In the tradition established with our “Escape from (music) majors” feature here’s a list of recent (and not-so recent) awkward, risky or just puzzling statements to press and online media from musicians, authors and music business people.

Note: updated with a new statement from Edgar Bronfman.

When: 08/08/2008
Edgar Bronfman (Warner Music Chief Executive): Music Video Games Must Pay More
Details:
[speaking of today's video game companies and games such as Rock Band and Guitar Hero] “The amount being paid to the music industry, even though their games are entirely dependent on the content we own and control, is far too small.”
Source: Billboard

When: 18/06/2008
Gene Simmons (Kiss): Fans Killed the Recording Industry
Details:
“The record industry is dead [...] It’s six feet underground and unfortunately the fans have done this. They’ve decided to download and file-share.”
Simmons also criticized Radiohead [...], and promised that Kiss would not follow suit.
Source: Digital Music News

When: 13/06/2008
Joss Stone: Piracy is Brilliant, Music Should be Shared. The only part about music that I dislike is the business.
Details:
Asked by a reporte what she thinks of piracy, and people who download her songs off the Internet her response was: “I think it’s great…” [...] “Yeah, I love it. I think it’s brilliant and I’ll tell you why,” [...] “Music should be shared. [...] The only part about music that I dislike is the business that is attached to it. Now, if music is free, then there is no business, there is just music. So, I like it, I think that we should share.”
“It’s ok, if one person buys it, it’s totally cool, burn it up, share it with your friends, I don’t care. I don’t care how you hear it as long as you hear it. As long as you come to my show, and have a great time listening to the live show it’s totally cool. I don’t mind. I’m happy that they hear it.”
Source: Todo noticias

When: 18/06/2008
Kid Rock: Don’t Just Steal Music, Steal Everything
Details:
When asked to stand against “illegal downloading” because he was told that people were stealing from him [...] his response to the label was: “Wait a second, you’ve been stealing from the artists for years. Now you want me to stand up for you?”
Source: Torrent Freak

When: 30/03/2008
Dave Stewart: Nobody ever talked to artists about what they wanted to do
Details:
“It’s completely insane. In America, it’s all gotten completely strangleholded by these providers. Nobody ever talked to artists about what they wanted to do. Steve Jobs didn’t talk to me about selling music online-it just went straight to the music labels. [...] Artists make their work, and people come along and treat it like something you can chop up into bits and sell into other bits.”
Source: ZDnet

When: 22/03/2008
Billy Bragg: Musicians deserve a dividend from Bebo
Details:
“The musicians who posted their work on Bebo.com are no different from investors in a start-up enterprise…Now that the business has reaped huge benefits, surely they deserve a dividend.”
Source: NY Times

When: 29/01/2008
Paul McGuinness (U2 manager): Internet Service Providers are ruining music [...] artists should get a cut of every MP3 player sold [and] “hippy values” do not include a respect for copyright and established business models.
Details:
Illegal music downloaders, as well as internet service providers, device makers, Silicon Valley and even hippies are to blame for “destroying the recorded music industry,” with illegal downloading through peer-to-peer file-sharing networks the single biggest reason for why the business is in decline.
ISPs have for years profited from that illegal downloading, which occurs on their networks, and their arguments that it isn’t their job to police the internet are no longer valid, he said. The ISPs, he added, have an obligation to prevent that file-sharing on their networks, and if they don’t do so voluntarily, they should be forced to. [...] “Their snouts have been at our trough feeding free for too long.”
McGuinnes [...] also targeted makers of devices [and] said content owners should get a cut of every MP3 player sold. “Hardware makers should share with the content owners whose assets are exploited by the buyers of their machines”. “The record companies should never again allow industries to arise that make billions off their content without looking for a piece of that business.”
McGuinness [also] said much of Silicon Valley arose out of “hippy values” that did not include a respect for copyright and established business models. Many of the area’s entrepreneurs don’t consider themselves “makers of burglary kits,” [...] “There are plenty of private equity fund managers who are Deadheads,” he said, a reference to hippy icons The Grateful Dead. “And embedded deep down in the brilliance of those entrepreneurial, hippy values seems to be a disregard for the true value of music.”
Source: CBC News

When: 08/12/2007
50 Cent: File Sharing Doesn’t Hurt Artists
Details:
“What is important for the music industry to understand is that this really doesn’t hurt the artists.” [...] “A young fan may be just as devout and dedicated no matter if he bought it or stole it.”
Source: Torrent Freak

When: 02/11/2007
Ozzy Osbourne: suffering terribly from people downloading
Details:
“I’ve been suffering terribly from people downloading it. If they don’t find something to stop it, people won’t be able to make records. There won’t be any new bands. How are they going to survive? I’m an old-timer, I’ve been doing it 40 years now, but new bands are going to suffer. It’s ridiculous, you could be doing it for nothing.”
Source: Torrent Freak

When: 13/09/2007
Trent Reznor (NIN): downloading from the Internet is a more acceptable option than buying pirated CDs
Details:
“As for the special situation in China, it does not seem to be easy to obtain Western music via legal channels, so I have the following suggestion for our fans: If you can find and buy our legal CDs, I express my thanks for your support. If you cannot find it, I think that downloading from the Internet is a more acceptable option than buying pirated CDs. Our music is easy to find on the Internet, and you might not need to spend much effort to find most of our songs. If you like our songs after you’ve heard them, please feel free to share it with your friends. As I have put all my effort and heart into my music, I sincerely hope that more and more people can share the enjoyment with us.”
Source: BoingBoing

When: 04/11/2005
Thomas Hesse (Global Digital Business President, Sony BMG): why should people care about a rootkit?
Details:
Weighing into the storm over the ‘rootkit’-style copy restriction software introduced on some Sony audio CDs that installs itself by stealth, conceals itself, then intercepts low level Windows systems calls and the removal causes the CD drive to be rendered inoperable:
“Most people, I think, don’t even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?” (1m:50s into the short report)
Source: npr.org