Never mind the child porn, stop the music pirates?


Six of the UK’s biggest Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have agreed a plan with the music industry to tackle piracy online. The deal, negotiated by the government—after it blackmailed all ISPs that if they didn’t act, it would, to legislate—will see hundreds of thousands of letters sent to those suspected of illegally sharing music. For the music industry, however, this does not go far enough—they want all access to the Internet cut off for people who ignore repeated warnings, something the ISPs say they are not prepared to do.

The half-baked not-joined-up thinking has resulted in a glaring and shockingly telling inconsistency: if ISPs are to be responsible for music pirates, why no push for them to be held accountable for paedophiles and terrorists uploading and downloading illegal content as well? Why are kids downloading Kylie tracks first in line to be threatened and punished, rather than paedophiles sharing abusive images and videos of children, or wannabe terrorists?

Read the full article.

Thursday, July 24th, 2008

tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,