It’s not the fault of the ISPs, never mind that they are, according to McGuinness, “destroying the recorded music industry” by failing to tackle piracy. Nor is it the fault of Apple (AAPL) and the makers of other digital media players who are wrongly profiting from their “burglary kits.” Nor can it be blamed solely on Silicon Valley and its “entrepreneurial, hippie values,” which in McGuinness’s opinion have bred a deep disregard for the true value of music.

No, it appears there’s no one to blame for this particular cock-up but Universal Music, which mistakenly put the album up for sale earlier this week at getmusic.com.au. It was only available there for a brief period, but there was time enough for fans to buy it legally. Not surprisingly, copies of the record began showing up on torrent indexes a short while later.

An embarrassing turn of events for a band that had gone to extraordinary lengths to prevent exactly this situation from happening. Still, as TechDirt’s Mike Masnick notes, there’s a lesson to be learned here. “At some point, folks in the music industry are going to (finally) recognize a rather simple fact: it just takes one digital copy of a song/movie/whatever to get out there, and it’s everywhere. You can’t stop it. No matter how annoying it is. No matter what laws it violates. It will happen.”

“RealNetworks took this legal action to protect consumers’ ability to exercise their fair-use rights for their purchased DVDs,” the company said in a statement. “We are disappointed that the movie industry is following in the footsteps of the music industry and trying to shut down advances in technology rather than embracing changes that provide consumers with more value and flexibility for their purchases. For nearly 15 years RealNetworks has created innovative products that are fully legal, great for consumers, and respectful of the legitimate interests of content creators and rights holders. RealDVD follows in that tradition. We expect to successfully defend our right to make RealDVD available to consumers and consumers’ rights to use it.”

We’ll see, I guess. Clearly the silly little “RealDVD is for saving a DVD you own” disclaimer attached to the software isn’t going to cut it with Hollywood. I imagine we’ll be hearing from the Motion Picture Association of America before the day is out.

“The amount being paid to the music industry, even though their games are entirely dependent on the content we own and control, is far too small,” Bronfman said during an earnings call today. “There is what I would call a very paltry licensing fee per song. … I think the industry as a whole needs to take a very different look at this business and participate more fully and in a much more partnership way. And if that does not become the case, as far as Warner Music is concerned, we will not license to those games.”

Leaving aside, for a moment, the question of why Warner (WMG) agreed to a royalty scheme it apparently finds unappealing, you’ve got to wonder why the company persists in lambasting these new media that so obviously invigorate the industry and promote its music. And beyond that, you’ve got to wonder why Warner is doing it at a time when games like Guitar Hero and Rock Star are clearly becoming viable distribution outlets.

Of course, we already know the answer. Bronfman himself gave it to us in a speech last year. “We used to fool ourselves,” he said. “We used to think our content was perfect just exactly as it was. We expected our business would remain blissfully unaffected even as the world of interactivity, constant connection and file sharing was exploding. And of course we were wrong. How were we wrong? By standing still or moving at a glacial pace, we inadvertently went to war with consumers by denying them what they wanted and could otherwise find, and as a result, of course, consumers won.”