Paying the piper - Producers feel squeeze

PAUL McGUINNESS, the manager of U2 for more than 30 years, has joined an argument that involves a growing number of disparate producers of all kinds of goods.

Speaking in Cannes he launched a scathing attack on internet service providers who allow their systems to be used for illegal music downloads.

Just as Hollywood scriptwriters fight for a proportion of the revenue generated by their work through new media, Mr McGuinness wants musicians and producers to stand up against what he called the “shoddy, careless and downright dishonest way they have been treated in the digital age”.