|
Steve, Billy makes an excellent point when he states :
'The claim that sites such as MySpace and Bebo are doing us a favor by promoting our work is disingenuous.'
These types of sites have grown at an enormous rate over the last couple of years and have done so by conveniently forgetting that one of the reasons they exist at all is because of the content they offer to members - content provided by someone else, gratis. I must admit it's a nice business model, especially for the likes of Michael Birch - steal someone else's material make a profit from it, then develop amnesia and sell it again as part of the business and make oodles of ready cash. Billy's right to ask if Birch will be returning some of his gotten gains back to the artists who helped make him his fortune.
One thing that did disappoint me about Billy's talk with Birch was this :
'In our discussions, we largely ignored the elephant in the room: the issue of whether he ought to consider paying some kind of royalties to the artists.'
Sounds like Billy wanted to stay on Birch's good side. Maybe he's worried that Birch won't pay him for any future consulting fees. Very 'diplomatic' on Billy's part, but a bit disingenuous and self-serving methinks. I always though Billy had a bit more 'bottle' than that - or maybe like most of us he realises that he needs to put more money away for his pension.
Tommy
|