Dean Kay's daily e-blast points to Music Matters, a site dedicated to telling inspirational music stories on video in an effort to encourage people to make the "ethical" choice and buy or rent legal music rather than pilfer it via file sharing. It has a little bit of that feeling of a hip attempt by the industry to reach out, but the films are serious and engaging, and there's certainly nothing wrong at all with the sentiment. According to Billboard, it's led by former manager Niamh Byrne, who's now Universal UK's head of creative content. It doesn't say who's funding the campaign, and the website says it's a "collective of people across the music industry, including artists, retailers, songwriters, labels and managers, formed to remind listeners of the significance and value of music."
The real play seems to be the creation and dissemination of a "trust mark" that will (I suppose only in Great Britain) put the gold seal of legality on sites like Spotify, Napster, etc. The complete list is HERE. I suppose that sounds like part of a solution, though hardly a golden bullet. Anyway, what about the films? Well, they're short, in keeping with that youthy demo's reported attention span. But they touch on some worthy, unexpected artists (including one of my faves, The Jam) and they're well-animated. It might be good of them to open this up to all comers, and perhaps that's in the works. Here's MM's take on Blind Willie Johnson.
Music Matters - Blind Willie Johnson (23-3-10) from Music Matters on Vimeo.
I enjoyed this beautiful film, it's a start. We in the music industry have not done a good job of getting the message out, that stealing music hurts the creators and artist the most. It is having a negative effect on the quality, and quantity of music that will be available.
Posted by: Wood Newton | March 26, 2010 at 07:30 AM