ReadWriteWeb published a piece by Jolie O'Dell / February 22, 2010: "UK Nixes Internet Ban for P2P Infringement"I commented there and then decided to publish the comment (with a few changes) here also...
I’m beginning to think ACTA and DMCA are being used by rights holders not to protect their content but to project it; to forward an agenda towards guaranteeing dominance in emerging markets. I noticed for example, that of the countries attending the ACTA treaty meetings, India - the biggest content producer on the planet – is not in attendance. China was not invited either.
I think rights holders from the richest markets are trying to engineer a return to the good old days where selling music to kids was like 'shooting fish in a barrel' - but on a global scale.
In the heyday of record industry super-profits, artists were signed to deals that kept them enslaved to producers through their entire careers. (Only so called 'Super Groups' eventually gained control of their own content - if they were smart and were well lawyered enough.) Payola to DJ's in the 1950's guaranteed what content got airplay (in the 1990's payola was legalized as regulators took a 'hands off' approach to the law). This Hit Production Mechanism guaranteed a market wide 'Buzz' - which exponentially puffed up the effectiveness of ad dollars. Essentially a licence to print money.
The global recession is triggering the long awaited monetizing of the web and is leading to a more bare-knuckled, competitive landscape in the content production biz, and thus, I think, stakeholders are starting to fall out of line on ACTA.
Could the story out of Britain flag the beginning of the end of the unity of the evildoers?
I hope so.
Electronic Frontiers Foundation: TakeDown Hall of Shame
mh
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