Head Tale

U2's manager, Paul McGuinness, recently came out heavily against Radiohead and file sharing in general.  If you know U2's position on copyright, that's probably not a big surprise.

So the main reason I'm posting this story isn't because of that revelation but because of this hilarious quote from the MetaFilter discussion:

[McGuinness:] Notwithstanding the promotional noise, even Radiohead’s honesty box principle showed that if not constrained, the customer will steal music.


[MF Poster:] Damn, think of all the music the world could have listened to, if it
weren't for those damned thieves. Now it's stolen, so we'll never be
able to enjoy it. And I would never have been the wiser if it wasn't
for the child molester* Paul McGuinness. Paul McGuinness, rapist of
children that he is, knows a thing or two about music theft. The infant
poker Paul McGuinness also knows a thing or two about abusing the
English language to change the meanings of words to suit your own
purposes.



* Child Rapist: (n.) One who expects children to pay $15 for a CD.

This is only semi-related (and I know I have readers who lionize Bono ) but the more I think about it, the more I think that he (and anybody who is a multimillionaire in a world where more than half of the people on it live on less than $2 a day) is a gi-normous prick.  If you're a “greed is good – the more for me, the better” millionaire capitalist, I can almost understand your viewpoint.  I don't agree with you and you're still a prick but I can understand why you might see the world that way. 

But when you base a big part of your life like Bono does advocating on behalf of those 3 billion extremely poor people but still don't seem to realise that either the entire developed world has to reign in their excesses because we simply can't exist at that level of consumption, you are also a massive hypocrite.  (And I admit that until I give up 99% of my worldly goods, stop using as much fuel as I do, stop buying useless shit from China that I barely use, etc. etc. I too am a hypocrite.  But I am not a MASSIVE hypocrite on the scale at which Bono exists – where, as a single individual, he has a net worth which is exponentially greater than the amount of money I will earn in my working life pus the fact that he leads a band that has earned over a billion dollars during its existence by some estimates.  Sure, I might have to give up fuel and dollar store trinkets to clear my conscience but Bono needs to give up his private jet and four thousand-dollar vintage wines.

(Now where'd I put that “rant” tag?  I know I left it around here somewhere.)