WHAT MORE CAN WE GIVE?

Slightly alarming news for a music industry eager to squeeze more cash out of everyone - it's almost certainly not accurate but apparently ("according to a survey cobbled together to try and promote some insurance company or other") the average person in Britain invests £21,000 in music over their lifetime. And that's an average, which would include people like my dad who hasn't bought a record since they confounded him by stopping offering the chance to buy the ex-jukebox singles with the massive hole in.

But even people who don't spend that much on music manage to chomp through £250 worth of music-related stuff; people who call themselves die-hards would typicallt spend more than that on gigs alone.

And here might be the problem the BPI needs to be thinking about: music lovers already spend a hell of a lot on the thing they love. In an economy where prices are rising, they might find a few people snaffling the odd Moloko album off the net is the least of their worries.

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