For its chief, ex-Polydor A&R man and former pop star Feargal Sharkey, times are particularly good at the moment.

After picking up an Honorary Doctorate of Arts from the University of Hertfordshire at the end of 2008, it was recently announced that at the end of this year he will receive a Doctor of Letters (DLitt) degree from the University of Ulster.

But becoming a doctor pales into insignificance when compared to the latest honor likely to be bestowed on the Irishman. According to a report which quotes sources close to new Prime Minister David Cameron, Sharkey is being considered for a life peerage as reward for his efforts supporting the music industry.

It is suggested that his place in the House of Lords, where the then Digital Economy Bill was debated extensively, would be as an independent peer without supporting any particular party. He would also be able to continue his regular job.

“David Cameron is ­deeply impressed with Feargal and his knowledge, leadership and commitment when it comes to representing the music ­business,” a government source told The Mirror. “He would be a welcome ­addition to the House of Lords or in a role advising the ­Government, ­although nothing has been finalised yet.”

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

To the absolute dismay of most outside the music and movie industries, some of the most controversial elements of the Bill are unlikely to receive any major scrutiny and will be dealt with quickly under the so-called “wash-up”, a short period between the announcement of an election and parliament being closed down.

“It’s a deeply unsatisfactory and very worrying development,” a senior executive from an ISP told The Guardian. “The fear is that no one will know what is being cooked-up before it becomes law. It’s legislation on the hoof.”

But this situation suits the BPI just fine. This week a leaked memo from the BPI fell into the hands of Cory Doctorow which showed that the “LibDem amendment” – a proposal under the DEB which would allow for websites to be blocked if, essentially, the BPI didn’t like their activities – was in fact written by the BPI. Very cosy.

But the controversies don’t end there. Doctorow also received an internal document prepared by the BPI’s Director of Public Affairs and prospective Labour parliamentary candidate, Richard Mollet. In the document he admitted that the only reason the DEB had a chance of passing is because MP’s are resigned to voting on it without debate.

“Translation: if MPs got to debate the Bill, they would tear it to unrecognizable pieces as they realized what terrible rubbish it really is,” wrote Doctorow. The scandals go on and on, but we have to stop somewhere.

Nevertheless, UK Music head Feargal Sharkey says that he is confident that the DEB will be passed before the general election, although others are not so sure.

“It will still be nip and tuck to get the Digital Economy Bill onto the statute book before the election so the battle is not won yet,” wrote Shadow Culture Minister, Jeremy Hunt, on his blog this week.

According to Jim Killock at the Open Rights Group, UK citizens aren’t leaving anything to chance with 10,000 of them having written to their MPs in the last three days to demand a debate on the Digital Economy Bill.

“It is outrageous for corporate lobbyists including the BPI, FAST and UK Music to demand that MPs curtail democracy and ram this Bill through Parliament without debate,” says Killock, adding: “The British people did not elect UK Music and the BPI to write our laws.”

Killock says that what is making the 10,000 so angry is the pushing through of the DEB without debate, an act he describes as “undemocratic and dangerous”.

If you’d like to add your dissenting voice, please email your MP, write to your local newspaper, and attend the planned demonstrations.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

These are the words of singer songwriter James Blunt in The Times today, in response to the opinions of Lily Allen published and republished a thousand times last week. Allen had taken a swipe at Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien and Nick Mason, the Pink Floyd drummer, after they came out and said that file-sharing is beneficial for artists.

Both O’Brien and Mason are members of the Featured Artists Coalition (FAC), which opposes plans by Peter Mandelson to disconnect persistent file-sharers, but they are becoming quite a problem for the rest of the industry.

The major labels, who hold the opposite opinion on the issue of unauthorized downloading, have been in intensive talks with FAC over the last week, trying to reach some sort of consensus on the way ahead. Somehow the music industry needs to show a united front to the government, but at the moment that seems very unlikely. Yesterday FAC said that so far they have failed to find a way forward with the rest of the industry.

“[The] power to demand suspensions of accounts is only achievable through a wide-scale invasion of personal privacy which we believe would result in a dangerous reduction in the rights to protection of the individual. Putting this power in place would reduce the civil liberties of every one of us in the country in order to afford a disincentive threat to a small minority of ‘egregious offenders’. We believe this would be both disproportionate and unenforceable,” said FAC in a statement.

FAC said that while it negotiated with the labels all last week, they cannot be moved from their insistence that file-sharers should be disconnected from the Internet. FAC says it is steadfast in its opposition to this route.

In an attempt to soften their edges and appear less aggressive, UK Music, yet another music industry umbrella organization, has removed the actual word “disconnection” from its press releases and statements. However, even a cursory glance at their current wording shows that this omission is purely cosmetic, instead stating: “…..Ofcom should be granted appropriate and proportionate powers as directed by the secretary of state.” Of course, Ofcom are the people that are being proposed to have the power to disconnect file-sharers.

So as FAC and the British public stand on one side, Peter Mandelson, the record labels and the likes of Lily Allen and now James Blunt stand on the other.

“At long last the Government is looking to legislate to protect the industry,” writes Blunt, while completely forgetting that the UK has some perfectly good copyright laws to deal with, surprisingly, copyright infringement.

“Peter Mandelson is looking to engage the internet service providers who, in my opinion, handle stolen goods, and should take much more responsibility,” Blunt continues, while forgetting that as a carrier, under the law ISPs have no responsibility for the traffic they carry or the actions of their subscribers.

“How this legislation pans out, and if it goes through at all, is critical to the survival of the British music business; critical to thousands of jobs; and critical to our ability to nurture and develop great musicians and the songs and albums that we would hope to listen to in the future,” Blunt concludes.

Bringing in draconian laws to scare the public into buying music is not the answer. Taking away people’s Internet is definitely not the solution. The labels need to realize this and instead provide some high quality all-you-can-eat music services at a price that everyone can afford.

And as UK ISP Virgin Media sends its message to the government that a “heavy-handed, punitive regime will simply alienate consumers” and that “persuasion not coercion” is the key to solving this illicit file-sharing ‘problem’, I’ll end with a few lines from martial artist and best-selling author Geoff Thompson’s book Watch My Back, as he writes about a gang trying to impose their will on others;

This crew had gained respect in the city, but it was respect born through fear; stolen not given. Respect is worthless unless it’s earned. Any half-wit can point a loaded gun and demand respect but it brings hate with it. Real respect encourages co-operation and understanding

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

A new study carried out by the University of Hertfordshire for UK Music reveals some interesting statistics – and some surprising ones.

Of those questioned in the 14 to 24 year old bracket, it was revealed that on average they have amassed music collections on their computers which exceed 8,100 tracks, an amount that most people could never afford. Little wonder that 68% of respondents said that they use their computers every day to listen to music.

From the 1,808 people surveyed, 61% admitted to downloading music using P2P networks including BitTorrent with 83% of these admitted doing so on a weekly or daily basis. A significant 86% admitted that they had copied CDs for their friends.

While many admitted uploading using P2P, other methods of sharing were also utilized – 75% admitted to sending music by email, instant messaging services or Bluetooth.

Of those who admitted using P2P to obtain music, 85% said they would welcome an “all you can eat” download service for a fixed monthly fee, but just 57% said that access to such a service would stop them from illegally sharing files.

In recent months, streaming services such as Spotify have been touted as a possible weapon to combat illicit sharing. However, of those surveyed for this report, 78% said they had no interest in paying for such a service, while 89% said they would prefer to own music, rather than stream it.

More than half of those surveyed said that companies that manufacture digital music players and mobile phones should pay fees to artists to compensate them from losses due to copies made on their devices.

UK Music CEO, Feargal Sharkey commented: “Clearly, the shape of our entire business will continue to evolve. However, we will achieve nothing if we do not work with music fans, and young music fans in particular. They are hugely demanding in their needs, but collectively we must rise to that challenge. We ignore engagement at our peril. That message is loud and clear.”

Strangely, in this world of 8,000 track hard drive music collections and the rampant uptake of digital music players, 77% of those surveyed said they would carry on buying physical CD albums even if they were subscribing to an “all you can eat” download service.

Getting paid twice for the same music, digital and physical? Sounds like a model the music business can get excited over, although in reality no-one else will. We’ve all been down that route before with the industry, one way or another.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Despite the growing ability to control their own destiny, thousands of artists and industry personnel still prefer the help and guidance of a recording label who, among other things, will take anti-piracy action where necessary. In turn, many of these labels feel that they themselves need some sort of support when trying to stamp out piracy, so they turn to a large umbrella group such as the BPI, the British equivalent of the RIAA.

There are many of these groups, all claiming to offer support to various parts of the music and recording industry. In addition to the BPI there is the Association of Independent Music which represents around 800 UK labels and distributors, The British Academy of Composers and Songwriters which claims to be “A single voice for all music writers”, and the MCPS-PRS Alliance, the outfit charged with the dignified collection of performance revenues. Not forgetting the Music Managers Forum of course, which represents the rights of pop music managers, and the self explanatory Musicians Union and Phonographic Performance Limited, which licenses recorded music on behalf of 3,500 labels and 37,000 performers.

Now, as if there aren’t enough industry associations in the music business already, along comes another. Starting today, a new umbrella group known as UK Music is born, and under its guidance will fall all of the other umbrella groups (and under them the artists, labels and distributors) as it aims to bring everyone together in one voice in harmony with itself, if that’s even possible.

After being appointed as the Chief Executive of British Music Rights, (yet another music umbrella group), the head and CEO of UK Music is the former pop star Feargal Sharkey. In addition to nurturing young musical talent, he will become the negotiator-in-chief between the music industry, the government and ISPs who between them will be expected to do the impossible – stamp out Internet piracy. Sharkey will be expected to unify all the hopes and dreams of all the other umbrella groups under his guidance, whilst influencing the decision makers in government, which should become easier with the recent arrival at UK Music of Jo Dipple, the former strategic communications adviser to the Prime Minister.

Speaking with The Guardian, Sharkey said that he believes that the Memorandum of Understanding recently reached between the government, labels and ISPs was an important moment and says he believes that unity shouldn’t be difficult to achieve. “The thing we all realized is that we all agree with each other 95% of the time. It’s looking at where the industry is going to be three, four or five years from now.” Sharkey isn’t just limiting his vision to five years, though. Another of UK Music’s aims will be to have the current copyright protection period of 50 years, extended further.

In 2009, UK Music will deliver a manifesto calling for government support in propping up the ever more bloated music industry – probably starting at the bar of one of many additional black-tie ‘umbrella’ events UK Music will spawn.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.