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On 02/05/12 11:48, Julian Hall wrote: > On 02/05/2012 08:02, Mark Cross wrote: >> FOR THE ATTENTION OF: >> >> Sarah Wollaston MP >> Totnes >> >> Wednesday 2 May 2012 >> >> Mark Cross >> Totnes >> >> RE: Proposed request to ask UK Internet Service Providers to ban >> access to web sites that facilitate copying of copyrighted material >> >> Dear Sarah, >> >> Please could you explain the UK government's change in position since >> the 1980's on the subject above? >> >> At the time many tape to tape recording devices were explicitly >> manufactured for the purposes of copying audio cassettes. These >> consumer priced items, known at the time as "ghetto blasters" were >> legally sold on the High Street, by chains of the time, such as Dixons >> and Currys. >> >> No such ban was put in the place to block the retail sale of these >> devices, please could ask the minister concerned as to what has >> changed since that time requiring a change in the law? >> >> I remember that tape copying was like a rash at school, but somehow, I >> have accumlated probably 1000 CDs and my cassettes have all been >> thrown away. Likewise my peers all seem to have vast legally purchased >> CD collections. >> >> Yours sincerely, >> >> Mark Cross MBCS CITP >> > Not forgetting the likes of the Amstrad DD8900 - > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sACT3emJZmU > > Also, although my own music cassette library is pitiful in comparison > to most other people I know, I have all of my cassette albums on MP3 > purchased from Amazon, therefore the record label has benefited twice > - I won't say the artist since they get such a pitiful fraction of the > total cost of each sale. > > Julian > This is something many people don't realise the artist gets very little, I did read the google+ article (well it was linked from google+) on this written by a young artist with first hand experience of how much the company gets vs the amount the artist gets, once you take in to account, fees for this, marketing, middle men, agents and such like. We need to do more to highlight this issue to raise awareness of this, There used to be a policy of fair usage, so you could take an LP and copy to tape for the car or walkman (personal use) this was revoked but I am sure the government have back tracked on this, the issue here is two fold 1. the recording industry argument is that if you share this material on file sharing sites, then neither the company or artist get anything for it, and you are hurting the industry, which is a fair argument until you realise how that money is distributed and it starts to unravel. The fact I can share a track illegally and that person then perhaps goes out and buys that album anyway is probably never taken into account. So its a sort of underground promotion ( as you said in what you wrote above) 2 the thing people for get is that the pirate bay i guess is the same as megaupload, it is used to share more then just a copyrighted material,. there could be (or in the case of mega upload) stuff on there that can be legally shared, e.g documents, music from independent artists who used it to promote their work, heck there are probably isos of Linux on there too. all legally you shut down pirate bay and you hurt everyone involved., and deny those independent artists money, oh by sharing their own content, creating their own music lables the are hurting the profits of these huge music companies, so it could be a way to force them on to big labels so they can grab a huge slice of the revenue. Remember the story of me trying to report someone selling pirated dvds at the local market site, no one was interested. it kind of proof that they go after the soft and easy targets, its a shame that we can't put as much effort in to finding and punishing people that peddle child porn on line, (you seem to get longer (upt o 5 years AIUI for copying tracks online) than for copying and making child porn, but then many of the child protection groups are charities without huge funds to put into party funds, (see SOPA) as they put their money where it is needed front line action, shame the music industry can't learn and put more money in the hands of artists. Maybe throw that one at these MP's :) it is like this argument on blocking children from accessing porn sites, google seems to argue that it is UP TO PARENTS to take control and acually PARENT their kids rather than being lazy and letting someone else do it for them and moan when it goes wrong. I agree with google. on this it is up to PARENTS to do this, install filters not expect others to do it for them. Paul -- -- http://www.zleap.net http://www.ubuntu.com skype : psutton111 http://www.linkedin.com/pub/paul-sutton/36/595/911 -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq