Well, my friends, it was good while it lasted and we always knew that it would inevitably come to a sad end. We could but hope, and hope we did, but now that hope has headed for the hills. Yes, the beginning of the end for free music has arrived.

Although we have all been aware of illegal downloading for some time (and most of us avoid it like the plague), certain record labels have helped to keep the pirates at bay by offering licenses to free music services and allowing them to stream their songs. However, now it has been announced that Warner Music is going to withdraw its licensing privileges and prevent fans listening to their music via free sites like Spotify, Last.fm and We7, all of which earn their revenue via advertising.

The reason why this has been done? A statement from Warner stated that these services and providers were “clearly not positive for the industry”, meaning that they are not lucrative enough for them to continue. Never mind about the fans, the fat cats at the labels are not earning money! As if to ram that point home, Mr Edgar Bronfman Jr. said the following: “The number of potential subscribers dwarfs the number of people who are actually purchasing music on iTunes.”

The music labels do get a royalty from streaming music sites like Spotify whenever they are played. Although this is smaller than the amount offered as a result of a paid download, they still do get paid. It seems to me that Mr Bronfman has lost touch with the public actually and needs to look at it realistically.

There is a reason why people are not downloading much music at the moment and that is called recession. They cannot afford it. That is why the subscription streaming services that Bronfman has advocated will not attract the “hundreds of millions if not billions of people, most of whom are not today either buyers or certainly heavy buyers of music” that he has predicted. 250,000 people pay for Spotify for example, whereas those taking advantage of the free service with ads make up the 95% of the users.

If that does not tell the chief executive, who is probably not short of cash, something then I have no idea what will.