European Commission publishes draft directive on copyright
According to IT World dot com:
The European Commission on Thursday presented a draft directive that punishes copyright infringement for commercial purposes, but leaves the home music downloader untouched, infuriating the entertainment industry.
For the full story, see here.
I really hope this aspect of the draft will be retained in the final version, regardless of what arguments The Industry – i.e. BSA, IFPI, MPA, RIAA and others – might conjure up.
In my opinion, the big problem for the music, the video and the software industry is not the piracy – as they insist on calling it – of individuals. Instead, it's in their unwillingness to adapt to the new era of digital communications; they're desperately clinging on to an old idea where they have total control over the distribution of content, and it's a battle they surely cannot win.
I don't say piracy is a good thing – and I mean real piracy where one part is actually stealing from another part – but what these huge-profit organizations are lobbying for are senseless restrictions to the rights of individuals. And these restrictions, these tightened laws won't stop the real pirates anyway, they will only frustrate the end-users.
For example, one effect of the The Industry's attempts at controlling the use of "its" content is the problem of copy protection. If I buy a CD or DVD which is "protected" I have no way of securing the survival of the content on that disc. A CD or DVD only live for so long. What happens when that disc is ruined, by age or by heavy use? Do I have to buy it again? But, I already paid for it, and trying to circumvent the copy protection mechanisms is in itself an illegal act. This is just plain stupid.
I do hope the European Commission will come to its senses. If it does, and if the industry holds on to its believes in the threat from the individual pirate downloader, perhaps such a decision will be the beginning of reshape of the indistry.
