Digital Economy Bill?

[R1Geezer]

Will it stop illegal downloads? Is it practical to enforce? I watched the Panorama program last night and it seems there are 2 camps, those that think that downloading for free actually encourages sales, these seem to be the artists themselves and those that want it stopped. It seems that its' the suits are the ones that are effected more than the artists. The figures seem to suggest that those who download illegally actually end up spending more on legit media than those who don't. What do we think people?

[Gromit]

Didn't see the Panorama programme, but I doubt the Bill will stop or change anything. The record companies were incredibly slow to adapt to download which meant there was a unsupported demand. The result was that a whole generation grew up stealing music. When legal downloads were introduced, they took the attitude of why should they now start paying for what they have been having for free.

I don't really buy that downloading is harming music sales. When I grew up they were bleating about home taping killing music. It didn't. I used to copy music I had bought and gave it to friends. If they liked it, they would buy the album. The same with downloading, a download isn't necessarily a missed sale.

[youngmafbog]

For once, couldn't agree with you more Gromit.

[bazwillrun]

The majority of people who download wouldnt go and buy the product anyway.

Perhaps they should stop telling us how many millions of $ a film takes when it opens

The jackson estate has just done a deal for $200 million plus dollars for 10 albums !
but hold on hes dead, oh so theres a few unreleased songs (in other words werent good enough to release whislt he was alive, and rehashes of old songs !

The music and film industries are as greedy as the oil business.

Perhaps a lot of todays bands should go back to doing what bands always did, went on the road and proved they could cut it and they might get more respect, instead of relying on studio technology to compensate for a total lack of talent, then people might feel more inclined to support them

can anybody name me one music company ,artist or film studio thats gone bust as a result of downloading ?

[R1Geezer]

eeek what have I done/ Got Gromit and YMB to agree on something! What kind of monster have I created?

In fairness I think the whole thing is a sledge hammer crack a .....wine gum! Won't work, not needed and Gromit I think is correct it's been going on forever just the medium has changed. There have been artists giving their work away free and cleaning up on live concerts.

[bazwillrun]

years ago when you bought an album usually it had a few decent tracks and the rest were garbage just fillers, but you had no choice, now you can buy individual tracks the record companies are ssing just how poor most of their artists are.

As a consequence people now only buy the tracks they like which means the majority of tracks have little if any sales and thats where they are losing out on sales.

[Gromit]

The 10 billionth Track has just been downloaded (legally from iTunes). Sales of legal downloads and CD are expected to equal this year.

The Government has caved in to the Music business, and grabbed more power for themselves into the bargain.

// In addition, internet service providers would also be forced to monitor their customers' use of their networks, and to send any records of suspicious activity to copyright groups or face a fine of £250,000 for non-compliance.

The UK government would also be able directly to intervene to control the use of the UK's domain name space, currently overseen by the independent body Nominet.

Peter Mandelson, First Secretary of State, would have unlimited power to enforce copyright by bringing into law any measure relating to file-sharing on the Internet, without the consent of Parliament. //