the music industry does not own the internet

Today, I discovered that UK Internet Providers Virgin Media, BT, O2 & BE have recently blocked three major BitTorrent websites - being KickassTorrents, h33t & Fenopy. The censorship follows suit of a High Court order a few months ago, blocking BitTorrent king, The Pirate Bay.

This issue is something which bothers me; I've briefly touched on censorship in my Google Glass post; but I feel this is more current. I'm a big believer in the open internet and anti-censorship because that's what makes the internet what it is. You have access to every single piece of information ever recorded, written and archived, from any perspective you want. The best part is that the information is constantly updated and open. We live in a time where we have access to all this at the push of a button. Take Wikipedia for example; an entire unbiased encyclopedia available for free.

I don't think the internet should be regulated or 'owned' by anybody - especially the media industries who insist on throwing stacks of cash towards lawyers to keep their archaic business model in place. The dynamics of how consumers are accessing new media is shifting entirely; but it appears that the music industry isn't playing nice. The conventional method of purchasing music is moving towards a more open-ended access with platforms such as Spotify and pirating music.

Piracy has become an issue with so much propaganda around it; it's unreal. Last year, I wrote my EPQ on the effects of piracy on music industry sales; and recent studies have found that piracy doesn't affect sales and statistically, people who pirate are more likely to buy more music than non-pirates simply because they have access to it (think 'try before you buy'). So why are the music industries so hellbent on protecting their business model?

I feel like the RIAA are stubborn to adjust their business model in a way that the television indsutry are doing. TV is slowly moving to on-demand - a la iPlayer, Netflix, 4od, Internet TV boxes etc to stay relevant and it's working! My prediction is that conventional channels will be no more, in favour of internet/on-demand based TV. Now, if the music industry could do this more willingly, we wouldn't have an issue.

Censoring these torrent websites is an incredibly short-sighted ruling and The Pirate Bay actually gained more traffic (thus more pirates) from news coverage of the censoring - I'm sure that's not what the music industry hoped for. Besides, there are literally 100's of ways to bypass the websites block. So what good is blocking a website doing? Making an example? Asserting authority, or a desperate attempt to stay in charge?

Censoring concerns me because the line is going to be incredibly blurred. Government wants to introduce certain bills to allow censorship and monitoring without warrant, such as SOPA, CISPA. The trouble with these bills is that while the government representative will say "it's to protect children, it's to stop copyright theft" - the actual written law is done so vaguely that it can cover any form of censorship.

Don't believe me? Look at MegaUpload.

Keep the internet open. Freedom of information is one of the most vital things we have.