The Wondering Brit

It can’t have escaped the notice of everyone that the entertainment industries and indeed, the artists themselves claim foul when it comes to so called illegal downloading and file sharing.
Yet, we all question the validity of the incomes generated by these people. Indeed, no one would ever question an honest days pay after an honest days work, but some of the earning figures are nothing short of grotesque!

The other issue is this… If the entertainment (or whoever) industries can’t ‘lock the door’ and secure their own products – who is the greater fool?!
Indeed, after years of whinging about lost profits, what have they really done to safe guard the products and works of the clients who generate this stuff?
I mean, would you open an electrical goods shop that has no doors or windows, and expect to find anything left when you turn up the next day? The answer is no, because it would treated like a great giveaway centre.

Is it unreasonable in this age of accountability, to say that I pay an ISP for a service, a service which I believe to be safe, secure and legal – and that everything I get on it – is legal?

In reality the responsibilities are everyone’s, but they start with the manufacturer of the media themselves. Then it in turn moves to websites, ISP’s and then the end user.

In fact, a few months ago, on the Blog of Joseph Mallozzi (executive producer), we discussed the so called illegal downloading of his show Stargate Atlantis. The thing that seemed forever to shock the makers of SGA and of course the parent and owners ‘MGM’ was the formidable global sale of the DVD box sets. Many people from all over the world said they both downloaded the show illegally and bought the box set. After a short discussion it was realised that MGM had sold the show to obscure TV channels and stations that are unavailable to most people. The result being that everyone downloads the show, watches it, deletes it and then at the end of the season, buys the box set. The huge irony here is that by doing such an appallingly bad job at selling the show, they had both created illegal downloading – yet were reaping vast profits because of it through DVD sales…. Amazing!

I really baulk and artists saying they’re having money stolen from them by this – when they aren’t losing one cent from their respective profits. Who, by simply standing on an arena stage for one night or simply a couple of hours will earn more money than most people will see a tenth of in there life times.
At the same time, I have no problem with people earning a lot of money – as long as they don’t whinge about it!
So here is the thing; Piracy is only damaging to those media that are not well estalished, yet these very same media are more likely to promote themselves by allowing free downloads in order to obtain recognition. It does not kill music, it does not kill TV and Film (unless no one ever wants advertise anything, all of a sudden). What this is truly about is control.

So…. After an infamous court case with the global file sharing website ‘Pirate Bay’, who were fined millions of dollars – Pirate bay has drawn the new battle lines and is about to launch what could become the ultimate YouTube.

The BBC has the story