U2 Band Manager: ‘Ban Music Pirates from the Internet’

Wants ISPs to adopt a “three strikes and you’re out” enforcement policy.

Paul McGuiness, the manager of Irish rock band U2 for some 30 years, is now calling for ISPs to ban those who illegal download music from the internet.

In a recent speech titled “The Online Bonanza: Who is Making All The Money and Why Aren’t They Sharing It?” he told the audience that he wants ISPs to enact a “three strikes and you’re out” policy under which illegal file-sharers would have their internet subscriptions terminated for refusal to comply.

“We must shame them into wanting to help us. Their snouts have been at our trough feeding free for too long,” Mr McGuinness said at the Midem music industry conference in Cannes in an interview with the UK’s Telegraph.

“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 The ISP lobbyists who say they should not have to ‘police the internet’ are living in the past – relying on outdated excuses from an earlier technological age.”

The reason for his angst seems to be caused by the recent release of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry’s (IFPI) 2008 Digital Music Report which noted that although digital music sales increased by some 40%, overall CD sales declined by 10%. McGuiness believes that the failure to crack down on those who illegally download music from the internet are the main reason why digital sales didn’t increase further then what was reported, calling it “the single biggest failure in the digital music market”.

He then goes on to make the age old comparison that each illegally downloaded music track equates to an actual lost sale and therefore constitutes an outright theft.

McGuiness continues:

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? With a laptop, a broadband account, an MP3 player and a smartphone you can now steal all the content, music, video and literary in the world without any money going to the content owners.”

On the other hand, if you get caught stealing a laptop in the computer store or don’t pay your broadband bill there are obvious consequences. You get nicked or you get your access cut off.

He then went to praise the anti-piracy trifecta going on in France where ISPs, copyright holders, and the French Govt. itself have joined forces to begin making sure that each and every packet transmitted on the Internet is inspected for copyrighted content.

Now it’s unclear what drove him to make this speech lambasting the fact that ISPs dared to embrace privacy and freedom over censorship and restriction, but I hope that Bono and crew knew nothing of it. Considering the hundreds of millions that U2 has made over the years it’s hard not believe that they as well as he aren’t living the good life right now.

So is he angry that other bands aren’t able to make as much on physical CD or digital sales as they could? Or, is he merely lamenting the decline of the music industry itself? My guess is that it’s the latter.

Either way, it’s hard to fathom that a guy who has an association with a band that has publicly castigated injustice of almost every kind in the world is calling for the monitoring of everybody’s online communications simply so that music artists can make every single dime, nickel, and penny they feel due. Doesn’t he realize that some people download stuff they wouldn’t even considering buying?

Profits before privacy. It’s certainly not the U2 way, but I guess he is just their manager after all.

Where’s Bono when you need him?