p2pnet - rss feed: Big Music to sue UK file sharers
p2pnet.net News:- Big Music has apparently chosen the last part of 2004 to launch an all-out, international war of terror against people it claims are sharing music online.
Having announced a further 762 suits against US p2p network users, bringing the total to close to 5,800, and having started after people in France, the Big Four record label cartel is now about to attack Britons as well.
“The record industry is expected to unleash lawsuits against music pirates in Britain within the next month in an intensification of their battle to protect copyright material,” says the Times Online.
“Industry sources have told The Times that record companies plan to target the most flagrant users of peer-to-peer internet file-sharing sites such as Grokster and Kazaa after the success of similar legal action in America.
“Latest music industry sales figures, released yesterday, showed that the legal campaign in the US, where thousands of lawsuits have been filed against alleged music pirates, has helped to reverse a prolonged slump in record sales there.”
That’s complete nonsense.
The entertainment industry has never been able to prove drops in sales are connected with online file sharing. Nor has it been able to show that a file shared equals a sale lost.
“Among the only long-term truths we know about downloadable music is that people have such an instinctual desire for it that file trading spread before there was an infrastructure to support it,” says the LA Weekly’s Alec Hanley Bemis.
“The major labels have been trotting out p2p file sharing as the rationale for their difficulties for years now, but no one believes it. In April, two business-school professors - Harvard’s Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf from the University of North Carolina - even released a study showing there was no statistical relationship between file sharing and subsequent dips in sales.”
He also points out:
“The music-industry lobby would have you believe that sales are down and sinking - as would the general tenor of the media’s industry coverage. But this just isn’t true. In 2004, record sales plainly seem to be rising. Soundscan has registered 252 million records sold in 2004 to date. Compare this with 235 million sold in the same period of 2003, and that’s an increase of over 26 million units, or 6.35 percent.”
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See:-
762 suits - RIAA sues another 762, p2pnet, September 30, 2004
France - French file share attack, p2pnet, September 30, 2004
attack Britons - Music firms poised to set the law on pirates, Times Online, October 1, 2004
long-term truths - 3 Myths About the Recording Industry Debunked, LA Weekly, September 24-30, 2004
October 2nd, 2004 at 2:41 pm
What is the legality of confiscating someones computer.
Suppose the person uses it for their business or work, suppose it is essential to their livelihood.
Suppose the individual is vision impaired and they need their computer to live.
Why can’t the police come in and search the computer?
Why do they have to confiscate it.
I bet the Recording Industry carefully choose their VICTIMS.
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Now if the guy was couterfieting and selling music well then maybe…but copyright infringement for personal enjoyment…CONFISCATING SOMEONES COMPUTER IS WAY TOO SERIOUS.
I refer to confiscating someones computer because that it what they are up to in France, where a school teacher had his computer confiscated for downloading musioc for his own personal use.
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Seriously people this is a civil liberty. All your files. Your computer.