Don't Stop File-Sharing, Says Former Pink Floyd Manager

Barence writes "The former manager of Pink Floyd has labelled attempts to clamp down on music file-sharing as a 'waste of time.' 'Not only are they a waste of time, they make the law offensive. They are comparable to prohibition in the US in the 1920s,' said Peter Jenner, who's now the emeritus president of the International Music Managers' Forum. 'It's absurd to expect ordinary members of the public to think about what they're allowed to do [with CDs, digital downloads, etc]... and then ask themselves whether it's legal or not.' The comments come as Britain's biggest ISP, BT, said it was confident that Britain's Digital Economy Act — which could result in file-sharers losing their internet connection — would be overturned in the courts, because it doesn't comply with European laws on privacy."

Comments

It's absurd - cut and past oddity

[acomj]

""It's absurd to expect ordinary members of the public to think "

Really?

"They are comparable to prohibition in the US in the 1920s."
How? A ban on liquor is equated to a making music copying illegal?

hey! look what you get when you cut and paste from TFA. A little rider on the bottom...

Read more: Music chief: preventing file-sharing is a "waste of time" | News | PC Pro http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/359458/music-chief-preventing-file-sharing-is-a-waste-of-

Re:Prohibition?

[Hatta]

it spawned violent gangs that were funded by the illicit substances

Remember allofmp3? Weren't they run by the Russian mob?

the laws themselves caused more problems than they could possibly have solved

Chilling effects from restrictive laws on copying cause more creative work to go unpublished than free copying would.

many of the problems attributed to alcohol then and illegal drugs now are caused by the laws themselves

Many of the problems attributed to piracy (artists getting screwed over) are caused by the organizations who actually hold the copyrights (see the RIAA accounting article we had a few days ago.)

It is very much like both alcohol and drug prohibition. It took just over 10 years to get the first repealed. It's been 60 years of the second, and only the first cracks are beginning to show. I hate to think what the next few decades of the War on Piracy will bring.