U2 manager: 'End of illegal downloading is coming'

U2 manager Paul McGuinness has predicted a decline in music piracy over the coming years.

McGuinness made the claim after it was announced that internet service providers in North America will display "copyright alerts" to users trying to download illegal media. The alerts direct users to a site where they can purchase their desired film or album.

He told The Daily Telegraph that the move is "good news for music and the creative industries" and called for the same action to be organised in other territories.

McGuinness - who has been managing U2 since the start of their career - said: "This has been agonisingly slow in coming, but it is an important step forward in the international debate over music in the digital age. The idea of ISPs taking on obligations to stop copyright theft on their networks is moving into the mainstream."

He insisted that services like Spotify and We7 will have little success in preventing piracy in the long run and that "fighting free with free" would not be the solution.

McGuinness's article comes in a year when cloud-based music services have launched including Amazon's digital vault and Apple's iCloud.

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