No Rock And Roll Fun

BURYING GOOD NEWS? IT MUST BE THE MUSIC INDUSTRY: Clearly afraid that too much attention to the record level of album sales in Britain would wreck attempts to portray the music industry as a business on the ropes, Andrew Yeates, director general of the BPI, has raised the spectre of suing filesharers in the UK. The attempts to drag the spotlight off the details of sales of CDs are booming is a classic rehashing of stuff the BPI has already muttered about in public, although I think this is the first time a named official has admitted that legal action is a possibility that's being considered. Oddly, the BPI DG says that they want to introduce new legitimate online download services - which raises the question: what, exactly, is stopping them? The only reason iTunes hasn't launched on this side of the Atlantic yet is because the labels are holding it up.

"Recent industry statistics reveal that file-sharing is on the decline in the US but increasing in Europe since the RIAA embarked on its legal campaign", reports Reuters - even if you accept that the legal action has caused the alleged decline in the US, why would it have had any effect either way on Europe?