Ireland vs. The Internet

Posted on 20th Jan 12 by Mike McGrath Bryan | 3

Another issue that people can’t possibly have ignored is the recent web protests against SOPA/PIPA in the States, that saw Wikipedia, Reddit, etc. go black for a day. For those of us who haven’t caught up on it (and where have you been?), it allows copyright holders the power to shut down any site they believe infringes on their rights. That’s not just piracy, though. That’s using images to go with reviews, YouTube vids to try a new album… essentially a killswitch for the internet for copyright holders against anyone they don’t like, using copyright as a flimsy pretext. The backers of these for-the-moment shelved bills talk about how it empowers them to crack down on copyright infringement and so forth. Yet, last night, the FBI shut down Megaupload, a popular filesharing service. The fact is currently existing measures are good enough to shut down a company and put a 500 million-dollar price on its head. There is no need to turn the Internet upside-down and infringe our Constitutional rights to freedom of expression in the process.

Here in Ireland, though, EMI and associates have decided to sue the State for not rushing through anti-piracy legislation. Quite why this is the case is the issue: EMI’s output in recent years has been little more than a hodge-podge of reissues and chart fluff. If there’s any reason losses have been incurred, it’s because the majors have by and large given both the casual and hardcore music audiences fuck-all to invest in. Yet the white whale of piracy continues to be in demand among major-label staff in Ireland. And here they are, pursuing the instatement of laws that will give them SOPA-esque 1984-powers. What they are trying to rush through is a bill that will force ISPs to run the 3-strike law currently being trialled elsewhere.

IMRO, of course, fresh off its failure to persecute the online magazine/blogging community for the Irish music mainstream’s failure to adapt, is all over this. Not content with pushing mediocrity like U2, Jedward, etc. as our chief musical exports, they’ve decided it’s the consumers’ fault that they’ve failed in their job. But the fact is this – when you devalue art, mass-manufacture it with boybands, X-Factor, etc., bully bands into compromising their vision to fall in with their buddies’ at big radio/TV’s mind-numbing interest and generally express contempt for anybody that dares to discern – be they band or fan – you turn it into little more than a product for mass consumption. And if the masses can get a product cheaper elsewhere, they’ll vote with their feet. Business 101.

For those of you in big music that by some accident of fate are reading this – I direct your attention to the resurgent independent music industry in Ireland. Shops like PLUGD in Cork, and Wingnut in Galway/Waterford, place artists above everything else. No blaring chart hits to be had here, no pester-power deals that showcase a bullying bulk-buying muscle: just good music. Good music, of all genres, from Irish bands with creative vision and the will and determination to pursue their art on their own terms. It’s here for you, it’s fairly priced to band, shop and consumer, the dude behind the counter gives a shit about music and will talk about it with you. That is what is missing from these high-street, brushed-steel titans. That is why people have abandoned them: the kind of person that wants music and understands its integrity is going to support the shop that champions actual music, the casual music fan probably never gave a shit less anyway. Who loses out? The big shops for not supporting Irish music in the first place. It’s clear they haven’t learned their lesson either – iTunes’ frontend is soaking in major-label interests when it was supposed to be the great democratiser of online music sales.

Labels are keeping their heads above water – the emergence of Bandcamp as an industry-beating online download tool/mailorder facility has made it incredibly easy for independent and specialty labels to index and show off new and catalogue releases. Meanwhile, the now-staple diet of vinyl for enthusiasts, limited CD for anoraks and digital for convenience has been joined by the return of the cassette – a strange yet comforting format in 2012 that simultaneously provides a collector’s item for enthusiasts and an affordable means of physical release for start-ups. Bundle in a Bandcamp voucher and off you get. Labels and bands split profit, and with a bit of elbow grease, the bulk of press can be handled with a few nights’ work on email and the assembly of physical promo packages. Bish, bash, bosh. While there are often complications, by and large, it’s been a success in recent years – something big music cannot claim to be.

Meanwhile, music has never been stronger in Ireland: these and many other pages are littered every day with phenomenal artists and albums that, were they in the care of cynical majors, would be released weeks apart, and compromised hugely for the benefit of Joe Public. Joe Public, that, y’know, likes what they tell them to. That the distributors and shops continue to push the likes of The Script over ASIWYFA, Adebisi Shank, Owensie, etc. does nothing to aid the problem.

The mainstream business model of music in Ireland has to change. This is as true as it was in the days of home-taping. But harassing people and infringing their privacy is not going to do anything but sour people further on supporting music. Maybe if people could relate to what majors choose to get behind, rather than just pointing and laughing at a hairspray-sodden freakshow or vaguely co-angsting with a token wannabe college-band rockstar, they wouldn’t be so indifferent to the fates of the majors.

And perhaps people like us wouldn’t have walked out on it all years ago to support a model that not only puts art first, but works. Works!

For our next trick, Ireland will kill the internet to save CDs: The Whip.

About Mike McGrath Bryan

Drop-d's editor and news slave since November 2010, and a full-time freelance contributing journalist. Multimedia student, retro gamer and general speccy-four-eyes.

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