This morning The Independent published a story about the UK government mulling proposals to combat music ‘piracy.’  I hate that term, since it is ignorant at the best (and deeply disrespectful) about the situation off the coast of Somalia and others where people get killed for real:

Seaborne piracy against transport vessels remains a significant issue (with estimated worldwide losses of US $13 to $16 billion per year), particularly in the waters between the Pacific and Indian Oceans, off the Somali coast, and also in the Strait of Malacca and Singapore, which are used by over 50,000 commercial ships a year.

Back to the original point:  I have some mixed feelings about this proposal.  On the one hand, it would be a relief to simply click on a torrent for any album without thinking twice about whether the SWAT team will be breaking down my door.  It would legitimise what people are doing anyway, and I’m all for decriminalising people that shouldn’t have been criminals in the first place.

On the other hand, what does this mean for artists?  £30 is the price of 2-3 CDs, which is probably not an a big amount to spend for a household in a year.  In fact, it is probably less.  So, the net result is that some vague umbrella organisation will be receiving the money that otherwise would’ve gone “more directly” to artists.  This organisation will divvy it up (presumably among the big record labels), so they just get a fraction of it anyway.  Ultimately, I don’t see how this will put more money in artists’ pockets — if anything, only in their record labels win from this.  But I guess that’s not news (or newsworthy) any more.

Secondly, I don’t like the way private companies and lobbies are using legislation to save them from imminent destruction.  While I’d agree that it is probably in the public’s best interest for governments to bail out banks and airlines (since that would have a dramatic knock-on effect for the economy if they’re not rescued), I simply cannot see the same justification for the media industry.  They need to re-invent (and a lot of them are — just look at Radiohead) for this era, and they’re simply too stubborn to do it.