88 individuals from the music and entertainment industries appear in the 2010 Sunday Times Rich List. An elite half dozen or so are richer than the Queen. Is this who the Digital Economy bill is designed to protect?

The Digital Economy Bill is openly intended to protect the interests of those who benefit from rights vested in entertainment and music. It seeks to erect an infrastructure of censorship for their benefit, which will be ultimately paid for by consumers in increased broadband charges. It is therefore interesting to see how many individual rights-holders are in this year's Sunday Times Rich List and who they are. They include many well known singers and actors,  such as Elton John, Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, Bryan Ferry, Kylie Minogue, as well as Daniel Radcliffe (of Harry Potter fame). Their fortunes are more than most people could ever imagine earning,  seven are richer than the Queen,  and quite a few who are not much poorer than she is.    The  full list is pasted below.

From a policy perspective, in a deep recession which we are not yet clear of,  when many  people are being made redundant and young people have no chance of a first job, we have to

ask the question - how can such a law as the Digital Economy Bill be sustained? It is illusory to think that it will create any new jobs unless we see the unlikely revival of the CD, and it will stifle digital innovation. And any political will to obligate the entertainment industries to change their business model was not translated into the law, so they have little motivation to move into the 21st century.

And should the music industry retort that their fortunes are dropping ( most have gone down in the past 12 months), a response could be that this only increases the protectionism of the DEBill,  and moreover,  these fortunes are very likely to include stock market investments, and this may well be the cause of any  drop. 

Sunday Times Rich List - source of wealth - music, television  and entertainment 

Source: Sunday Times Rich List 2010 , compiled by Philip Beresford

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial-Share Alike 2.5 UK:England and Wales License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/ It may be used for non-commercial purposes only, and the author's name should be attributed. The correct attribution for this article is: Monica Horten(2010) Musicians coining it in Sunday Times Rich List http://www.iptegrity.com 28 April 2010