Official Ares Free Download

 In the good old bad old days, 45s were where it was at, and I still have a bunch of them stashed away somewhere.

Ahhhh. Singles.

“We need a selection of sites featuring music from indie musicians, and established artists such as Billy who own their own material and who can therefore do whatever they want with it, “I posted in p2pnet a couple of days back, going on:

” Sell individual downloads — singles, in other words — for 15 or 20 cents per, or perhaps by size as did AlloMP3,”

“What’s better, 20 people at 20 cents, or 1 person at $1? And include MP3s as well as regular tracks on CDs so people can easily transfer them to their music players.”

The names of Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music’s BPI and IFPI say it all.

BPI is short for British Phonographic Industry, and IFPI is International Federation of Phonographic Industry.

Phonographic Industry? “In American English, phonograph was the most common generic term for any early sound reproducing machine, until the second half of the 20th century, when it became archaic,” says the Wikipedia.

And ‘archaic’ tidely sums up Big 4  and their approach to music in the digital 21st century.

According to a Times Online, singles are staging a comeback with the BPI declaring 2009  “a record-breaking year”  with “117.6 million sold to date”.

A comeback? In the virtually non-existent world of online corporate sales, maybe. However, they’ve never been away  in the real world of online music, where caring is sharing, an vice versa.

Then the BPI admits “98.6 percent of all singles are now retailed in download format”.

So, “Do these huge sales figures mean that all the talk of piracy destroying music was merely self-interested whining from an industry fiercely defending its own interests?” – the story asks.

Of course, although not according to the BPI’s Adam Liversage.

“We’re still very worried about piracy,” he’s quoted as saying. “You have to set the number of sales against the fact there will be a billion illegal downloads in the UK this year, costing £200 million, money that would have been put back into developing new artists.”

Oh, really? If the  figure was true, which it isn’t, the money would have gone straight back into the pockets of Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music.

Meanwhile,  the assertion that one or one billion downloads means the loss of one or one billion sales is as ridiculous now as when it was first mooted in 2003, the year the labels launched their bizarre sue em all campaign against their own custmers.

The story rattles on as though there’s a viable corporate online music business. One of these days there may be. But not for a while. Not as long as the Big 4 persist in calling music fans criminals and thieves.

Until then,  online it’ll be no business as usual –  not corporate business, anyway.

Jon Newton – p2pnet

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