John Naughton's Observer column last Sunday lit into the music industry, chasing the statement by the head of the British Phonographic Institute (the UK's RIAA) that "For years, ISPs have built a business on other people's music." This is part of the music industry's blustering demands for ISPs to censor and monitor the Internet to protect the record companies' business-model (because protecting a couple of multinationals is more important than the free speech and privacy of every Internet user in the world).
An analogy may help to illustrate the point. Millions of people use the telephone network for questionable, illegal or unethical purposes. But we would regard it as unthinkable to impose on phone companies a legal obligation to monitor every conversation.LinkAny legislation in this area has to reflect the broad public interest - which is in ensuring the widest possible internet access by facilitating competition between ISPs without shackling them with undue regulatory obligations. The government must not be allowed to cave in to the special pleading of the music business. The green paper should be subjected to intense scrutiny, and a good place to start would be the public meeting on 19 March organised by the Foundation for Information Policy Research (see tinyurl.com/2d9u4y for details).
