -- big, medium and small.

And then he turns it into a "moral" issue:

I'd like to get a moral tone into the discussion. I think there is a big moral question for civilization.

To which there's an obvious response: where is the moral question when embracing these trends is making artists better off? All if the artists we've seen who have embraced these trends and smart business models finds themselves better off than they were before.

And then, amazingly, he tries to claim that the copyright lobbyists are simply outnumbered and out-gunned.

One official in Brussels, a senior Brussels civil servant, came up to me after I made the speech. I was there with a small group of lobbyists and he said to me 'In Brussels there are probably five or six lobbyists representing the content worldwide. There are thousands representing the ISPs, telcos and the technology industries.' He said it's really overwhelming the forces you have against you.

Basically, that civil servant lied. The entertainment industry has more lobbyists on this issue than anyone on the "other" side. And he makes it out as if all the ISPs are against him -- but some of the biggest, including AT&T are in agreement with the entertainment industry lobbyists. There are very few lobbyists (and they have much smaller budgets) fighting for the rights of consumers.

And then there's one final attack on "free" spoken from a position of supreme ignorance of how "free" works:

I started to glimpse the politics of it at that stage. I hope that our politicians, our journalists our media gain a sense of how much we stand to lose if free prevails. Ultimately free is the enemy of good.

What do we stand to lose? Restriction on how we can use products we legally purchased? Artificial restrictions on the enjoyment of content? New and wonderful business models that allow actual content creators to benefit, rather than siphoning money off to middlemen? Free is not the enemy of good. Free is a tool that, when used properly, has tremendous advantages. Many have already figured this out. The fact that McGuinness seems unable to do so isn't everyone else's problem. It's his problem.

Filed Under: business models, copyright, economics, free, music, paul mcguinness, piracy, u2

U2's Manager Says No Business Models Work... But Kicking People Off The Internet Will?

from the confusion dept

A bunch of folks have been sending in the opinion piece in the Guardian written by U2's manager Paul McGuinness expressing strong support for France's approval of a three strikes law (ignoring, conveniently, that the law was passed using trickery, telling everyone the vote would happen at a later date, waiting to most elected officials had left, and then passing the law with a vote when only a few people were still around). This isn't a huge surprise, because McGuinness has gone around (loudly) blaming everyone else for the problems in the recording industry (while reaping the rewards of the more than $300 million that U2 brings in per year). So, it's no surprise that he's in favor of laws that puts the onus on others to somehow fix the business model problems he's unwilling to fix. But some of his comments deserve a response:

There are a few simple reasons why the new law deserves strong support. First, the crisis in our music community is real. A generation of artists, all over France, and further afield, are seeing their livelihoods destroyed, their career ambitions stolen. Investment that should help them build careers is draining out of the industry. This isn't just a shift in the business model from recorded to live music. It's a catastrophe for all the business models, old and new. It is a myth that artists can build long-term careers on live music alone....

There are clearly people who oppose the new law, but I have not heard of any viable economic alternative to the system now being introduced, committing ISPs to helping protect copyright. The only other proposals offered look like solutions produced for the laboratory, not for the market place.

That's odd. For someone who claims he's "followed this debate closely" for him to claim that this is a catastrophe for all business models. After all, every single other business related to music has been doing amazingly well. And, we've gone through example after example after example after example of it working in "the marketplace" rather than "the laboratory." And we've discussed how it works for bands small, mid-sized and large -- and works in ways that has allowed them to make more money than they could have in the past. So, for him to claim that those business models don't exist or don't work is simply wrong. Furthermore, he pulls a sleight of hand by pretending that the only other business model is "live music." However, as we've seen live music is one business model that works, but not the only one.

But the key thing, is that McGuinness is confusing protection with a business model. He talks about all the problems with business models, and then seems to jump to the conclusion that kicking people off the internet will suddenly make people buy music again -- as if he can suddenly turn back the clock. Kicking people off the internet doesn't make them feel better about your product. It doesn't make people more comfortable giving money to the recording industry -- it makes them pissed off and eager to spend their money elsewhere.

It's the exact opposite of a business model. It's a "piss your customers off" model.

Meanwhile, the business models that work (the same ones McGuinness is apparently ignorant of) are all about the opposite: they're about appealing to your customers, connecting with them, building up a relationship and trust. McGuinness, instead, prefers to treat them all as criminals. He shouldn't be surprised when they respond with anger rather than money.

Filed Under: business models, france, music, paul mcguinness, three strikes, u2

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.

Filed Under: bono, business models, file sharing, u2