One step closer to a law against music piracy

There is no such thing as a quiet week for those keeping tabs on how the record industry is coping with the ups and downs of digital music.

The focus worldwide of late has been on moves by record labels lobbying governments to force internet service providers (ISPs) to curb illegal file-sharing.

The major labels have become increasingly shrill in their criticisms of ISPs of late, saying this sector have unfairly profited off the back of recorded music. Paul McGuinness's recent MIDEM speech contained several digs of this variety.

The record industry would like the ISPs to terminate the internet connections of persistent illegal file-sharers. However, ISPs have been pointing out that it's not as easy as that.

British culture secretary Andy Burnham entered the fray this week and it was obvious from his comments that record industry lobbyists earned their fat fees.

Burnham told the ISPs to come up with a workable plan to curb music and movie piracy or the government would bring in their own legislation to deal with this next year.

Internet and legal experts believe that such a move, which is already in train in France, would face huge technical, legal and consumer hurdles were it to be implemented.

With a new survey pointing to the fact that one in five British internet users have admitted to illegally downloading copyrighted material, it does appear to be another instance of the record industry reacting too late.

Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail and editor of Wired magazine, believes that technological advances have turned music into a "free" product.

"Between digital reproduction and peer-to-peer distribution, the real cost of distributing music has truly hit bottom," says Anderson in the current issue of Wired.

"The product has become free because of sheer economic gravity. That force is so powerful that laws, guilt trips, DRM, and every other barrier to piracy the labels can think of have failed."

The solution? Anderson points to cross-subsidisation, where acts and labels give away free music "as a way of marketing concerts, merchandise, licensing, and other paid fare".

Good news, yet again, for established bands and heritage acts.

Bluesman Seasick Steve comes up for Oxegen

How long do you think it will take for Oxegen to sell out this year? An hour? Two hours? 146 minutes, 17 seconds? On The Record reckons it's time some enterprising bookie started offering odds on this annual phenomenon.

The line-up for this year's event continues to grow on a daily basis.

The latest additions include Seasick Steve, Band Of Horses, The Courteneers, Aphex Twin, Rage Against The Machine, Panic at The Disco, The Feeling and The Prodigy.

Other acts expected to be looking for road-signs to Punchestown this July include Amy Winehouse, Editors and Newton Faulkner.

Tickets for Oxegen 2008 go on general sale next Friday, March 7th.

Misspent youths

Calling all mods, rockers, ravers, hippies, bikers, bootboys, goths, skins, new romantics and teds: Garry O'Neill wants to hear from you.

O'Neill is putting together a photo-book about Dublin youth cultures from the 1960s to 1990s.

"Our shops have plenty of books on the tenement life of our parents and grandparents, on Dublin history, on Dublin writers and even more on the Dublin underworld," says O'Neill, "but nothing on teenage life over the period I have chosen to cover and certainly not anything with photographs in it." Find out more at www.myspace.com/garryoneill