PhilHibbs's Journal: Which? on CD copying (story submission)

Computing Which?, an entirely independent UK consumer magazine, is running a report on Apple, Sony etc.'s confusing stance on copyright. "Rip, mix, burn", but "The products that we produce ... are licenced to use for material for which [the consumer] holds the copyright". The article advocates the explicit legalisation of personal CD copying. (Can anyone work out what the BPI are saying in the last paragraph?)

BPI's analogy

[amorsen]

They're trying to make people think that sharing your music is not only bad but even much worse than just stealing what others have. They want you to think of being a shoplifter when you download, but of being someone handing out other people's property to strangers when you share.

In other words they want you to feel a little guilty for being a leech, but feel very guilty about sharing with others. The sharers are much easier to crack down on and stop -- after all they advertise their sharing when, say, they are on a P2P network. The leeches are way harder to find. Also, the sharers have little to lose by stopping sharing, it is an expense in effort and bandwidth to share. It is something you do for the greater good, and as such, it is not so personally costly to stop doing it. Leeches on the other hand are going to defend their rights much harder, since they personally benefit. Leeches are hard to defeat directly.

So make the sharers go away, and the leeches will have noone to leech from.

Re:BPI's analogy

[PhilHibbs]

It looks to me like they just picked up an analogy and didn't know what to do with it.