Slashdot Mirror
Do We Want ISPs Penalizing Music Fans?
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Noted singer songwriter Billy Bragg has written an excellent column in The Guardian, coming out against the pro-RIAA '3-strikes' legislation the big 4 record labels are trying to push through. In the article, entitled 'Do we want ISPs penalizing our fans?', Bragg writes: 'Having failed miserably in previous attempts to stamp out illicit filesharing, the record industry has now joined forces with other entertainment lobby groups to demand that the government takes action to protect their business model.' He goes on: 'Fearful of the prospect of dragging their customers though the courts, with all the attendant costs and bad publicity, members of the record industry have come up with a simple, cost-free solution to their problem: get the ISPs to do their dirty work for them. They are asking the government to force the ISPs to cut off the broadband connection of customers who persistently download unauthorized material, without any recourse to appeal in the courts.'"
If the ISPs are to be considered a 'common carrier', then this is not their duty.
Other points, if the ISPs are going to be doing this:
- How are they to decide when something is fair use, when even the big media companies get it wrong so often?
- Who is going to pay them to do the dirty work of the media industry?
- This is like getting Walmart to ban you because something you are doing is not kosher in HMV.
There are certainly other problems with this whole 'getting the ISPs' to do the dirty work, but I have a 'failure of imagination' when it comes to the other issues.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law
http://dmca.cs.washington.edu/
You are the type of person who would call Benjamin Franklin and Nikola Tesla, "Pirates"
They had "radical piracy-like agendas" Touting dangerous ideas that knowledge, invention, innovation, even energy should be given away for free for the advancement of human civilization.
The RIAA does not protect "poor artists and musicians", they protect themselves, and huge record corporations.
This is why Jamendo and Magnatune are popular with some artists.
When they want to make it a law that you lose your internet connection in this fashion then it is very relevant.
And when they are beaten in the marketplace they go running to their friends in government to strongarm their competition.
Wait. What competition? What strong-arming? As far as I can remember from reading slashdot, one of the most anti-**AA sites on the internet, the one and only drum they have been banging is the anti-piracy drum. I don't remember hearing of any government help to eliminate legitimate competition.
I guess you missed the /. pieces about the attempt to strangle/kill internet radio, where independent artists have a chance to be heard by a wide audience?
I guess you also missed the part where they passed a law to force the internet radio stations to pay royalties to SoundExchange for independent artists' work unless they could show a contract for each separate indy artist?
That SoundExchange could legally keep a portion of said indy artists' royalties as "expenses" for performing the unasked-for and unwanted (by the indy artists/internet radio stations) task of grabbing royalties from internet radio stations in the name of independent artists?
Not sure what the MPAA has done to stifle competition, as there isn't a whole lot of that in the same way there is in music. However, the RIAA has been hard at work buying laws to stifle independent artists and their distribution channels.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.