Ben Reid
21 Aug 2006 11:17
Terry McBride, the CEO of Canadian record label Nettwerk Music believes that the recording industry's continued litigation against P2P filesharers are hurting musicians and the music business in general.
Speaking at the first-ever Bandwidth Music and Technology Conference, McBride called on the major labels to cease lawsuits against individuals. "[The major labels] are using fear as a tactic [to] push these kids away from these P2P systems," McBride said. "You can't use fear to change these behaviors - it just isn't effective. These lawsuits have hurt my artists. We need to stop these lawsuits."
McBride, who launched the label in 1984 and whose line-up includes Avril Lavigne, Barenaked Ladies, Dido, Sum 41, and Sarah McLachlan, feels so opposed to the, as he describes, "fear" tactics practised by the Recording Industry Association Of America (RIAA), that he is prepared to pay the legal fees for one defendant. Elisa Greubel, a 15-year-old Texas girl, recently found herself dealt an RIAA suit for allegedly downloading 600 songs onto their computer. After contacting Nettwerk artist MC Lars, he solicited McBride's help.
Some of the songs Greubel was alleged to have illegally downloaded were from Avril Lavigne.
"Avril or any of my artists would never sue a fan," McBride said. "I want those fans to share that music. When [the original] Napster hit, we had the same knee-jerk reaction that everyone else did: 'Who are these kids, let's get them and sue them.' But after a while we realized that they were no different than I was when I was as a teenager, just looking to consume as much music as possible."
McBride believes the music industry should be embracing the advantages of p2p technologies, instead of trying to eradicate it. One such method is Snocap, a currently beta-testing Linx service, which gives artists the ability to sell their music directly, using online community sites such as MySpace.
McBride also believes that the price of digital music downloads through legal services such as the iTunes Music Store and Napster should be substantially lowered. "If the price comes down.. to between 25 and 49 cents a song.. the P2P marketplace will begin to go away," he said.
He also added,"you should never tell the consumer how to consume your music. You should make it available wherever they want. I don't want to dictate how people buy our music."
An RIAA spokesperson declined to comment on McBride's statements.
Source:
mp3.com