The stupidity of the riots where young people smashed up the shops and businesses that pay the taxes that generate the money to pay their and their parents benefits sees to be reflected in online music and film piracy, now 90% of all music downloaded seemingly stolen. The music industry have tried to put a brave face on it by saying more music than ever is being sold online but the bare fact is that most people would rather not pay for music and effectively the youth of today have looted the industry, the Sony factory burnt down in London last month a further blow as it contained a significant chunk of their CD stock. It can't really get any worse for the music industry right now. Because of this the traditional album CD has become pretty pointless, the kids just stealing the singles, both artiste and record company's most vital asset.

Spotify, the Swedish based music streaming service, tried the free music model being paid for by the advertising and small fee subscription approach and it proved popular. It has ten million users but only one million paying subscribers, the model not making any serious money yet. It has full backing from the big players and available on an increasing number of platforms. The company have moved the model to America but recently announced they have drastically cut the amount of free music available on the player to just ten hours and five listens for each song. It works by the fact you don't actually legally download the music and so never physically steal it. The industry is banking on this type of service working as they have admitted they don't feel they can beat music piracy.

Because of the illicit nature of the net you can steel it and get away with it and so just about everybody does, websites set up to encourage it and the law not able to shut them down, the PirateBay site the most infamous. The government are pushing for a law to help the industry by allowing the internet providers the power to block certain websites and users. BT has helped greatly because their internet service is so slow and rubbish it takes three days to download anything. But it does look like the big music media companies are getting their way and we will see some sort of fines or blocks for persistent downloader's. If nothing is done then just won't be a music industry.

The plus side is the big music producers are moving away from high cost production tosh like contrived boy bands and more towards niche music, why you are seeing more stuff like folk and classical on the rise, the music that the more discerning music fans wont steal. Or at least that's the plan. Simon Cowells music behemoth has taken care of the pop industry and so the place to earn now is live gigs and tours. But this has seen an explosion of festivals at just the wrong time for the industry. Because most people that go to festivals are students and the students now have to pay big busks for university the number of festivals being cancelled has risen, purely because there is too much choice and over exposure for the money left over in the grants, no one really wanting to see the same band over and over again, the festival regulars rather too regular now, those indy guitar bands up an down the land now. In some cases bands are being asked to play for free at charity gigs just to get exposure and a potential record buying audience.

With the music industry well and truly in a tizzy the same thing is now happening to the film industry, pretty much every movie made now available on line, Google's mission to digitise everything meaning everything is up for grabs, and for free, the book industry next in line. The nature of the internet is file sharing and so we can't help but expect stuff for nowt. Problem is movies are very expensive to make and can't survive mass piracy. If the big budget films don't turn a buck because punter just stay home and download them and so not going to the cinema or renting them then they won't get made, simple as, and nor will the smaller movies reliant on those movies through subsidy . That means the lower budget intelligent movies are very unlikely to even get considered as they shift few DVD and cinema tickets.

Solutions...

I don't steal music or film as I'm aware there will be less of it and poor quality if I do, therefore more of you guys have to cut down on what you're pinching. I know IP providers can slow your internet down if you download too many movies and so that's top you playing them but as yet music can be pinched quite easily. I suspect the solution will come around by having just less music to choose from as record companies become smaller and more niche and so only push their best acts. Hopefully the non profit nature of music will see a reduction in budgets being thrown at dumb trash pop, Swagger Jagger we can do without. I think Adel going to number one both sides of the Atlantic is the first signs that image led pop is on the way out and quality music will be pushed as it less likely to be stolen as it appeals to an older middle-class crowd with more money in their pockets after university.

Maybe media companies could cut deals with internet providers and take a slice of the broadband fees in return for blocking certain sites. It seems the only internet revenue guarantee is subscription fees. The advertising model words better online as it's more subliminal and targeted but it doesn't seem to work for music. MySpace helped to promote new bands on a free platform and it did encourage more online low cost record labels to try their luck but the problem is they record the songs digitally and so the music stolen through friends file sharing, what most sites like MySpace can only encourage. Unless people stop being selfish then they won't have any music to listen to.