Radiohead: 'Industry needs to change'

Radiohead guitarist Ed O'Brien has declared that the music industry needs to radically change in order to seriously compete with illegal filesharing.

O'Brien has previously been a vocal critic of government plans to disconnect internet users who are found to be filesharing illegally. He has now said that the record industry is faltering because it has failed to change with the times.

Speaking with MIDEM ahead of its 2010 music conference, O'Brien said: "I have a problem when people in the industry say 'it’s killing the industry, it's the thing that’s ripping us apart'. I don't actually believe it is... [Pirates] might not buy an album, but they’re spending their money buying concert tickets, a T-shirt, whatever.

"The business model has to change. You've got to make it slightly cheaper to get music in order to compete with the peer-to-peers. The Richard Branson of nowadays would be able to set up a really amazing website for 14 to 24-year-olds that deals with their music... and do something really innovative and make it really easy for people to buy music, and cheap."

He added: "A lot of 14-to 17-year-olds don't have credit cards, so how are they going to get music digitally? These are very, very, very basic issues - I find it staggering that the industry seems to be really dragging its heels on this - this is stuff that you could do in one week. Move quicker!"