Posts by mark kneebone
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Hi there, long time listener and first time caller
My name is Mark Kneebone and I am chairman of Independent Music NZ (earlier referred to in this thread by Simon). I also run a record label and a music marketing company in Auckland and between the two companies we represent around 70 local and international artists and employ four fulltime staff
I usually stay off threads but have been following this one with interest all day and I just wanted to say a couple of things
The local music industry does not want to penalise our fans and consumers; this is ridiculous and Metallica taught us nicely with Napster that it doesn’t work and is counterproductive. People who love music and are passionate about NZ bands are in short supply (although growing every year) and the more of them we embrace rather than isolate the better. That said we also base our business on obtaining and selling these artists copyrights in forms such as CD’s, legal downloads etc.
The internet has been the best and worse thing to ever happen to the NZ music industry. It’s great because you can talk to people directly without dealing without media companies trying to sell cans of Pepsi around your art. It has been in a disaster for reasons that can only really be blamed on the record industry itself. We had a chance to license Napster in 2001 and we choose to prosecute instead, we failed to embrace new trends in downloading and how people wanted to consume music and mainly we tried to dictate to music fans instead of listening to them. There isn’t a level headed person in the music industry who wouldn’t agree with this to some extent. But the need remains that if people are going to invest in these artists (including the artists themselves) they need to have a return on it.
ISP’s provide pipes for people to access the Internet; people choose to illegally take property that doesn’t belong to them and then ISP’s disconnect them for doing illegal things on their networks. Now the how and the why is not perfect, to be honest we (IMNZ) wanted more, the ISP’s wanted less, and the first meeting between the two too sort this out was held this morning. What I haven’t heard from anyone on this thread is a suggestion of how you balance fair use of the Internet with the rights of people who are having their property stolen using it. So please if you have a suggestion I am all ears.
I personally believe that if you are going to sell a service (broadband) then you have a responsibility to make sure it is used legally and fairly. Russell’s original comment that ISP’s shouldn’t cut connections because a mother might be penalised due to the actions of her son makes no sense, it likes saying that if the same son went out and used his mothers car to speed around the neighbourhood then he shouldn’t be punished in some form (including losing the car) because the mother might need it to take the sister to the hospital
In terms of Independent Labels in NZ we are trying to find a pragmatic balance to this problem, so like I said if you have any ideas I’d love to hear them
And the IMNZ has never contacted anything to any political party. But if you want to donate to the local music industry, please feel free to buy the new album from Cut Off Your Hands which came out last week or wait another week for the new Cobra Kahn, which is equally wicked