Slashdot Mirror
UK Musicians Back Watered-Down "Three-Strikes" Rule
A brace of anonymous readers sent along coverage of UK musicians who have turned around to support three strikes, or a milder variant of it. What they suggest is more like "three strikes and you're hobbled" — after a third offense a downloader would be not disconnected, but rate-limited. The artists involved include Lily Allen, George Michael, and Sandie Shaw. The Guardian has more details. The final quote from the music industry, striking out at UK ISPs, is priceless: "BT is clinging on to an old business model which is supported by illegal downloading. That's not only unfair to artists and creators, but penalizes BT's many customers who use the Internet legally."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL9-esIM2CY
Metallica's bed-wetting cowardly lion of a frontman James Hettfield famously confessed that he used to crash on friends' couches and stay up all night copying his friends' tapes.
You know, the Metallica that helped kill the original Napster many years later?
One artist wrote a open-letter/song on this. It's brilliant.
Exactly (I submitted a story on this, but I think it's still lost in the firehose). It's depressing that so little of the mainstream media are covering this, instead still going with "Wonderful Lily Allen rallies and unites artists, and she closed her blog because people 'abused' her". She added nothing to the debate, just the same old tired arguments we've all heard before (you wouldn't steal from a shop; it's not free to make, how can it be free to give away? etc), it was like talking to a brick wall - she was completely obvlious to the point people were making when they pointed out her filesharing and plagiarism, instead she then retreated to defending it, whilst still saying it was wrong for anyone else to do it.
Her defence for filesharing mp3s was she "didn't have a knowledge of the workings of the music industry" - what, just like most of us, who don't work in the music industry at all?
Her claim about it being 5 years ago is nonsense too, as the mp3s were still being shared until she took them down *after* she was found out (ignorance is no defence of the law, and it won't be in this new law either).
The claims that she received "abuse" - or "vitriol" as the Featured Artists Coalition claims - is nonsense too. I saw the blog, and most comments (all that I saw) were polite and well argued. It was heated sure, but with her accusations of people being thieves, she gave as good as she got. Furthermore, she posted and offensive rant by James Allan in support of her, who referred to people as "tight fucks" and their girlfriends as "fat fucks". Why is this offensive and sexist rant being excused and ignored by the media, whilst instead they focus on allegations of "abuse" from random anonymous people on the Internet?
Oh yes, and the Government Consultation ends 29 September (Tuesday) - please repond, unless you want the debate to be run by people like Lily Allen: http://www.berr.gov.uk/consultations/page51696.html .