Warren Seen

Repost of a comment submitted to this piece on Business Spectator, in case it gets edited or does’t end up being posted at all.

Hackles raised, set phasers to KILL.

You had me nodding my head until the last paragraph, what a ridiculous conclusion! The argument that all the Internet is used for is piracy and porn has echoes of Richard Alston, our former comms minister who was illustriously crowned the “world’s biggest luddite” for making a similar assertion.

First, I want to cover off this porn argument: basically, you’re making a moral judgment here – the vast majority of porn on the internet, whilst tasteless and lacking in artistic merit, is actually legally created by consenting adults in jurisdictions in which it is legal to operate. Raising this as being in anyway relevant to the FTTN debate is a straw man argument designed to tug at conservative heartstrings.

Secondly, piracy: Where did you source the figure of 60%? Has it been independently verified? Because it smells funny to me. If you really have concrete evidence that all of this data is illegal, then why is there not an enormous backlog of court cases prosecuting these alleged pirates?

I would submit it’s because “60%” is a made up figure promulgated by an industry group such as the RIAA or MPAA in the US, who are trying to tar many legitimate users of software distribution systems such as bittorrent, as pirates.

The fact is that many of these groups are threatened by the internet, not because of piracy, but because the participatory nature that high-speed networking enables means that the existing music/motion picture/television industrial-complex is currently being smashed apart.

Consumers, tired of being treated like the personal pocket book of these industries in exchange for pitiful offerings are becoming producers of content, cutting out the fat middle-men and engaging their audiences in new media ventures that are far more relevant, personal and engaging than anything the TV or motion picture houses have ever produced.

The “mainstream media” is dying, they just don’t know it yet.