Sunday, March 15, 2009

IFPI's John Kennedy turns in a humorous new routine

John Kennedy clearly believes that it's only a matter of time before the record companies who underwrite his RIAA-lite, the IFPI, pull the plug and so seems to be counting out the final days turning himself into a parody-figure. After he brought the house down with his claim in court that every peer-to-peer download is really a lost sale, he's now turned up at Canada music week:

Canada’s continued development of world-class musicians is in jeopardy as the country is mired in sky-high piracy rates and lack of cooperation between Internet service providers and music companies, John Kennedy, chairman of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, said today at Canadian Music Week.

“The lack of interest in intellectual property by the Canadian government is truly astonishing,” says Kennedy, who participated in a industry forum this morning at Toronto's Royal York Hotel.

What he means, of course, is that the Canadian government isn't doing what the the RIAA wants it to, rather than "not having an interest".

It's not the money that Kennedy cares about, of course. Oh, no: he weeps for Canada's very soul:
Kennedy says one of his main concerns is the lack of new Canadian talent capturing attention domestically and internationally. He noted that according to Nielsen Soundscan, only two of the Top 20 selling albums in Canada – Nickelback and Quebec’s Lost Fingers – were created by domestic acts.

Yes, yes, Kennedy is the head of a global music industry body who is mainly bankrolled by the big four record companies - one from the US, one from Japan, one from France and one from the UK - and so his job is ultimately concerned with promoting the interests of global artists who force out local talent all round the world, but let's not let that detain us here.

Nor, for that matter, if Canadians might happily chose to lose all their local acts if there was a possibility of it taking Nickelback down with it.

Let's just ponder for a moment if it's all the unusual for the Canadian charts to be rammed with foreign acts. Take, for example, the top ten singles for January 5th, 1980. A happier time, before the internet, and before - we presume - the Canadian government lost interest in intellectual property. Tom Petty was at number one; the Little River Band at number two. In fact, the highest Canadian act would be Streetheart at number nine. Oh, and Saga were at number 20.

Perhaps that's an unfair example. Let's look instead at June 7th, 1986: Madonna, George Michael and Jennifer Rush holding the top three slots; indeed, by the time you get past the scouse, Swiss, British novelty acts, it's number 16 before you come across a Canadian act. Chalk Circle, since you ask.

Are we to assume that John Kennedy simply doesn't know that the Canadian charts have long been dominated by British and American acts, or that he did know, but decided to pretend he didn't? The Canadian government might or might not care about intellectual property; I wonder what their stance is on intellectual honesty?


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