Artists need to make money: they need new businesses and licenses

We responded today to news that artists have backed away from disconnection, but still want ‘bandwidth throttling’, which could be just as bad, to say that this approach is both unjust and a distraction.

The real debate is still not happening. We’re still talking about punishment, when the basic problem is that new online music businesses can’t get started.

The reason for that is quite simple: licenses don’t exist. Unlike, for instance, radio, there’s nowhere you can go to get a license for your online music business.

The result is that it takes years to set up a new business, and the industry’s major labels are able to ‘pick winners’ that suit them. It is no coincidence that you either have to be very big, like Apple or YouTube, or prepared to give large slices of your business to the labels, as Spotify did, to get going.

Meanwhile, nobody has been able to supply an ‘all you can eat’ P2P killer: not even Virgin.

There is a serious argument that labels are acting to restrain trade, and are preventing competition. The result is that unlicensed services fill the gap.

The answer is simple, online licensing on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. The government has a duty to make this happen, as the market has in ten years failed to provide such licensing.

Our discussion next week, on October 2, will give us chance to talk about some of the real possibilities and why we’re in the policy mess we are in today. Please come to our event to hear more.