Paul McGuinness may not be U2’s manager any more, but that doesn’t mean he’s retired from giving YouTube a good pasting at industry conferences.
At last week’s ILMC, McGuinness returned to one of his favourite themes.
“What surprises me to this day is how completely selfish, greedy, neglectful and oppressive the Google/YouTube/tech environment is. These massive, massive companies, which have been built on the back of free content, are still reluctant or refusing to take proper responsibilities,” said McGuinness, according to Billboard’s report of his on-stage interview.
“It’s now very clear that the download is pretty much irrelevant. Streaming is the future. Spotify is going to be the biggest distributor. No one really cares about ownership. It’s all about access and access will be ubiquitous for film, television and music.”
“YouTube historically have been so extraordinarily greedy. I hope that changes. They’ve hired Lyor Cohen to build bridges with the music industry and I’d really like to see some change there because it really has to be confronted. The only investment in music is coming from record companies.”
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