While I am a supporter of the goals of making poverty history, to understand the true beneficiaries of the Live 8 concert we only need to look at the rising sales for the recording industry and the vendor-promotion on the Live8 site of specific brands of software.
Andrew Thomas of the Inquirer wrote, "But most remarkable of all was the phenomenal increase in album sales of the acts that appeared".
One Ottawa participant in our forums said, "it became crystalline-clear for me what this was all about, when Will Smith, who has single-handedly invented Dinosaur Rap, uttered the line `but buy the record don't download the record`."
On the other hand, Sky showbiz reported that "The veteran rockers have seen their album sales rocket by an astonishing 1,300% since Saturday - but they don't want a penny of it." I will believe it when I see it, given these veteran rockers are also often the most prominent promoters of expansions of the least fair trade policies in so-called trade related "intellectual property".
In a p2pnet comment I wrote about how much of the Live8.com site is technologically inaccessible to the majority world countries and their best supporters, and instead promotes the brands of some of the most controversial "software manufacturing" transnational corporations. I also wrote a letter to the Prime Minister entitled Further (copyright) policy suggestions on how to Make Poverty History.
University of Ottawa economic professor Michel Chossudovsky also weighed in with Live 8: Corporate Media Bonanza -
Disinformation Campaign and Public Relations Stunt on behalf of the G8.