U2 rubbed a lot of people the wrong way with their sneaky scheme to forcibly distribute Songs of Innocence to iTunes users. Now, Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney has become the latest person to speak out against U2's distribution model and what it means for the music industry.
Speaking with the Seattle Times [via Billboard], Carney said that, by sharing the album for free, U2 "devalued their music completely." Even worse, this could hurt other musicians, since this "sends a huge mixed message to bands... that are just struggling to get by. I think that they were thinking it's super generous of them to do something like that."
Clearly, Carney is putting his money where his mouth is, since the Black Keys have refused to make their last couple of albums available on streaming services like Spotify. "My whole thing about music is: if somebody's making money then the artist should be getting a fair cut of it," he said. "The owner of Spotify is worth something like $3 billion... He's richer than Paul McCartney and he's 30 and he's never written a song."
Carney acknowledged that streaming services are the future of the industry, but said that artists currently aren't fairly compensated. Of course, he's hardly the first to make this argument. In fact, Carney has taken shots at Spotify before.
Speaking with the Seattle Times [via Billboard], Carney said that, by sharing the album for free, U2 "devalued their music completely." Even worse, this could hurt other musicians, since this "sends a huge mixed message to bands... that are just struggling to get by. I think that they were thinking it's super generous of them to do something like that."
Clearly, Carney is putting his money where his mouth is, since the Black Keys have refused to make their last couple of albums available on streaming services like Spotify. "My whole thing about music is: if somebody's making money then the artist should be getting a fair cut of it," he said. "The owner of Spotify is worth something like $3 billion... He's richer than Paul McCartney and he's 30 and he's never written a song."
Carney acknowledged that streaming services are the future of the industry, but said that artists currently aren't fairly compensated. Of course, he's hardly the first to make this argument. In fact, Carney has taken shots at Spotify before.
