A Bit of Bittorrent Bother

Lave writes "A journalist at the BBC is replying to complaints about its recent Newsnight show, where it stated that using Bittorrent to download copyrighted material is theft. It's a very frank and honest account about the perceived realities of the internet and how traditional media represents it. From the article: '[One] answer is that we're totally scared of new media, because new media is railways and we're canals, and you all just know how that's going to end. So we seek to equate the internet with all bad things to scare you off it. At some corporate Freudian level, there's some truth to that accusation.'"

Comments

Glad to see this

[LordSnooty]

I'm glad to see this apology, I saw the original report and I was shouting at the television. Not only was there the "theft" line, but they also wheeled on a "former CIA security agent" yada yada. He said, and I quote, "the majority of crimes in the US and the UK are solved by the use of telephone intercepts". Which I didn't believe for one minute. He used that line as a justification for banning or severely restricting VoIP. Did people cry upon the invention of the telephone, claiming that it'd be so much harder to catch criminals now that they can't intercept their post? If by telephone intercepts he means "referral to telephone call records", well the statement might be true, although the 7-year data retention rules for ISPs should help in that regard.

Adam Livingstone, the author of TFA isn't the person responsible for the original report. That dubious honour falls on Justin Rowlatt, who in a fit of irony is also currently running a series of reports where he tries to live as an "Ethical Man" - first up, Justin, try checking the definition of 'theft' in the dictionary. Then stop spreading lies about legal technology.

Bad analogy, but what analogy isn't?

[bynary]

...because new media is railways and we're canals...

More like "new media is the Internet and we're TV and Radio, and we all know how that's going to turn out". The only parties that decry new media are those that don't understand the Internet. Apple understands it. That's why iTunes is so successful. Microsoft understands it. That's why Xbox Live is so successful. Most other companies just don't understand it.