ILLEGAL DOWNLOADS!!!

WELL.....WELL.....WELL....Here we go again......According to a British Government backed report at least 7 million people in Britain use illegal downloads.....Where they come up with these figures always amazes me.......Faster technologies and greater storage space on computers has made the activity easier and led to as many as 4.73 billion songs and videos being consumed for free each year, the Strategic Advisory Board for Intellectual Property Policy found.

Music downloading had "become part and parcel of the social fabric of our society despite its illegal status", the report found.

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) estimates that there were 890 million illegal free music downloads through file sharing in the UK in 2007 compared with 140 million paid downloads. This puts unauthorised access at a ratio of six to one, before off-line sharing like disk burning is even considered.

Creative industries provide about 8 per cent of British GDP. Digital copying of their products resulted in the estimated loss of 4,000 jobs in 2004.

David Lammy, Minister for Intellectual Property, said: "As SABIP's report shows, illegal downloading robs our economy of millions of pounds every year and seriously damages business and innovation throughout the UK.

The UK film industry told the authors of the report that there were just under 100 million illegal DVD downloads in 2007 and the global film industry is thought to lose over £4 billion per year.

JUST WHERE DO THEY GET THESE FIGURES FROM?

This is the same argument that was being churned out in the 60's about copying onto cassettes......Then it appeared again in the 70's and 80's about VHS tape......Then in the 90's about CD's and DVD's.........but hang on a moment.........they sell more recordings then they ever did and more people attending cinemas then ever before......The movie and record industry are still employing thousands of people and paying the "artists" more then they ever did.....Could the real issue here be about ......GREED......and simply nothing else......What's the difference between someone buying a CD/DVD then letting their friends copy it or uploading it to the net.....or recording it off the radio or television.....At some point there has a been a point of sale....O.K. I must admit that you can download a "pirate" copy of a film that has just been released into cinemas but have these "Guardians of Society" ever seen the quality of these "cam" versions.....I would have thought that the quality would make the veiwer go out and see the real thing!!!!!

Well........As I said before.......It's all to do with GREED and also perhaps wanting to control the "net".............GOD HELP SAVE THE NET FROM THE "CONTROLLERS"...........