Today’s launch of UK Music – a collective group pledging to fight against piracy and represent a “united front to the challenges facing the industry” – represents the industry’s inability to tackle the problems of the new media age (now well into its second decade) by huffing and puffing around the issues raised and promising to do something about them rather than actually doing it.

Of course, there is something positive to be said about the BPI, Association of Independent Music (AIM), MCPS-PRS, the PPL and other UK music organisations coming together and working for a solution: the possibility of some of the most important musical heads in the world finding a forward-thinking agenda is one to salivate at, where concern does arise though is that the actual aims and agendas of those individual organisations will not meet the needs of the artists and labels at the bottom of the industry food chain.

Having worked in the independent music industry for a number of years now, AIM have been fantastically supportive of my work to try and generate more media coverage for independent labels and their artists. What I have been concerned about during that time though are some of Alison Wenham’s declarations at AGMs and other industry events about fighting piracy.

It is absolutely right for the head of AIM to be fighting for her labels’ rights to earn a decent living, but this entire argument about ‘piracy’ as a means to rip labels and their artists off is entirely short-sighted – something that many of AIM’s members have expressed in conversations I have held with them.

Not to get into the age old conversation about the internet as a marketing and distribution tool that actually saves small independents a whole heap of cash in exchange for more coverage and – ultimately – more profit, what does concern me about where Wenham’s thoughts come from (and I know her opinion on blogs so I’m sure she won’t care what I say) is that the more senior and powerful members of the AIM stable may have had a word in a certain ear. Labels like Domino, who are the only major independent not to offer their music to the non-DRM site eMusic, can kick and scream and have the financial and legal muscle to upset the AIM apple cart if they so wished. I’m not suggesting this is the case, but in conversations with labels, it is usually the bigger ones – the ones who can afford to do it for a living – that seem to have the most backward opinions.

Similarly with organisations such as the MCPS-PRS, who try to scrimp money from every corner of society in order to pay it to those owed but usually end up making it very difficult for small independent artists to recoup the £100 fee they are forced to pay. You have to wonder what their business in fighting piracy actually is. The internet has provided them with many more sources from which to generate cash for artists, ‘illegal’ p2p sites and file-sharing has given smaller artists a chance for more exposure on more levels and, as such, the MCPS-PRS has been given an opportunity to actually help those artists who most need it. It strikes me as more than a little strange that the organisation are now signing up to fight this.

I would have thought, and liked to see, organisations such as AIM, the MCPS-PRS and the PPL striking out against people such as the BPI and declaring that the internet gives opportunities to independent artists and labels that have never been possible before. They can make more money, get more coverage and finally have a much more level playing field with the majors than ever before. It is time to encourage this new world where artists get rewarded for the work they do rather than fight it in the name of a few influential moneymen.

Then again, they may all surprise us yet.