Radiohead guitarist blasts music industry over piracy

Radiohead guitarist Ed O’Brien has taken a swipe at the music industry for not moving quickly enough in the digital era says Music-news.com.

The debate surrounding music piracy in the digital age has been raging back-and-forth since the early days of Napster, but O’Brien nailed his colours onto the ‘for’ side of the debate.

Radio station, XFM.co.uk claim O’Brien said that the music industry’s current problems with piracy are solely their own fault, while the website PaidContent.org quote the guitarist as saying:

‘I have a problem when people in the industry say ‘it’s killing the industry, it’s the thing that’s ripping us apart’. I don’t actually believe it is … [Pirates] might not buy an album, but they’re spending their money buying concert tickets, a t-shirt, whatever.

‘It’s an analogue business model in a digital era. The business model has to change. You’ve got to license out more music – have more Spotifys, more websites selling more music. You’ve got to make it slightly cheaper to get music in order to compete with the peer-to-peers.

‘That’s been the whole problem in the last 10 years. Why are we here now? Because the recording industry dragged its feet over digital.’

Is O’Brien right? Let us know in the comments.

Related stories:

1. Closed music blogs getting back online
2. Blogger grounded by the law for his Guns N’ Roses leak
3. Music from the Zanpaktou arc in Bleach