Lord opposes file sharing

Lord Mandelson in the UK is proposing to cut off broadband access to the web of anybody caught illegally downloading music from the web. The record companies are for it and the musicians are against it, including Paul McCartney and Elton John.

Thousand of YouTube videos, that came down in a dispute over royalties with the music industry have gone back up.

We're lucky in the publishing industry, living behind protective walls of printed paper. The music industry has to bear the brunt of change first.

The Guardian article is worth a read. I liked this quote from Patrick Racklow, the chief executive of Basca, in particular:

"The problems the music industry faces will not be dealt with effectively through legislation. We can't support these proposals because we don't think it will work, it will cost too much and is far too blunt a tool. The music industry is quite a scary place to be at the moment and we don't know what it will look like in 10 years' time, but if we find ways of licensing, new ways of doing things will evolve. What we can't do is try to push things forward by looking back."

There's a fundamental and fascinating clash going on between creative rights of the individual and of the community, the rights of the consumer and the rights of companies that exploit copyrights.