Internet service providers should be the focus of blame for continuing music piracy, says the manager for the internationally famous rock band U2. Paul McGuinness, speaking at the current
MIDEM conference in Cannes, France, has argued that ISPs should be disconnecting those who download tracks illegally. ISPs have "been at our trough for too long," McGuinness says, and a part of the "shoddy, careless and downright dishonest way" in which artists have been treated in the era of digital music.
Governments and record labels are not without fault though, McGuinness believes. He accuses the institutions for creating a "thieves' charter" by suggesting that ISPs are not responsible by what passes through their networks. "If you were a magazine
advertising stolen cars, handling the money for stolen cars and seeing to the delivery of stolen cars, the police would soon be at your door," he claims. BBC News notes that McGuinness' view is at odds with groups like the
Internet Service Providers Association, which contends that ISPs are "merely a conduit" for peer-to-peer file sharing. Of greater concern may be the US' Federal Communications Commission, which maintains a net neutrality policy, under which ISPs are not allowed to dictate how customers use their bandwidth.
I guess this is the point where we should cue the Orwellian 'Big Brother' Music Overture. Shouldn't these ass clowns think before they say that government and big business should dictate what goes on with the internet. Let's just say that he gets his way about this, where does it stop? Is the music industry only to be protected? Does then not AT&T reserve the right to then not allow you to use things they deem offensive? Would that then carry over to competetiors products and such?
