Features
The Great Escape To Digital
On the back of the British Phonographic Industry report saying that half of the UK record industry’s revenues now come from digital services, The Great Escape is devoting half a day to the subject.
The conference is promising to provide an in-depth overview of where digital is on a global basis.
It will also tackle the two big questions that have seemingly dominated this year: “What do artists really think about digital?” and “Are streaming services simply too expensive to go mass market?”
Tory MP Mike Weatherley, a member of the All Party Parliamentary Group looking into secondary ticketing, and also the one that looks after music, will be present in his role of advising Prime Minister David Cameron on the digital market.
He recently revealed that he’s working on a paper on one of the big discussions in the music rights sector right now: the role Google should play in policing online piracy.
He doesn’t want to say what view his paper will take, preferring to wait until he’s gathered more evidence.
However, he did reveal that he’s not comfortable about asking Google to be the policemen.
“It is not them who are distributing the illegal content – but they do have a role to play in directing people to legal sites and should be part of the informing and educating agenda,” he said.
Other speakers will be named in the coming weeks.
The Great Escape is in Brighton May 8-10.
The acts lined up for the evening showcase concerts include Kelis, Jungle, Chloe Howl, Royal Blood, Blaenavon, Courtney Barnett, Dune Rats, and Fat White Family.