Music industry supports three-strikes online piracy rules
Wed, 30 Sep 2009 10:15
The UK music industry has voted “overwhelmingly” to support a three-strikes approach to online piracy and follow the recommendations set out in the Government’s Digital Britain report.
A group of nearly 100 music artists, including members of lobby group the Featured Artists Coalition (FAC), voted last night to call on Lord Mandelson to slow down the connections of persistent law breakers, as suggested in the Government’s digital blueprint published in June.
The decision ends the recent rift between the FAC, which includes artists such as Radiohead and Billy Bragg, and other artists such as Lily Allen, who had been divided over business secretary Lord Mandelson’s proposals to temporarily suspend the connections of those who consistently flout the law.
The FAC along with the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (Basca) and the Music Producers Guild (MPG) expressed concerns about the proposed measures to deal with illegal file-sharing and the estimated £65m-85m cost of any action earlier this month.
A statement from the musicians at last night’s meeting said, “Our meeting voted overwhelmingly to support a three-strike sanction on those who persistently download illegal files, sanctions to consist of a warning letter, a stronger warning letter and a final sanction of the restriction of the infringer’s bandwidth to a level which would render file-sharing of media files impractical while leaving basic email and web access functional.”
The group also condemned the attacks Lily Allen had received on the internet blog she launched earlier this week to argue against music piracy. She closed the blog yesterday as a result of the abuse.
The group statement said, ”We the undersigned wish to express our support for Lily Allen in her campaign to alert music lovers to the threat that illegal downloading presents to our industry and to condemn the vitriol that has been directed at her in recent days.”