Joining the music and movie mafia
President
Obama has become a spokesman for the music and movie mafia and is popping over
to Spain to warn them to change their laws on piracy.
Having solved all his
own country's problems, Obama has been sent at the request of the music and film
industry to sort out the Spanish. Spain believes that file-sharing for
personal use and non-commercial BitTorrent and file-sharing sites as legal.
Something which causes the music and film industry heart burn.
Spanish
courts have ruled that not only is personal use file-sharing legal in Spain, but
file-sharing sites that do not directly profit from infringement are also
protected under the law. The MPAA who tends to pull frightening figures from
its bottom claims that movie downloads by Spanish citizens reached 350 million
in 2008.
Of course the music and film industry want Spanish Pirates to be cut
off from the internet without a trail, like they are managing to do in
France.
It is strange the the US President should be drawn into what is
effectively a commercial row between the film and music industry and another
country. However it is important to realise that the film and music industry
spends fortunes sticking tame politicians in places of power in the US.