Neil Young: "Piracy is the new radio"

[MoldaMania182]

Here's a good one. Neil Young at D Dive into Media Conference:

It doesn't affect me because I look at the internet as the new radio. I look at the radio as gone. [...] Piracy is the new radio. That's how music gets around. [...] That's the radio. If you really want to hear it, let's make it available, let them hear it, let them hear the 95 percent of it.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/31/2761597/neil-young-music-steve-jobs-piracy-is-the-new-radio


I figured this would rile the troops.

 

[nocomradio]

I also think it doesn't affect Neil as much because he isn't as relevant as he used to be in the music scene, at least commercially.

He came from a time when you didn't need sex appeal and looks to become a star, but raw talent instead. Think Bob Dylan, and the like. Now, the earning potential of a sex-dripping young lady is the real driving factor of sales of their music, not the actual music or talent. Some of the stuff allegedly being pirated and shared illegally probably isn't suffering in terms of actual sales, because it probably wouldn't stand on its own legs for long anyway. Much of the new music being turned out these days really has no staying power. I think that is very telling in itself.

What he is saying is somewhat true, but the only ones who really seem to be complaining about piracy anyway are the record companies with the big bottom lines supposedly being eroded from this. The artists still get their royalty checks and always will as long as the sales of a recording are big enough to warrant it. I doubt anyone is really being hurt that badly. Plus, I don't think Neil is in touch as much as he thinks he is with a statement about how the music producers and record companies are looking out for the artists. They are looking out for their bottom line. Nothing wrong with that as they are a business, but it isn't all warm and fuzzy like that.