The people vs the entertainment industry

[n2doc]

03 December 2009 by Paul Marks

"THIS is the kind of snooping you'd expect in China, not a modern western democracy. It raises huge questions over privacy invasion and freedom of expression." So says Andrew Heaney - who is not, as you might imagine, a civil liberties campaigner, but a senior executive at TalkTalk, one of the UK's largest internet service providers. Along with other ISPs, his company faces the prospect of being forced to spy on its customers' downloads for signs of potential copyright infringement.

Heaney's disquiet is shared by web campaigners worldwide, as the measures contained in a controversial international copyright treaty (New Scientist, 5 July 2008, p 24) are slowly being translated into national laws variously tipped to bridge, distract from or widen the gulf between the entertainment industry's desires and those of the millions who share copyrighted material over the internet.

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), suggested by the US administration in 2007, aims to redefine global trade rules. The intention is to stem losses from counterfeiting and internet-mediated piracy of content like music and movies.

It will do that by penalising internet service providers and websites that carry, or help people to find, pirated content. ACTA has quickly proved a hit with G8 nations, the European Union, South Korea and Australia, who are all using it as a basis for future national laws.

ACTA is still being worked up in secret by trade delegations from the many nations involved. But a series of leaks to the Wikileaks website reveal that it will require ISPs to become technological sleuths who monitor their customers' internet use to "deter unauthorised storage and transmission of infringing content". Infringers will face a "graduated response", with disconnection as the ultimate sanction.

more

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427375.200-net-piracy-the-people-vs-the-entertainment-industry.html

[annabanana]

1. . . .bears watching

[newtothegame]

2. Our entertainment industry votes for Obama though so it's ok. n/t

[HamdenRice]

3. ALL my musician friends are out of work, going back to school. The infrastructure collapsed.

I'm not in favor of the kind of Orwellian legislation in the OP but we also have to face the fact that the entire infrastructure of the music industry has collapsed because music is effectively free.

I had lots of musician friends -- not the upper end pop stars, but dozens of working musicians, many based on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, backup singers, sessions musicians and so on, who also nurtered their own bands and groups -- most of whom I got to know in the 90s. They weren't well off, heck, they weren't even "not poor" but you could make a living as a working musician in New York from the trickle down of the CD business, and from modest record sales through independent music stores, like Hot Trax on First Avenue.

It seems every time I run into one them, they are going back to school. They all complain about the same thing -- the ipod and online music have killed the economic model and infrastructure of the music business and nothing has replaced it. From free music to mindless pre-programmed radio stations that emphasize non-musician-musicians, to the shut down of the clubs and the closing of almost every CD and record store in Manhattan, there is now no way to make a living as a musician in what used to be the best city in the world to make a living as a musician.

[Echo In Light]

4. _