Courtesy: Maximum PC
The Story
According to some Big Content groups over in the UK, online piracy is costing the music industry £200 million ($319 million) a year in lost revenue. And apparently, Big Content’s barnstorming of this figure has been quite effective. In the UK, Business Secretary Peter Mandelson has gone so far as to propose three strikes-style legislation, which would disconnect users from the internet if they were repeatedly accused of filesharing.
Yet Mr. Mandelson doesn’t seem to agree with the cause he is fighting for.
“They’ve lobbied hard and very effectively but that doesn’t make them right,” he said. “Their claims are melodramatic and assume people would buy all the music that is illegally downloaded, which is nonsense.”
98% Of Figures Are Made Up On The Spot
I don’t understand why the record industry keeps citing these ridiculous figures. No one believes them. Not even the politicians they buy believe them. I’m personally horrified that Mr. Mandelson, despite what seems like a pretty level-headed analysis of just how absurd Big Content’s claims about online piracy are, still went ahead and proposed legislation. That’s an indication of just how effective the music industry’s political lobbies are.
Here’s a question: if the music industry is losing money, why is it the government’s job to do something about that? Here in the United States, our government bailed out the failing banking and automotive industries, but the music industry is not failing. It’s just not making the same boatloads of cash it was in the mid to late nineties. Yet somehow, Big Content is deep enough in bed with various governments that it can get laws passed which completely ignore due process or common sense.
