So IMRO is about to kill Irish independant music.

It's a bad article.

It's unfair and inaccurate. There are a few classic hallmarks of bad journalism in there: the fact that it's written about people who weren't once contacted for comment, the scathing, unfounded and unchallenged remarks from anonymous contributors, the opening assertation that the piece presents both sides of the story.

It opens with the line: "Hot Press has been talking to people on both sides of the online music payment divide." Yet curiously, none of them were the three bloggers contacted by IMRO.

There are a few odd comments inserted throughout the piece. They mention that some sites are ad-free, and essentially run on enthusiasm, but they don't mention that two of the three concerned sites fall into this category, preferring instead to list the ads recently seen on Nialler9. Most notably, two anonymous sources are quoted, making rather contentious comments about blogs and advertising. Firstly, a nameless advertising industry insider describes these ads as "a handy little earner," though they go on to note that "[o]ne of the weaknesses of blogs is that they tend to be frequented by a small number of people who create a disproportionate number of page impressions, so for obvious reasons no one is willing to pay much to be on those kind of sites."

Instead of a quote from me, or one of the other concerned bloggers, who were deemed uninteresting and unessential to the task at hand, we are given this conjecture, which adds nothing to the debate, and is not based on any knowledge of any of our sites. I'm not sure what relevance it has, but it certainly sounds bad. I imagine a lot of readers would like to know what our reservations about the licence are, but I guess the anonymous source was more reliable.

The second anonymous contributor is the one with the best lines, though. Named only as an IMRO songwriter, he declares:

Look, it isn’t exactly a popular thing to say, but the fact is that bloggers are part of the real economy. In lots of cases they're looking for and accepting payment for advertising. And to generate the traffic which attracts advertising they're indiscriminately using other people's music – often international music and often by big name artists.

I’m all for people being able to waive any royalties they might be due, if they want to. I might do it myself. But that’s different from someone deciding they’ll take whatever music they want, and do whatever they feel like with it with no permission from anybody.

This blog does not look for payment for advertising. Neither does Asleep on the Compost Heap. That's two of the three concerned blogs. Any regular reader will have surely noticed that I frequently fall behind on posting, conduct ill-suited to a blogger trying to generate traffic - and when it comes to the "international music" (what? Is foreign music especially popular or something?) and Big Name Artists, well, I may as well not be trying at all.

None of the concerned blogs are known for being the kind to "take whatever music [we] want and do whatever [we] feel like with it with no permission from anybody." The quotation is superfluous, and that unrelated assertation should have been challenged.