"Record industry finished", says top accountant

Speaking to a packed venue at the Hot Press Music Show at the RDS over the weekend, Kilkenny said, "In the USA last year, record sales dropped by 15%. The record companies are saying that the recession is to blame... recession my arse! Record companies are thrashing about and going nowhere. The record industry is completely fucked up! I remember a new guy taking over EMI who said he was going to change the world. The fuck he was! He'll probably be gone by Christmas!"

He went onto say that "the paradigm shift is now totally against talent, and it's now worse than ever. The Internet is being touted as the answer to everything, but it isn't. A record company guy told me recently that he had a track that was streamed 600 times on Spotify. For this he got £1.60, from which the artist prbaby got 20p. The internet doesn't work. It's all bullshit!"

On the issue of illegal dowloads, Kilkeny admitted that he had represented the notorious file-sharing site Napster, and challenged anyone who had never illegally acquired music to leave the room. Nobody moved. He also blamed artists for the lack of activity regarding the threat of illegal downloads. "Piracy is a fundamental lack of respect for musicians' rights. The application of technology now enables peope to steal what belongs to other people. But why didn't the artists stand-up to this? U2, Bryan Adams, whoever, they all did fuck all."

Nick Seymour, former bassist with Crowded House, expressed his puzzlement that Thom Yorke from Radiohead would offer to give away his music. However he did admit that musicians are more protected regarding their work than other artists, such as painters, and added that the fight against illegal downloads was far from over.

Speaking at an earleir session, the poet and broadcaster Theo Dorgan said that illegal downloading was "mean, pernicious, and a nasty attack on artists, by stealing their work."