Wi - Fi Stunt Refutes Mandelson's Meddling

[fiat_knox]

Watch this video

Basically, the ISP TalkTalk arranged a small demonstration to show how the proposed change to the law forcing ISPs to cut off file sharers can easily be circumvented by sufficiently determined consumers.

Yes, "consumers." Not "hackers" or "smart criminals working for Eastern European gangs" or any of the tropes the media would love to throw in our faces to blind us to what's going on, but ordinary consumers.

Mandy should give up. So should those dinosaurs he takes instructions from, In the long term, they are never going to win the war.

On a side note, does anybody else no longer give a stuff either way for any of the musicians and bands doing the rounds any more, regardless of whether they are pro-file sharing or pro-greed?

I mean, when Lily Allen steps out onto the red carpet of the Mercury Awards in yet another slinky dress, you have to realise that it's the consumers who have paid for that dress - so why should I want to put one penny into the bitch's pocket for telling us that we'll have to pay for her music or face being cut off?

Me, I look at the options and think "H'mm. If I don't buy Lily Allen's music, she gets to wear rags to the Mercuries and I get to keep my internet connection. Win.

"If I do buy her music, I watch her wear silk to a party that I'd never get an invite to in a million years, and even then I may run the risk of having internet access cut off because some other consumer next door used my ISP for file sharing rather than risk his own. Fail."

I hate the musicians who come over saying "You'll have to pay, because otherwise we'll be poor." Because I am wont to retort "But we have never been anything but poor - and you got in because of your rich Daddy so you have never been anything other than rich!" followed by some two-word invective or other.

This argument is not just about music. It is about power, and censorship, and the same old hidebound people in boardrooms miles from the street suddenly seeing how that power has been slipping from their hands - and perhaps they never had it in the first place. It's an argument which goes back to the Seventies (when Roddy McDowall got into legal trouble for sharing video tapes and film reels that the companies had slated for wiping and trashing). And they can try what they like: we the consumers will adapt. We always adapt.

After all, we know this technology better than they ever could.

Comments

[innocent-man.livejournal.com]

pro-file sharing or pro-greed?

That the only choice, then?

I mean, don't get me wrong. It is absolutely untenable for the music industry to continue peddling music as a product, and they should have gotten with the times back when Napster made the offer. But it's not quite so cut-and-dried as "if you would rather folks paid for their music, you're greedy."

Or did you just write for the sheer love of it, with no expectation of compensation? I love writing, but I sure as shit want my paycheck, and it annoys the hell out of my when people torrent books I've worked on (even though it doesn't harm me directly, since I'm usually work for hire) because it displays a lack of respect for the product and for me as the "artist."

Obviously, the comparison doesn't hold up if we expand the terms, but take it for what it's worth.