Slashdot Mirror
DMCA Amendment Proposed For UK
Grumbleduke writes "During today's debate in the UK's House of Lords on the much-criticized Digital Economy Bill, the unpopular Clause 17 (which would have allowed the government to alter copyright law much more easily than it currently can) was voted out in favor of a DMCA-style take-down system for websites and ISPs. The new amendment known as 120A sets up a system whereby a copyright owner could force an ISP to block certain websites who allegedly host or link to infringing material or face being taken before the High Court and made to pay the copyright owner's legal fees. This amendment was tabled by the Liberal Democrat party, which had so far been seen as the defenders of the internet and with the Conservative party supporting them. The UK's Pirate Party and Open Rights Group have both strongly criticized this new amendment."
Michael Geists recent 20min presentation to American Uni, Washington College of Law was very interesting, he basically says that ACTA is a sly underhanded run-around of existing treaty. If I understood correctly, big media/content producers did not like having to negotiate using open democratic processes built into existing agreements - so they sponsored ACTA to subvert the democratic process. Worth watching to understand where ACTA is coming from.
Your assuming that a decrease in price point won't increase sales, by a similar ratio. In other words if they cut the cost by 50% and the sales increase by a little over double( double would assume that the cost to them was 0 per copy), then the profit margin would not change.
That is only based on the assumption that only "they" can distribute the media - so we are back where we started - legislating artificial scarcity into the unlimited copies, fixed cost distribution medium so that only those who are allowed by law to distribute can profit - everyone else cannot benefit from the Internets innovation. In the "normal" scarce goods model, distributors (companies running trucks, boats...) all take their cut of the profits for moving the physical goods around (and employed people outside of big media in the process). Big Media does not need those distributors anymore, at least not like they needed them before to before move CD boxes around. However In the Internets fixed cost distribution medium *anyone* can distribute, and redistribute for fixed cost. Without ACTA and legislation there is no massive profit for moving bits and bytes around. The power to reach people goes back to the artist and is no longer solely in the hands of of a few big media companies who used to be the only ones who could facilitate the distribution of their artistic works to the masses. However the artist can't try and ride on the next to free fixed cost distribution but charge for artificial scarcity either - profit is no longer in distribution (without ACTA and strict laws forcing artificial scarcity into the internet, that is).