I start up my browser this afternoon and notice a new article entitled “Storage sites unnerved by action” in the technology section with a picture of the FBI Piracy Warning that everyone who watches movies is familiar with. The headline is very misleading in itself as it leads with the story that two filesharing/storage websites, Filesonic.com and Uploaded.to disabling sharing and in the case of Uploaded.to, disabling access to US IP addresses with the message “Sorry about that“.
The owners of these two websites have clearly been intimidated by the FBI action against Megaupload, closing the “digital locker” website down and taking legal action against key people at the company behind Megaupload. To their credit, the Internet’s second largest filesharing network Rapidshare has gone on record, saying “[they’re] not concerned or scared” when questioned about the closure of Megaupload and the legal action being taken against the site’s owners.
Google, Amazon and Apple all operate cloud ‘sharing’ services, Yahoo, Youtube, Facebook, mySpace and numerous other services share copyrighted music, movie, TV shows and sporting events. Yet, they are allowed to keep operating as long as they remove materials when requests from copyright holders are recieved, so why aren’t these rules applied to companies/websites like Megaupload?
The entertainment media corporations claim that Megaupload don’t remove the video, just the link to the video, leaving many other links, but Youtube are no different! Yes, they’ll remove a single video by request, but how many more copies of the same video is hosted on Youtube, this is no different than simply deleting the link that was specified by the entertainment industry lawyers.
The point I am making is that there is a double standard being applied here, the companies that can afford better lawyers and/or contribute a lot to the US economy are given much more leeway than international companies like Rapidshare, Megaupload, Filesonic and Upload.to. Also What happens to all the legitimate files that were being shared by these services, many people share their own music, videos and software, now they will have to find alternative services despite doing nothing wrong, and how long before they get moved on again because of government censorship?
Meanwhile on the other side of the Atlantic in the UK, music companies are complaining about the slow progress in implementing the Digital Economy Act, this DEA legislation was rushed through before Gordon Brown’s inevitable exit from Downing Street in 2010. UK based ISP’s have been fighting the music industry through the court system, stating it is not their responsibility to monitor it’s users and enforce censorship of websites through it’s domain name system!
It amazes me that music corporations think blocking & closing websites and sending threatening letters to users will stop piracy, they are sorely mistaken, some may be scared off by the bully boy tactics, but most will not! The problem is the cost of downloadable content, iTunes in the UK charge 79p per track and $0.99 in the US and it’s laden with DRM so it can only be played on specific computers and devices, which is more restrictive than a compact disc, imagine not being able to go around to a friends house and listen to your CD on your friends CD player. Can you see the stupidity of the situation, drop the price by half (you are effectively buying 0s and 1s) and remove the DRM so you have have the same freedoms as you would if you owned the CD! Maybe then people would buy legal music instead of downloading it for free through torrents and P2P.
Not internet related but is similar in relation to censorship. The French senate has voted to make it a criminal offence to publicly express an opinion that denies that genocide was committed by Ottoman Turks against Armenians during World War I. What is wrong with the French political system? First, banning of religious Muslim headwear and now making free speech illegal, in respect the the Ottoman Turks and Armenians, is this the opinion of the nation or just the lawmakers?