[pp.int.general] Inteview with british Channel 4

[Andrew Robinson]

Ah, that makes perfect sense then.

I've had a very good response when explaining the issues related to
book copyrights in Britain, perhaps there is something you can use
from this text I wrote a while ago:

"The right of the public to have access to the information contained
in books was guaranteed by the public libraries act of 1850. The
Pirate Party's policy of legalising non-commercial file sharing is in
the same tradition, it would give the public the same right to access
the information contained in CDs and DVDs that they already have with
books. 159 years of free public access to information in books has not
damaged the publishing industry at all, in fact it flourishes
precisely because the public have the right to try before they buy. JK
Rowling makes more money from her books than any musician living or
dead has ever made. This is because we don't have a few large
publishing firms with a stranglehold on the industry, unlike the music
industry where the big 4 labels can control who is allowed enough
publicity to reach the top.

The UK government are planning to crack down on file sharing with
massive, unjust force, which will inevitably drive people towards
counterfeit products, which carry no such penalties. The Pirate
Party's policy of legalising file sharing where no profit is being
made would allow enforcement efforts to be concentrated where they
would actually benefit the industry, on the serious organised
criminals who produce counterfeit goods. The inescapable truth is that
these genuine criminals are the people who most strand to benefit from
the government's clampdown on file sharing.

We have so many books, CDs and DVDs being published today that the
public library system cannot keep up, the investment that would be
needed to do so would be crippling, but legalised file sharing would
mean the the massive, culturally beneficial work required to archive
and preserve our popular culture would be carried out by dedicated
volunteers, at no cost to the public."

- Andrew Robinson

2009/10/15 Christian Hufgard <pp at christian-hufgard.de>:
>
> Andrew Robinson wrote:
>> To do justice to the issue of book piracy, you probably need to refer
>> to the history of the British library system and the way that
>> copyright and the public's right to education are balanced. I find it
>> strange that they are talking to PPDE about this rather then PPUK
>> (although you are much longer established than we are).
>
> Like I wrote in another mail, we have the world's largest book fair in
> Frankfurt right now. I'll give me best to get them in touch with PPUK.
>
> Christian
>
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