I am Edwyn Colllins manager. Let me tell you a story. At the beginning of this year I noticed that Edwyn's myspace had gone bit wonky and I tried to upload the tracks back on to the music player. His most famous track, which he owns the copyright in, as he does for most of the music he's recorded in his life (preferring to go it alone than have his music trapped "in perpetuity" to use the contract language of the major record company) is called A Girl Like You. It's quite famous. Lo and behold, it would not upload, I was told Edwyn was attempting to breach a copyright and he was sent to the Orwellian myspace copyright re-education page. Quite chilling, actually. I naturally blew my stack and wrote to myspace on his behalf demanding to know who the hell was claiming copyright of Edwyn's track? Which, incidentally, he always made freely available for download on myspace, something which amazed his followers. Eventually, after HUGE difficulty, I was told Warner Music Group were claiming it. I found a nice lawyer guy at Warners, very apologetic, promised to get it sorted, but all these months later it isn't. That is because Myspace are not equipped to deal with the notion that anyone other than a major can claim a copyright. Warner's were one of the lead petitioners in the attempt to put those three stoner lads in Sweden in prison recently, remember. A Girl Like You is available FOR SALE all over the internet. Not by Edwyn, by all sorts of respectable major labels whose licence to sell it ran out years ago and who do not account to him. Attempting to make them cease and desist would use up the rest of my life. Because this is what they do and what they've always done. And it's not just majors. If I had a fiver for all the dodgy indie labels we've been involved with I'd have £35 or thereabouts. (Exceptions: Heavenly and Domino).

Andrew Loog Oldham said that getting ripped off (by the industry) was your entrance fee to the music business of the sixties, so get over it. He's right and things have not changed. We are very over it, but nonetheless aware of who the biggest bootleggers around are. It's not the filesharers. Personally, we've always loved bootlegs. Even when Edwyn was really skint at the fag end of the eighties, I remember being in Camden market and seeing some tapes of a couple of his shows on sale. I tried to buy them but the stallholder somehow knew who I was and said "free to the management." I failed to see how that guy selling tapes of Edwyn or even U2 or anybody on the list of signatories above could harm their career.

But anyway, as an earlier post said, this is not really an argument worth having. The gig's up. You might as well take a position about when you want the sun to come up in the morning. It's over. Now let's get on with working out a wonderful new way for music lovers to enjoy music for free or for a small subscription that makes it legal and easy to hear ANYTHING and allows the artist to reap the rewards of such freedom of access. Viva la revolution!

You should be persuing the record companies that have stolen money hand over fist from you and other artists over the years rather than picking on the 'little guy/gal'.

The horse has long since bolted and the record companies and PRS are struggling to play catch up and trying to screw anyone and everyone for money. My mother-in-law is a seamstress who works from home. They started harassing her because she listens to the radio while she works. Their claims that they're doing it "for their artists" is hollower than a brandy snap.

Perhaps if record companies were less inclined to go for the quick buck and spent more time and money developing acts they'd be in a better finanical position now and not looking to bully the people who gave them their profits in the first place.

5) Dan Bull: "music's been alive, thriving since cavemen. Folk songs so long have had a place in communities that you should be amazed at it."

i really wanted to try to stick to a diplomatic and constructive tone but this argument can only be described as plain reactionary, but since i've heard similar points many times ("if you don't earn money selling records, you should compensate that by playing gigs.") i thought it might still be worth responding to.

no one that has just the slightest interest in what's been happening in popular music in the last 50 years can deny the importance of the studio as an outlet for creativity. if we'd be thrown back into a situation where we'd be reduced to plain live music we'd loose phil spector's "wall of sound", floyd's psychedelic soundscapes, ztt and trevor horn's lovingly constructed sonic mosaics, electronic music in its entirety (all areas of sequenced music really - that would include electronica, techno, drum&bass, hip hop, rnb as well as an endless list of additional genres and sub-genres) AND a million other things AND everything that's influenced by it - popular music wouldn't exist. the studio has also enabled generations of artists to create amazing music that probably would've struggled to cut through in a traditional live setting - the emancipation from the crowd's thumb, the liberation of being able to construct, develop and formulate an idea in the protected environment of the studio is undoubtedly a great achievement. a lot of important music that uses the studio in a particularly intricate way can't be played live anyway. beyond that, playing gigs is far less lucrative than a lot of people seem to imagine - if you're touring and you consistently fill 800+ capacity venues you'll be fine of course, but once again it's the small ones and therefore cultural diversity that's being hit the hardest by the decline of the industry. a suggestion: ask a smaller american indie band how much money they loose when they set up a european tour playing 100-200 capacity venues.

6) Résumé

a major label a&r or an emi shareholder might prioritize different points but for me the two most threatening aspects of the current situation are:

-the quality of studio music is gonna decline as even major artists will have to focus on different ways of generating income rather than carefully constructing an album;

-the loss of cultural diversity as major labels will continue to suffer but indies and self-releases will continue to die;

especially in the longer run this must be great worry - based on the achievements of the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s there's enough great music out there to inspire another two or three generations (even if they can't do music full time anymore), but what happens then? if we fail to develop a model that allows musicians to make a living being musicians, it's unavoidable that a lot of great music will remain unplayed, unrecorded and therefore unheard - robbing listeners and musicians of the opportunity to be inspired and moved by it. paul collins' question is more than valid:

"Would "Dark Side Of The Moon", "A Night At The Opera", "Pet Sounds", "Revolver" or "Spilt Milk" have turned out as good if all band members in question had to get a day job to subsidise their desire to create and record music?"

it's good to see that other artists are also realizing the importance of the issue and have the guts to address it (i know it would make me look a lot cooler if i'd talk in the usual "music should be free" platitudes) - no one's oblivious to the technical and formal difficulties of restricting illegal file sharing but to clearly express the political will to do so is a necessary and encouraging starting point.

file-sharing makes no sense __ people who don t want to pay for the things they like and consume, are wrong __getting great explanations [ free ] from ulrich schnauss [ who i respect and admire a lot ] is great  and he is right_ they "way" trying to stop file-sharing is going to be done i do not like it ___doens t sound even democratic  to me ___i think  you can always try different ways to get something [ wich is right , file-sharing shouldn t be allow ]  done __and i think this way is not right_i rather allow file-sharing _

If your music is popular enough people will pay for it so you can remain viable because they want you to stay in business.  If your music is unpopular or only moderately popular, dont quit your day job.  Us bricklayers and laborers watch you full time musicians live a glamourous, luxurious life where you get to do what you love and be rewarded publicly over and over for simply doing your job.  We get no credit, just a paycheck and sometimes that doesnt come in reliably, and we have no "fans" to appeal to, just the various government agencies.

Sorry, but I think you all are whiners who trash hotel rooms and never really leave childhood due to vanity caused by an excess of superficial public adoration.  Just because you wrote a song doesnt make it yours. You simply "discovered" something someone else would have discovered eventually if you hadnt.  No one truly owns anything anyway.  We're all here on borrowed time.