Thankfully the EU have not fully swallowed the Anglo-US business model and will make a more frequent stand for the consumer (as opposed to doing just about anything big-business bl**dy well wants).

Here’s what happened in the EU last April –

“European politicians have voted down calls to throw suspected file-sharers off the net.

The idea to cut off persistent pirates formed part of a wide-ranging report on creative industries written for the European parliament.

But in a narrow vote MEPs backed an amendment to the report which said net bans conflicted with “civil liberties and human rights”.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7342135.stm

Would that be an example of a responsible and responsive Parliament or just a bunch of politicians trying to make themselves look good and buy votes, eh Dave?

The music and movie business are just going to have to get used to the idea that nobody is going to be destroying the internet to save their dying & outdated business model.

They are not the only businesses out there and everyone else makes far too much money out of it (and the music and movie businesses are just practiced liars, they make a lot of money out of it too).

They are even so blind that they deny file sharing generates sales.

But it only generates sales of their good products.

It is fair to say it kills sales of the ton of sh!t they pump out.

Try before buy.

Even the car industry will let you test drive a car for a few days and accept you might not buy in the end.

The facts speak for themselves –

“Ten Million Unsold Digital Songs
by George Ziemann — December 23, 2008

If you finally achieved retail distribution this year but still didn’t sell a single copy, well, you’re not the only one.

From TechRadar UK:

Recent figures suggest that out of the 13 million tracks available for download, just 52,000 songs made up 80 per cent of music purchased online.

When it comes to albums, a staggering 1.23 million albums were made available with just 173,000 bought ­ which equates to 85 per cent of bands and singers who released an album this year did not sell one single copy.

Okay, first of all I’d like to point out that the RIAA claims to own 85% of all recordings released. This would mean that, at a minimum, 70% of the RIAA’s releases did not sell a single copy this year. This is the obvious result of telling us not to listen to them. So that’s working.

If you’re hoping to get rich selling music on Amazon or iTunes, think again. It’s just not going to happen anytime soon. If you’re in it for the long haul, though, you can take heart in the fact that if you sold one single album this year, you’re in the top 15 percent.”

http://www.azoz.com/newsarchive/2008/12/unsold.html

So, there you are, 70% of music releases fail to sell a single copy.
There’s the businesses’ problem right there.
It has nothing to do with people sharing files (which is a lie they have been pumping out – and supposedly suffering from – since the days of cassette tapes.

Anyone remember this gem?

http://www.orbitcast.com/archives/Home_taping_is_killing_music.png

They will never stop people sharing.

They ought to let it go and concentrate on supplying a quality product with so much ‘added value’ that the download, even the freebie download, is seen as very much second best.

But then they’d have to bother and spend a few more pennies than they would want to.

So they pick the easy way, the way that provides a gravy-train for their colleagues and friends no matter how dumb it is or how many ‘little people’ they ruin with their outrageously disproportionate fines etc etc.