www.musicweek.com FEATUREANTI-PIRACY A PROBLEM SHARED The music industry is united in the fight against piracy – but can it agree on the right strategy?

22.06.12 MusicWeek 19

DIGITAL TIM INGHAM

W

ith a name like Megaracer, he was bound to own some pretty special automobiles. The garage of his garish mansion

was stuffed with top-of-the-range Mercedes and brand new Maseratis – not to mention a stunning vintage pink Cadillac. Most were adorned with personalised number

plates that shouted of his rebellious route to wealth. ‘STONED’, ‘EVIL’, ‘MAFIA’, ‘HACKER’ and ‘GUILTY’ were all in there in - whilst the word

hanging under the bonnet of his £300,000 Rolls Royce Phantom said everything about how untouchable he believed he’d become: ‘GOD’ But on January 20, 2012, the lawless world

surrounding the super-rich, super-sized Megaracer – aka Kim Dotcom – began to crumble. Dotcom had clearly enjoyed his fortune, siphoned

off from the popularity of other people’s art, over seven wild and excessive years. But, under siege from armed police, his assets seized, suddenly he was no longer top dog. Perhaps most galling of all for the arrested

Megaupload founder was watching ‘Megaracer’, his online Xbox Live alias, limply slip into the world’s

ON/AIR ON THE WAY BACK?

Pre-release cover versions of Maroon 5 and Carly Rae Jepsen songs have swarmed the UK charts in recent months – a timely reminder of the downside to having no industry-wide On Air/ On Sale initiative. Did the trade give up on the strategy too soon?

Jon Webster, MMF Unfortunately we did. We need to recognise that the world has changed and that consumers

desire instant gratification. Rights-holders who complain

that this is “unreasonable” need to wake up to the new world. When consumers hear a track they should be able to consume it legally. We have to accept that the

web is worldwide and act accordingly. The internet is global not territorial so territorial release strategies make little sense in the digital age. If that screws up antiquated

marketing strategies we need new ones.

SIMON WHEELER, BEGGARS This is not a simple subject. It’s a fact that for many ‘hits’ it takes a number of weeks of

[radio] plays to create the kind of demand. Even though this idea has

been pushed hard by the MMF, it can sometimes be the manager who is pushing not to go on air/on sale! The only sure-fire way to ensure that this happens is to create a rule that to qualify for the charts a track cannot be played on radio before it is available to

ABOVE Piracy looms: The music industry agrees that it needs the right mix of tactics to nullify the threat

No.2 position. Imagine the shame. The recorded music industry couldn’t have wished

for a better anti-piracy poster boy. For years they’d argued that magnates profiteering from illegal file- sharing were living the life of Riley on the back of money owed to artists. The cartoon of the bloated, crooked cigar-puffing label exec was a lie, or at least an anachronism, they said; the supposed web ‘freedom fighters’ enabling mass copyright infringement were the world’s real fat cats. “These site owners have always positioned

themselves as the little guy; the standard-bearers of free speech,” explains Universal Music UK’s director of digital Paul Smernicki. “But in reality, they’re

buy - and that would be radical!

PAUL SMERNICKI, UNIVERSAL From a consumer point of view, I do think anyone who doesn’t support it is living in the past. It frustrates

me. But if you’ve got expectations from media partners or from the artists, it can become a tricky landscape. Broadly, my view is that it’s rapidly becoming more of an outdated scenario when fans can’t legally buy the songs they hear on radio. Still, I am hopeful. If fans understood

where the blocks lay [in downloading their favourite music when they hear it] I think they would evaporate fairly quickly. I can’t imagine an act is ever over the moon that a version of an upcoming song that is not theirs is in the charts when theirs is yet to release. But on the other hand, if their

original song comes out on Sunday after weeks of radio play and goes to number one, I’m sure they’re fine about it. It does depend on the type of artist. If all the labels had been fully on board from the very start, would it have been different? Possibly.