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BBC NEWS | Entertainment | U2 manager ‘wants end to piracy’
In particular, this manager is keen to see the ISP’s pay money to the artists.
If you were a magazine advertising stolen cars, handling the money for stolen cars and seeing to the delivery of stolen cars, the police would soon be at your door
Is it me, or is this completely the wrong analogy? Surely the correct analogy is a council which provide and build roads, or someone who builds a garage. The fact that roads and garages are used by stolen cars doesn’t mean you should sue or even prosecute the people responsible for the roads and garages.
Paul McGuinness has at least partly blamed the record companies. He blames them for the wrong thing, but at least he blames them. Further, he’s actually standing up for the artists, although he might want to start with the contracts that the artists get with the record labels in the first place.
Any thoughts on whether he’s got it right?
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January 30th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
I think you’re right about the analogy. Does the article mean that he wants ISP’s to pay money to the artists, or that he wants ISP’s to disconnect people found to be downloading illegally though? I guess the latter sort of works in theory, but in reality I don’t think many people would be left with internet! & then the ISP’s would be losing out on a lot of money.
Like you said, he is blaming the record companies for the wrong thing. The record companies need to seriously re-assess what they’re doing & not blame everyone else.
Sorry if I got this completely wrong, I am quite tired at the moment!
February 2nd, 2008 at 6:08 pm
I think he wants ISPs to pay money to the artists. This has often been proposed as a sort of “pay us money and we’ll keep quiet” arrangement.
I agree that the idea of disconnecting people is fine in theory, and hopeless in practice. To continue the analogy: much like banning hit-and-run drivers from using the roads. But roads are a public place, easily policed.
The strange thing about the internet is whilst there’s a lot of publicity involved, there are measures in place to increase privacy. Further, it’s constantly expanding, so anyone can build a website where something happens or at the very least create something - even as simple as a Facebook profile. Not everyone can build a car or road.
This makes the internet virtually impossible to police for copyright or any issue where people aren’t as willing to prosecute for infringements, as any measure which breaches privacy is controversial, and in order to police it properly, I suspect privacy would have to be sacrificed.