This is the Central Scrutinizer…

The BBC are obviously being sucked off by record executives at the moment, since they’ve been obsessing over music piracy, first giving attention to the Pirate Party (who, it must be said, speak sense in their core policies) but now buy giving some studio big wigs a chance to put forward the old lines about how you downloading a copy of Queen’s Hot Space will lead to the destruction of not only all music, but the very concept of sound itself. It’s already killed off Lilly Allen, which is more an argument for torrenting tunes than it is an argument against it.

Right, what do these cocksuckers (who obviously are entirely impartial and have no vested interest in having copyright laws as strict as possible, no sireee bob) want?

MIKE SMITH, HEAD OF COLUMBIA RECORDS UK

“We’ve got a perfectly good strong copyright system in place. The law exists. That law needs to be enforced.

“And if that law is enforced then I think the opportunities for the future of the music business are enormous, whether that be a streaming model, a subscription model, the sale of MP3s, the sale of albums, the sale of deluxe fabulous edition specialist albums.

“I think we’ve got a great future as an industry, as long as government has got the strength to step up and support copyright.”

O rly? You “need” copyright, do you? Well, there’s two problems there. 1) The internet, with its ability to send information to anyone, anywhere, is rapidly making intellectual property irrelevant and impossible to enforce (hence your cries for increasingly harsh penalties to downloaders). 2) HEY GUESS WHAT, the industry is far from dying. See?

A new report from UK royalty collection society PRS for Music points to growth within the music sector despite the economic problems and continuing piracy issues – with the overall size of the UK music industry growing by 4.7% to be worth £3.6B in 2008.

Hell, the Fleet Foxes (give their album a go if you haven’t- seriously) have benefited from file sharing by expanding their fan base in a way no amount of advertising could. If you really value your customers, rather than taking advantage of these legal fictions you love so much, you’d offer them something of real value. You could sell some of those “Deluxe fabulous” editions for a good amount less than you currently do and still make a decent turnover.

JON WEBSTER, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, MUSIC MANAGERS’ FORUM

“If the industry can’t solve the problem, the government should step in to try and impose it if necessary. It’s not a popular view but it’s one of the things we’ve got to do to break the logjam.”

Oh, great. Yet another industry wanting a bailout or special privilege.  That’s really what we all need….

Other industries find ways to get around developments in technology and people’s preferences. You guys can do it too. More from the same guy:

“The great conundrum is – should the music industry be supporting models that compete with free and therefore drive the price of music down? Unfortunately I think that’s the way we’re going to go.”

Again with the protectionism. You’ve got no “right” to your increasingly irrelevant business model. If times move on from the big, expensive studios with pricey ad campaigns, so be it. The reason you big wigs are scared is not because the artists are being squeezed- they’re not- it’s because it’s you guys, the suits, who will be out on your asses soon enough. If you can’t compete with free, you can’t compete at all.

Now for a bit of sense….

ANTHONY VOLODKIN, FOUNDER, THE HYPE MACHINE

The future will revolve around finding innovative ways to use music, especially on the web, according to Mr Volodkin.

“One example is music games – they’ve created value where there was nothing like that before. People suddenly pay for Rock Star or Guitar Hero. That came from out of nowhere and is a use that people couldn’t envision just a few years ago.

“More of that will happen. For that to happen on the web, though, the way people work with rights on the web needs to ease up.”

And now, this.