Virgin Media And UMG Are Destroying Themselves

A building being demolished by hand, much like UMG

Photo Credit: lanchongzi

The recent agreement between UK ISP Virgin Media and Universal Music Group has received a lot of coverage recently. It is in direct competition with Spotify in the sense that they are both subscription streaming models.

I recently wrote a post on ‘The Myth Of The Lost Sale’ so that you could have some context for my reasoning behind this. If you haven’t read it yet I highly recommend you do. In short it explains why one download does not equate to one lost sale.

The Story

According to HypeBot:

ISP Virgin Media will begin offering a monthly subscription service that gives UK broadband customers the ability both stream and download unlimited tracks from Universal Music's catalog . A lower priced tier will offer streaming and a more limited number of downloads.

However there is a massive conflict of interest here. An Internet Service Provider is getting into bed (so to speak) with a Content Provider. From a purely consumerist point of view, that feels dirty.

Conflict Of Interest

But from a music fans perspective it’s horrifying. Let me state clearly right now, that I do in fact purchase all my music, in either CD or Vinyl. I’m an audiophile, so I demand that high quality sound, and I have no problem paying for it especially if I like the artist.

However you may be familiar with the mindset at the Majors at the moment. It hasn’t exactly changed in over fifty years. Downloading equals lost sales. Millions of dollars are lost because people download music.

What these two corporations are trying to do, undermines everything we have been working towards

I wholeheartedly disagree with that idea. As you would expect when an ISP and a Content Provider get together there is a catch, quite an immoral and disgusting one too.

Virgin Media and UMG will be “working together to protect Universal Music's intellectual property and drive a material reduction in the unauthorized distribution of its repertoire.”

To remove the rhetoric, Virgin Media will be directly assisting UMG in ‘preventing’ intellectual property theft (read downloading). Hypebot says “Virgin says no one will be permanently disconnected and no monitoring or interception of customer traffic by Virgin Media will take place” But I’m not so sure.

Firstly, to actually prevent this type of downloading they have to look at who is downloading and what they are downloading. This is such a gross invasion of privacy.

I’m sure if respectable artists had a say in this, they would say no. After all, would you want to snoop on what your fans are doing, on the off chance they like your music and want to hear it?

Then again, are there any respectable artists on UMG. Truth is, there are but they couldn’t have a say in this if they tried.

What saddens me most, is that Sir Richard Branson one of the greatest pioneers of our time has leant his “Virgin” name to this company. Perhaps he doesn’t understand the old models are obsolete either?

What these two corporations are trying to do, undermines everything we have been working towards. It also reinforces the myth of the lost sale. A myth that is based purely on outdated economics.

How long will it take for these old ignorant executives to wake up. They need to stop living in the past. As with all facets of life, adapt or perish.