Brian Message, the manager behind acts including Nick Cave and Radiohead has told Dublin's final Web Summit (for now at least) that major artists protesting against the rise of streaming, and pulling their music from services like Spotify is "an irrelevance" and of "no real impact."
Radiohead's frontman Thom Yorke has been one of the most high-profile critics of the streaming model.
"I feel like as musicians we need to fight the Spotify thing. I feel that in some ways what's happening in the mainstream is the last gasp of the old industry. Once that does finally die, which it will, something else will happen," he said in a 2013 interview - he has subsequently withheld his solo releases from these platforms.
Speaking today as part of the 'Music for the masses' panel on the event's Centre Stage - Brian Message was far more positive about these services - he said that streaming is the new "language of the [music] business."
Even if streaming services offer minimal direct financial returns to musicians, he says that they serve as a platform which can be used to open other ways of generating revenues, and that the business as it stands is now more like other industries, and that individual acts are like start-ups who need to work to "find capital, and to find fans."
When the final history of the demise of the 'traditional' per-download music business model is written the release of Radiohead's In Rainbows as a 'pay what you want' (including the option to pay nothing) download in 2007 will be seen as a defining moment.
Mr Message says that the decision to release the album online was less of a protest against the old model of music distribution, and more of an attempt by those involved to try to make the release of the record "exciting and inspiring."
"It was the right thing - at the right time," he concludes looking back.
In Rainbows is the only Radiohead album which is not available on streaming services like Spotify and Deezer.
He was joined on the panel by DJ Steve Angello, who runs Size Records - he is also positive about the impact that new technologies like streaming have had on the industry, but he warns that it is harder than ever to keep the attention of young listeners.
"People’s attention spans are so short - you just have to drag them into your world,” he said, commenting on the volume of digital information that young people consume on a daily basis.
Traditionally the launch of an album would have had a one month promotional cycle, for him launching his latest project has involved a nine month distribution plan, involving a drip-feeding of new material, and the creation of digital experiences for fans - these have included experimentation with augmented reality, and the release of mini-documentaries.
