Is Home Taping Killing Music?
This week saw the beginning of the trial of 4 Swedes accused of
copyright infringement. The four are the people behind The Pirate Bay- the bit
torrent tracking website that has been running since 2003.
Like with many legal challenges the communications battle is on to
win hearts and minds and it is this battle that will define whether
a group of bad guys get away with it or a group of cultural
liberators are given a taste of the state's rough justice.
For their part, The Pirate Bay's messages are entertaining and
straight-forward: we don't hold any copyrighted material on our
servers so take us to court if you like, we haven't got any
money anyway.
The record labels are equally succinct: this is piracy and these
people are making a fortune out of our hard work and investment.
I know what you're thinking: haven't I heard this argument
before? Yes, you have - a number of times actually.
For those of a certain vintage, you'll remember buying records
emblazoned with 'Home
taping is killing music' stickers. Then it was the new
fangled video recorder that was going to spell the end of the film
industry. More recently, the music industry has been in the firing
line again - this time though illegally copied (burned) CDs.
Of course the music and film industries survived and thrived in the
face of these threats.
The first attempt to shut down The Pirate Bay in 2004 had the
net effect of adding millions of new users to The Pirate Bay -
hmmmmmmm, probably not the desired outcome. As you know, history is
littered with examples of prohibition having the opposite of the
desired effect.
This is clearly a case of technology being light years ahead of
legislation but you can't help but think that the publicity
that this trial has generated will ultimately damage the objectives
of the prosecutors. The genie appears to be well and truly out of
the bottle - "it has
life without us"says one of the Pirate Bay 4, and
he's probably right.
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