His band is one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts of all time – but there’s little chance emerging musicians will get the chance to have the same type of success, claims U2 guitarist the Edge.

According to the beanie-wearing Irish rocker, the global music industry is in dire straights. Illegal downloading is taking too much of a toll, claims the Edge (real name Dave Evans) – and not enough is being done to stop it. “It just means no one’s going to invest in music, which just means no one is going to get tour support, record deals, publishing deals, all the rest, which is how every band since the Beatles have managed to get going initially,” the Edge told Hot Press. “That feels like that this sort of parasitical medium will basically kill the host, which would not be good.”

With millions of albums sold throughout their decades long career, U2’s most recent LP, No Line On The Horizon, has sold over five million albums since its release back in March 2009. While that may be plenty of copies for most acts, it’s a big decline on the Irish rocker’s usual tallies. Back in October Bono discussed the problem. “We felt that the ‘album’ is almost an extinct species, and we [tried to] create a mood and feeling, and a beginning, middle and an end,” he said of their latest effort. “And I suppose we’ve made a work that is a bit challenging for people who have grown up on a diet of pop stars.”