No Rock And Roll Fun

THE ARCHDUKE TAKES ON THE BPI MAN: Last week saw a face off between Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand and Matt Phillips of the BPI at an Edinburgh University debate on, of course, file sharing. Is it just us, or is Matt Phillips popping up in the media more and more? Almost like the BPI is trying to shrug off its faceless fat cat image by giving itself a not entirely unattractive face. I mean, if he wasn't working for the BPI and we weren't spoken for, we'd probably buy him a Bacardi Breezer or two in a bid to getting a chance to place a firm, manly hand on his thigh. Anyway, Alex doesn't have a problem with file sharing, providing it's for community, not cash:

"the most important question [is] is there a profit? If nobody is making a profit then leave them alone. If they are, do they have a right? If they don't then the government should probably legislate against them. I am quite in favour of downloading and file sharing shared between players of music but that doesn't mean I am in favour of unscrupulous organisations making a fast buck from somebody else."

Talking of unscrupulous organisations making a fast buck off somebody else, here's Matt's couterpoint:

"Record companies have always spent the most promoting new artists. We still get this image of the recording industry as greedy fat cats in suits who are churning out CDs at £20 a time and ripping off the consumers. It's a cartoonish view. What the argument is about is the need to protect the investment in artists."

Why, we wonder, is the image of the industry one of fatcats in suits ripping off the consumers with over-priced CDs? Could it be something to do with the music industry actually being like that? Isn't the image of record comapnies staffed by brown-eyed boys helping out little guys much more of an cartoon?