Billboard has the full text of yesterday’s speech given by U2 manager Paul McGuinness at the MIDEM conference in Cannes.
His remarks call for ISPs to get involved in the policing of the content being carried across their network.
Despite selling their broadband service on the basis of sharing photos and sending emails, McGuinness says that music sharing – illegal music sharing – is the killer app that justifies $25 broadband.
In his speech, he says that Radiohead’s widely reported ‘honesty box’ demonstrates that given the choice to get music for free from an authorized site, the majority will still steal using other peer-to-peer applications.
It’s time for a new approach — time for ISPs to start taking responsibility for the content they’ve profited from for years.
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For ISPs in general, the days of prevaricating over their responsibilities for helping protect music must end. The ISP lobbyists who say they should not have to “police the internet” are living in the past — relying on outdated excuses from an earlier technological age.
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And as it turned, the “Safe Harbour” concept was really a Thieves’ Charter. The legal precedent that device-makers and pipe and network owners should not be held accountable for any criminal activity enabled by their devices and services has been enormously damaging to content owners and developing artists. If you were publishing a magazine that was advertising stolen cars, processing payments for them and arranging delivery of them you’d expect to get a visit from the police wouldn’t you? What’s the difference?
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U2, Paul McGuinness, illegal content