Andrew Lloyd Webber, Not A Fan Of Online Piracy
Published on Monday 6th April, 11.31am, Written by Jonathan Dudley
Andrew Lloyd Webber has waded into the online piracy debate, claiming that failure to tackle the rising problem will cost the creative industries £1.2 billion.
It is, as of yet, unclear where the gifted theatre mogul got these figures from, but he is most certainly making a noise about them.
Webber, who is a Tory peer as well as an award-winning musician and composer, spoke at the House of Lords and claimed that the music sector was likely to lose £1.2 billion between 2007 and 2012. The Phantom Of The Opera composer also claimed up to 30,000 UK jobs could be lost, not including the artists who could be forced out of the creative industries as a result of piracy.
I’m going to take a quick break from the facts for a second and offer you a little bit of opinion. 30,000 jobs is a hell of a lot and very little evidence seems to be available to support the claim (this is not to say such evidence does not exist). Obviously, copyright infringement is a problem but is it quite as serious as Lloyd Webber would have us believe? Is the artistic soul of Britain at stake? Let’s find out…
Lloyd Webber’s impassioned speech saw him question the future of Britain’s creativity, saying: “The question that occurs to me is whether in 10 years’ time Britain will be a place from which, say, The Beatles could have emerged? Will Britain be a fertile environment for all creative talent? Will Britain be a place where music, TV, film, games and publishing companies are sufficiently healthy to invest in British creative talent and take it to the rest of the world?”
Dear God Andrew! Lighten up! Yes piracy is a problem, yes a solution should be found, but to suggest that piracy will reduce Britain to some kind of glum, grey landscape bereft of music and art is ridiculous. What about the legions of bedroom composers, hobby artists and amateur performers whose main love is their art rather than their paycheque? Will they throw down their mics, abandon their canvases and exit, stage left, because there’s no money in it anymore? No, no they will not.
Will the likes of John Barrowman and Rhydian be forced to take Saturday jobs at Burger King if a small percentage of their fans download their latest release rather than buy it? Most people still pay for their music; having a strop and making slightly dubious claims is not going to stop the few people who choose to illegally download doing so.
Lloyd Webber’s slightly melodramatic take on internet piracy also saw him attack internet service providers, saying that they “feed off and undermine” the creative industries. Okay, Lord Lloyd Webber, point taken, but do you really think that the soul purpose of broadband is to shamelessly steal your music? The internet is hands down, the greatest invention of our age, what it “feeds off” is people’s lust for knowledge, their ceaseless pursuit of unending connectivity, not the music industry, which perhaps has taken a knock but it will recover, if it adapts.
For interest’s sake, I visited popular illegal filesharing website, thepiratebay.com and entered the search term “cast recording” to see just what impact internet piracy has had on Lloyd Webber’s own corner of the music industry. Do you know how many people are currently sharing/stealing West End cast recordings? About 100, which I am in no way trying to justify but gosh, it’s hardly the end of the world, is it?
Of course Lloyd Webber is speaking on behalf of all of Britain’s legions of creative types rather than just the musical theatre side of things, I just seem to have missed the ceremony where he was appointed defender and mouthpiece of a group who have previously had no problems expressing themselves… just my opinion.
Oh, one last thing. I couldn’t write the word ‘piracy’ without writing the following: Avast ye scurvy dogs! Man the portside, the internet’s a’comin, batten down the music industry!
Interesting viewpoint. I’m inclined to agree. Did you read Andy’s piece on this the other day? Andrew Lloyd Webber Attacks the Internet
Thanks for giving a balancing viewpoint Jonathan. Have to agree with you. The idea of media and entertainment moguls as victims doesn’t wash with me. It’s as if the internet has crept up unannounced and taken them by surprise.
I’m not in any way supporting piracy as I believe that artists should be recognised for their work. But I do believe that the big players would benefit from a more proactive approach to new markets and a whole generation of people who have different watching, listening and buying habits.
Those 30,000 people will probably be the ones best placed to develop the next generation of music sharing and routes to market for artists. Any blog that ends in buccaneering piracy talk is a sure winner for me!