For those of you living outside of the UK, or those in the UK and unawares, the government has rushed through a last minute piece of legislation which now attempts to block or effectively 'filter-out' sites here which may contain content which should not be shared under copyright laws.Firstly, let me make a something clear. I do not for one moment completely condone the actions of pirates who distribute the works of others (be that music, film, photography or otherwise) whether they seek to gain profit or not, if they do not have the legal permission to do so. Having been an aspiring musician for the past 5 or 6 years, and having toiled endlessly and continuing to do so at several musical projects I can only imagine my fury were my material to leak onto the world wide web and deprive me of any reward for my work. (That isn't to say I am a complete angel in the online world either). Musicians and artists have bills to pay as well as the rest of us, and illegally distributing their music we can all agree harms their income significantly. However the music industry has been debating such an issue for years now. Firstly how do you control such a flux of illegal torrent hosting sites and how do you stop people from downloading your artists' content illegally, and convince them to act more legally and morally and pay instead? Secondly however, something that continues to perplex me as a musician is why the industry hasn't wised up and tried at least to stay in line with the enemy, by better promoting live performances, merchandise and other sources of income from the artists' works and taking an improved income there.. It baffles me to think that record labels and the music industry seem to spend such a portion of their time
bemoaning their losses from CD sales and downloads instead of taking the intitative and using more effective marketing strategies to at least reduce the deficits caused by P2P software. I was also shocked to see how few MPs were involved in the final part of the process of making this bill legislation. Just from the picture at the top of this blog it's clear to see that only a small minority of those with the power and status to influence the passing of this bill were not present, which I find disgraceful. I understand that this debate took place late into the evening, and that it wasn't set in stone how long it could last for, but if I refused to turn up to teach one of my lessons at college because I didn't feel like it, I can't see my situation being looked upon as lightly.
My main point of confusion with this bill is that the more I look at it's aims and objectives, the more I struggle to see how they can possibly police it effectively without a blanket surveillance on internet usage, and how this bill proposes to stay one step ahead of the pirates and illegal file distributors who will inevitably find an underground way of continuing to operate.. For sure the moral values and ideals behind the legislation are a step in the right
direction from an artist's perspective as they protect their income, but I cannot help but think that the only possible way to ensure that your downloads contain purely legally share-able content would be to monitor the sites you visit and the material you download. Not only would this require a seriously complictaed piece of software and also a lot of manpower, but also a considerable sustained investment on behalf of the government to ensure they stay one step ahead of the pirates they seek to stop. I cannot help but be concerned that if the government are able to monitor downloads and hits to any sites with illegal content, that they therefore are able to record who is visiting them. I refuse to accept that this bill is nothing short of a step around the previously disallowed legislation requiring ISPs to cut off persistent file sharers. The government did not also rule out the possibility that sites sharing content containing 'acquired' data may be blocked, such as 'Wikileaks' which has been at the centre of many a revelation on government scandals of late. Given the fact that I mashed a few words into our beloved Google to find the pictures for this blog, I'm already half expecting the almighty Internet Police to come knocking on my door and smite me for my deviance.
To summarise, this bill worries me. It's potential (though debatable) moral incentive does not worry me, as I fully see the point of the artists and (albeit lazy) promotion agencies marketing them and taking a hefty slice of any profits. What does worry me, is the direction that this bill appears to take, and the potential impact on our future freedom online.
'Keeping Watch..'
Sandlefish
My main point of confusion with this bill is that the more I look at it's aims and objectives, the more I struggle to see how they can possibly police it effectively without a blanket surveillance on internet usage, and how this bill proposes to stay one step ahead of the pirates and illegal file distributors who will inevitably find an underground way of continuing to operate.. For sure the moral values and ideals behind the legislation are a step in the right
direction from an artist's perspective as they protect their income, but I cannot help but think that the only possible way to ensure that your downloads contain purely legally share-able content would be to monitor the sites you visit and the material you download. Not only would this require a seriously complictaed piece of software and also a lot of manpower, but also a considerable sustained investment on behalf of the government to ensure they stay one step ahead of the pirates they seek to stop. I cannot help but be concerned that if the government are able to monitor downloads and hits to any sites with illegal content, that they therefore are able to record who is visiting them. I refuse to accept that this bill is nothing short of a step around the previously disallowed legislation requiring ISPs to cut off persistent file sharers. The government did not also rule out the possibility that sites sharing content containing 'acquired' data may be blocked, such as 'Wikileaks' which has been at the centre of many a revelation on government scandals of late. Given the fact that I mashed a few words into our beloved Google to find the pictures for this blog, I'm already half expecting the almighty Internet Police to come knocking on my door and smite me for my deviance.To summarise, this bill worries me. It's potential (though debatable) moral incentive does not worry me, as I fully see the point of the artists and (albeit lazy) promotion agencies marketing them and taking a hefty slice of any profits. What does worry me, is the direction that this bill appears to take, and the potential impact on our future freedom online.
'Keeping Watch..'
Sandlefish
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