BBC interview with Lord Triesman over UK Anti-piracy measures
I'm certainly no Pirate, but even so I was totally bowled over by this one, straight out of the blue!
The UK government could legislate to crack down on illegal file-sharers, a senior politician has told the BBC's iPM programme.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7059881.stm
What irks me about this is that special-powers are being shaped by the music and movie industry "behind-the-scenes" and without public consultation to stop "Piracy" on the internet. This must be stopped immediately whether piracy is right or wrong. We've deliberately stopped legislation for over a decade that could stop some minorities from using the internet for their kicks (kiddie p0rn freaks, suicide sites et al), so why should we legislate now due to corporate pressure? This would make a farce out of all the efforts to keep the internet free of oppressive censorship (think China).The M&M industry finger point, take down pensioners and cripple students lives before they have begun in high-profile cases. They bring up ridiculous figures of losses (none of which are adjusted for trends) and they say Piracy is the downfall of CD's\DVD's and is crippling the M&M industries. The reality is far from their apoplectic, bubble-wrapped vision of how things are. Put simply, not many people buy CD's anymore, they either down the stuff via iTunes or go to other websites that either give it to them free (naughty!) or have a business model for digital downloads that generates both a profit and return for the artists. Welcome to the digital 21st Century where new business models are required to survive.
As I just pointed out there is no "adjustments" made to show the true impact (if it can be pinned down) that Piracy is having on them. I do sympathise with artists not making money, and think instead of securing their future with legislation they should rethink and introduce a business model (digital!) that makes them a reasonable amount of money, but most importantly actually gives the artists a fair deal. Their time has come and gone. They cannot honestly expect to continue making reams of money surely? You'd be TRUELY stunned at how much money heads towards an artist for his content, the figures for how much is bled off along the line is horrific. How someone can justify their fat profit margin, whilst pushing the artists away from the pot of gold doesn't deserve any sympathy from you or me.
We're starting to see an interesting trend whereby artists are starting to give their music away for free on the internet to generate interest, as well as to get their music out to the world, which is ultimately what drives them (not so much the money). And then they try to make their money from doing tours. Look at Prince (Mr Symbol!) who is doing exactly that, and is promoting the idea to other artists. That's the future right there. That alone shows you that the artists can actually exist without a producer\distributor, while making the same kind of money, maybe even more. This isn't the 90's with 56k dialup modems; we're in the digital DSL\Cable age. If the herd are becoming more reliant on digital transfers than physical media, then go along with it, and stop trying to force people to stop by suing them. Give them a model that works for both parties, a fair model where “everybody wins”.
Essentially if the artists are moving away from their producers\distributors, well it shows that they, the music industry are now seen in the 21st century as a redundant business model by those that actually prop them up, the artists.
As for Movies, again give us a digital model please. One where I can watch ANY movie EVER released in HD (if available). Everyone wins; I watch more movies than ever before, and the movie machine make even more money due to the sheer MASS of people using the system in comparison to the rent-and-return model that exists today.
Sure, it’s not a well thought out posting, but I wanted to point out the BBC article, and spam some thoughts. Please do comment if you have an opinion pro\against what I’ve sketched out here. I’m always willing to contemplate other angles on the issue.