It should be no surprise to you, my readers, that I believe the claims of piracy by the recording and movie industries are weak. Likewise, I have made my views on the way the content industry tries to score points very clear.Further, it should be no surprise that I think that a content creator who wants to ensure that they get revenues from their content, should be the best provider of it, or at least facilitate legal services that their target group can use.
Tag: piracy
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Accessibility – the way to combat piracy
Software, music and movie piracy has been a more or less constant topic of discussion over the past ten or so years, usually led by special interest groups representing the three industries (in the U.S., these are the BSA, RIAA and MPAA, respectively). I agree that copyright holders should be paid their due, and have no problem paying for the media I use. The main problem I have with the arguments the copyright holders and their interest groups are using, is that their argument is one for the pre-internet age, when the options available were watching live TV, recording live TV, or buying the show or movie on a cassette or DVD.
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Innocent until proven guilty – or so I’ve always learned.
The miscarriages of justice made possible by the two acronyms I loathe the most (RIAA, MPAA) just keeps piling on it seems. First it was the lawsuits against dead people and infants. RIAA recently announced their decision to stop pressing these lawsuits.
Later on there was the suggestion of three strikes legislation to fight piracy – first accusation gained you a warning, the second meant your bandwidth would get strangled, and with the third accusation you’d lose your net connection altogether.
Most recently, I learned that New Zealand are planning an even stricter law: upon the first accusation, you are immediately assumed guilty, and your connection is cut.
Now, I believe very strongly in the principle of the accused being assumed innocent until proven otherwise. For an assembly of elected officials to even think of proposing a law like this should be anathema, never mind actually really looking to put it into legislation.
You can think whatever you will of piracy, filesharing and so on, this is just wrong.