SMH: Video piracy’s new battleground

27 Jun 2006

In an article entitled “Video Piracy’s New Battleground“, addressing the rise of an Australian copyrighted-material indexing service (much like, I gather, The Pirate Bay but for linear web content, not P2P nets), comes this delightful passage:

The Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), which was instrumental in launching legal action against file-sharing network Kazaa in recent years, declined to comment this week on any specific threats presented by video portals.

However, chief executive Stephen Peach did say: “We are always concerned where it is the case where people build businesses around other people’s copyrighted music.”

At this point we must all nod our heads sagely: there is indeed something wrong with the recording industry’s business model — at last, they admit it.

p.s. First person to make a wise crack about how artists don’t actually own their own copyright a lot of the time gets a punch in the face :-)