APRA/AMCOS chief executive Brett Cottle has come out publicly about issues surrounding illegal downloading, calling on the Australian government to offer “support and respect” to artist’s whose work is being obtained by illegal methods.
Bottle has lended his support to proposed increased legislative powers to stop internet piracy at a Senate inquiry public hearing late last week.
“Australia’s creative industries — and the tens of thousands of writers who underpin those industries — have been waiting for a very long time for an expression by the Australian Parliament of support and respect for their work, and their place in the life of the nation, in the face of a two-decade-long assault on their rights by way of digital piracy,” Cottle told the hearing.
“We know that there is no silver bullet, but what it will do is create a practical and feasible means by which to address the problem,” Cottle said. “It will give to creative industries, at least, a means to fight back. It will assist in changing the behaviour of Australian consumers and, most importantly, it will send a powerful, practical and symbolic message to the artists and creators of Australia.”
Also speaking at the hearing Village Roadshow representative Christopher Chard said ”Site-blocking injunctions do not break the internet, as it has sometimes been argued,” Chard told the hearing. “In the UK over the last four years, the courts have ordered 125 piracy websites to be blocked and I’ve just returned from the UK and the internet was working just fine.”
“Although some users in the UK continued to engage in illegal downloading by using dedicated and multi-site proxies, including VPNs, to circumvent court orders, the traffic was insignificant when compared to the overall decline in traffic to the blocked piracy site,” he said.
The inquiry will table its results next Wednesday, 13 May. For more info head here.
