Mandy Bill Special

There has been a noticeable shift the aggregation and distribution of content on the web, a move toward dialogue and debate, and a development that the web has afforded us. Conceptually this is the beauty of the internet, the near instant access to information and content, the seemingly anonymous relationship we have with it, the freedom to quote, reference, download and distribute has in itself started a media revolution.

For this concept to exist it must exist not only beyond the realms of legal framework and it’s charges, but also the abuse and misuse of this legal framework. Copyright infringement, unlike Global Warming, is a topic we can fully understand and react to accordingly. The unquestionable economic impact on the creative industries is no laughing matter, though I can see how, like bankers, the public could enjoy seeing label executives running scared.

Steps must be taken to curtail this, legal certainly, educational definitely. Collusion is after all more effective than coercion. The aforementioned anonymity allows a lapse in conscience that exists purely as the public does not understand the full consequences of infringement. Take the following as a basic equation.

Less Money = Product Consolidation + Cost Cutting = Less Artist Development = Less Good Music + More Drivel

I for one am an advocate of addressing this issue fully, though the current approach bears, purely through it’s totalitarian vagueness, some enormous pitfalls or what some creative lawyers may label potential.

By allowing a High Court judge the power to curtail content on the web under the premise of it being ‘infringing’, a term yet to be fully defined in law both domestically and internationally in this context paves the way for a legal and accessible D-Notice for private business. An extreme comparison admittedly, but a valid one too.

The Mandy Bill is effectively creating a situation where business will be allowed to force consumers to their model under the guise of protecting a digital economy. In truth the application of 18^th / 19^th centaury copyright law, tainted with shades of libel legislation, to a 21^st centaury social-technological zeitgeist is just plain lazy and naïve.

Who knows, it may just stifle the new models it is seeking to protect as well as infringing freedom of speech.