It seems that the time has come in the UK for people who share music/software via P2P applications such as Kazaa and Bit Torrent.
The BSA is forcing UK ISPs to disclose 150 names of people in the UK.
And this week the High Court ruled in favour of the media moguls by ordering 2 men to pay damages for sharing "thousands of songs". They used the defense that they didn't know it was illegal, and that the BPI had no direct evidence against them. That didn't matter, and they were found to be guilty.
The BBC news story is extremely biased, in that it uses all of the BSA/BPI terminology such as "theft, stealing, piracy" etc to confuse and scare the public and it's customers into conforming to traditional methods of distribution.
If we carry on in this way, culture, innovation and art are going to be slowed down and burnt.
It may be true that sharing music over the Internet has caused a decline in sales (none of the music/software industries data can be used to form the same conclusion), however, assuming it is true - people will continue to file share until they are caught.
If artists are going to be losing money, and in turn not going to bother creating music - the BPI is hurting the music industry. Laws reflect culture and the majority of the population, not the interests of a select few or large corporations/industries. If artists do not get compensated for their work, then I understand that they are less likely to bother creating it in the first place. The Internet and the technology is here though, it will not go away and file sharing will not be reduced by suing people in court. It's just going to cost the tax payer and our country millions of pounds to compensate the music and software industry. Until we find a way to deal with this, it's a complete waste of money to fund what are essentially international interests (US media companies).
We need a solution, and this isn't it. I wouldn't be happy if my work was distributed around the world without my permission. But the way I see things now, I cannot stop it ever, it's completely impossible and an infinite task - one which is going to cost us an infinite amount of money in the long term. The longer this goes on, the more damage it is going to cause to society as a whole.
The BSA is forcing UK ISPs to disclose 150 names of people in the UK.
And this week the High Court ruled in favour of the media moguls by ordering 2 men to pay damages for sharing "thousands of songs". They used the defense that they didn't know it was illegal, and that the BPI had no direct evidence against them. That didn't matter, and they were found to be guilty.
The BBC news story is extremely biased, in that it uses all of the BSA/BPI terminology such as "theft, stealing, piracy" etc to confuse and scare the public and it's customers into conforming to traditional methods of distribution.
If we carry on in this way, culture, innovation and art are going to be slowed down and burnt.
It may be true that sharing music over the Internet has caused a decline in sales (none of the music/software industries data can be used to form the same conclusion), however, assuming it is true - people will continue to file share until they are caught.
If artists are going to be losing money, and in turn not going to bother creating music - the BPI is hurting the music industry. Laws reflect culture and the majority of the population, not the interests of a select few or large corporations/industries. If artists do not get compensated for their work, then I understand that they are less likely to bother creating it in the first place. The Internet and the technology is here though, it will not go away and file sharing will not be reduced by suing people in court. It's just going to cost the tax payer and our country millions of pounds to compensate the music and software industry. Until we find a way to deal with this, it's a complete waste of money to fund what are essentially international interests (US media companies).
We need a solution, and this isn't it. I wouldn't be happy if my work was distributed around the world without my permission. But the way I see things now, I cannot stop it ever, it's completely impossible and an infinite task - one which is going to cost us an infinite amount of money in the long term. The longer this goes on, the more damage it is going to cause to society as a whole.
