I’ve listened and I’ve listened and I’ve listened and I can’t let it go.
A confidential audio interview featuring two senior Universal Music Group digital executives appeared online today.
The culprit is Kim Dotcom. The Megaupload mogul recorded it in 2012, very likely without permission, and uploaded it this week, unsolicited.
He claims it took place just two days before his property was raided by police.
This is clearly in breach of all sorts of ethical boundaries, and Dotcom knows that better than anyone. Not for nothing has the audio been referred to as ‘ammunition’ in subsequent online reports.
Yet a private business conversation is exactly that.
MBW will not be hosting the audio, linking to it or covering it in any depth. Naming the UMG parties would feel like an act of malice.
But, on the subject of ethical boundaries, I just can’t let one moment slide.
The context of the 2012 Dotcom consultation is an interesting ‘what might have been’ flashpoint: essentially, UMG is being offered the chance to become a partner of MegaKey – a browser plug-in that sneakily replaces people’s online ads with those of its commercial clients.
The idea of hacking into Google‘s ads – and, indeed, its ad revenue – understandably beckons some consideration from Universal’s reps.
And then, as a jovial aside, one of them volunteers these words:
“I run ad-blockers permanently… I can’t remember the last time I saw an ad.”
Ad-blockers, if you weren’t aware, are browser extensions used to automatically mask or obstruct the loading of online advertising.
They remain relatively niche but globally significant; estimates suggest that around 150m people around the world have dabbled to date.
Not wildly uncommon, then. It’s no shock to consider that a handful of MBW readers will be using them right now.
(There is a point of view that I don’t buy, yet one entirely worthy of debate, that ad-blocking users would be willing to pay for ‘premium’ journalism or other brand extensions directly if asked.)
What is shocking to me is that a senior figure within a giant copyright holder would so flippantly admit to deploying what an angrier party might term a ‘piracy enabler’.
That goes especially for the market leader of an industry so infamously devastated by the habitual circumvention of monetised content.
My intention here is not to publicly castigate anyone for ad-blocking.
Frankly, shit happens.
It is simply to trigger this discussion: if musicians are ever to be paid fairly by the true extent of their audience, surely we require a wider cultural comprehension that creativity cannot exist without reward.
The music business must therefore appreciate its place within a cross-industry educative mission, and stand resolute with those facing entirely comparable commercial torment.
I am certain that 99.9% of people at Universal – and within the rest of the record business – understand this to their core.
It is saddening to learn that one or two of its leading digital minds do not.
In the grand list of things that MBW readers couldn’t live without, we’re obviously a quite a few squiggles down from Thriller, Sgt Pepper or True Detective (yes, even series 2).
But the fact remains: if everyone used ad-blockers, what we do here would not exist.
We could not offer any value or exposure to the commercial backers dotted around this page, and we would be no more. Our audience, quite literally, would become worthless.
It’s not just specialist minnows like MBW, either; great online journalistic bastions like The Guardian, The New York Times and The Huffington Post would be hard pressed to remain solvent.
What I’m describing is a world where the economic sustainability of ‘content’ – whether music, video, interactive entertainment or the written word – disintegrates with each click of the mouse.
A world where an immeasurable array of creative talent – from all backgrounds – is starved of the chance to earn enough to keep going, let alone prosper.
A world which suits the likes of Kim Dotcom down to the ground.Music Business Worldwide
