Calls plans to target suspected file-sharers "draconian measures" and warns that ISPs will inevitably target "vulnerable people who use shared Internet connections."
Finally some UK politicians are starting to realize the folly in having ISPs target suspected file-sharers, especially when the evidence comes from the entertainment industry and NOT from independent law enforcement personnel.
With reports that some 54% of UK kids are file-sharers along with the fact that the British govt plans to reduce P2P overall by some 80% is starting to raise eyebrows. For it means that large numbers of people will face sanctions from ISPs or more. Again, all without evidence obtained from unbiased sources.
The Green Party is warning that the agreement reached this week between the recording industry and the UK's six largest ISPs - BT, Virgin Media, Orange, Tiscali, BSkyB, and Carphone Warehouse - is not in the best interests of musicians or music fans, and could have a "serious impact on net access for vulnerable people."
It calls the plans "draconian measures" that would "harm the quality of life of vulnerable people who use shared internet connections and are likely to be targeted as suspects."
The party also argues that a healthy music industry, less dependent on corporate power, can continue to thrive without attacking people's rights to share content.
Tom Chance, the party's Intellectual Property Spokesperson said in a statement:
Net-users everywhere should be worried by today's Memorandum of Understanding between the BPI and the six largest ISPs in the UK. Faults exist at every level. The first stage gives the BPI the right to track file-sharers, and pass their details onto ISPs. That's an attack on civil liberties in itself - but the true folly of the scheme rests in what those ISPs can do next.
Their new powers run in two halves. Initially, they merely send warning letters to suspected file-sharers. If these fail to deter them, the ISPs threaten to to slow or cut off their internet connections. This is a hugely disproportionate response.
It wouldn't matter who had done the sharing. It wouldn't matter if it was someone else in the building. It wouldn't matter if your machine had been assaulted by malware and used without your knowledge.
The ISPs will target suspects, which means many people on shared internet connections will be cut off under these rules. These rules risk cutting many vulnerable people off from their livelihoods and their means for engaging as a citizen.
Geoff Taylor from the BPI says,'there is not an acceptable level of file-sharing. Musicians need to be paid like everyone else,' and Feargal Sharkey, spokesperson for British Music Rights, claims, 'no business can survive after losing as much revenue as the music industry has.' But the fact is that this loss of revenue results from the music industry's failure to move with the times.
Draconian measures won't stem that loss. The speed and ease of file-transfer makes it an increasingly attractive option compared to conventional shopping. It's the difference between pressing a button and going out to get the bus to the nearest music shop. If the music industry ever hopes to compete with that convenience, it needs to develop both legal and fair means of sharing files.
Record companies typically want to develop software along the lines of iTunes; a monopoly where individuals sign up and pay to legally share music. That's clearly unsatisfactory. The money collected won't find its way to musicians - the companies' typical charge against file-sharing.
The advent of mass social networking allows developing artists to promote themselves without immediate recourse to studios' PR teams, so whatever deal is produced should help sites that support independent artists, such as Magnatune, not just multinationals that distribute record industry fare.
The internet offers consumers and artists greater freedom from the strictures of corporate power. This memo attempts to stop that; its assault on file-sharing attacks consumers, while its proposals on legal filesharing seek simply to preserve the record industry's cut of musician's profits. Along the way, it makes a flagrant challenge to the liberty of internet users, which must be opposed.
At last we have a political party that resoundingly criticizes this blatant hijacking of the Internet by the entertainment industry. Why on earth are ISPs being allowed to agree to have private business concerns play Internet police when they are not and for good reason.
Chance rightly points out the fact that the real cause of music industry losses is its "failure to move with the times." Instead of it being made to evolve and compete like any other business society instead is made to conform to its own twisted sense of reality.
It argues for legal services like iTunes, but artists still only get 10 cents from a 99 cent download. With no distribution or packaging costs who's really robbing who? It certainly isn't file-sharers.
"Cheers" to the Green Party.
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thank you! thank you! for making my point!!
exactly what i would have said , they have brains! = )
It's a risky gambit, but what does green have to loose? they've always been a small fish in just about any political circle so far, this may put them into the big leagues.
I am uncertain what their views are outside of Canada, the UK and Sweden, but in these three countries, their views have been quite consistent. I just hope that when they are much more successful tomorrow (figuratively speaking), they don't forget why.