ITC Blog # 3 - Lyor Cohen v. Jazz Summers

The wonderfully cynical Mr. Pybus' blogging of ITC continues - check back later for a report about the bands he saw Sunday night. He's also off to check out the fringe events, so more on that soon as well:

P2P file sharing was touched on by Andy Burnham (UK Minister for Culture) and brought up in the later debate, billed as the clash of the titans, between veteran manager Jazz Summers and head honcho at Warners’ Lyor Cohen. Burnham kept the door open regarding bringing legislation against P2P file sharing (something popular amongst the industry types at ITC) but insisted it'd be a last resort - as I'm sure he's well aware that it's hardly a matter that would draw widespread popular support - prosecuting the parents of teenagers who download the new Coldplay album is hardly a vote winner.

He also stressed the need for more to be done for the grassroots of the industry - who can argue with that? But bringing in 'initiatives to develop rehearsal spaces' sounds like a kind of soundbite from a politician with a minimal understanding of grassroots of the industry. What about re-directing some of the masses of arts funding available for highbrow arts into the 'contemporary' music scene - something that is slowly happening in Scotland. He also insisted the industry should talk to government with one voice, something that may make his job easier but perhaps fails to recognise the diversity of opinions, and needs, of the industry as a whole. And surely a single voice is bound to be dominated by the loudest, and best funded voice, the BPI, who already have the governments ear.

Cohen and Summers debate was billed as a clash, but a lot of the time they were both in agreement - hardly surprising since Summers has been a head honcho at a record label in his time, and Cohen's done a stint in management - they could both see things from the other's point of view. They did disagree on the current state of the industry, Summers insisting that the music industry was in fine fettle, but that the record industry was struggling and Cohen urging Summers to stop knocking record labels as they were still vital for an artist success.

Both agreed that artists should be given more time to develop, and blamed the 'lawyers, accountant and executives' for wanting to reap a quick profit rather than invest in artists careers. Since they are both obviously still music lovers first and foremost, there was a certain amount of sincerity there, but if that demand for a quick profit is part of the major label ethos, which it now is, since they're both part of the major label world they also should shoulder some of the blame.

They both turned their ire onto the music industry boogeyman of our times, the evil technology companies making billions from music, that the 'industry' is yet to see a penny from, the likes of YouTube and MySpace. Here differences did open up, Summers insisted that artists need to reap the financial benefits, in particular a share of the massive advertising revenue that sites like MySpace generate. Since the majors, Warners included, have become partners in the MySpace project, they can expect to reap a decent cut of this revenue, yet have been rather cagey as to how much, if any, of this will find its way into artists' pockets.

Overall the feeling you got from the debate was it was an argument about who should control the resources, major labels as they had done in the past, or the managers. Both supposedly spoke on behalf of the artists, but having seen artists being royally screwed by the major labels in the past, would replacing them by major management groups lead to a better outcome?