Piracy isn’t a good thing. It’s solely responsible for the current fractured state of the global music industry. Musicians used to tour to promote albums, now they release albums in order to get back on the road and make some money.
Unpaid internships are, well, a grey area. It really depends on the specific internship. Some are a valuable foot-in-the-door opportunity offering bountiful work experience, others are basically free labour for the employer.
But the irony of a position that recently opened up at Sony Music in the US is staggering. As Quartz reports, they’re currently on the lookout for a full-time ‘Antipiracy Summer Associate’, aka an intern to trawl the web for illegal music.
Just to put this all in context, Sony Music is one of the world’s biggest major record labels. In fact, it’s a member of what’s widely referred to as the ‘Big Three Majors’ alongside Universal Music and Warner Music.
The applicant must be currently enrolled in college and at least a year away from completing their degree. The job basically amounts to looking for illegally uploaded music on the web and issuing those takedown notices you see on YouTube.
The presumably unpaid intern associate will “research and gather evidence on infringing digital platforms” and “aid in takedown and other rights enforcement efforts”.
Just so we’re clear on why this is funny: Sony want someone to work for free looking for music that hasn’t been paid for. We’ll let that sink in for a second whilst we take a look at the depressing statistics about music piracy.
