The music industry is hijacking anti-terrorism legislation for its own devious needs. Not my words, ladies and gentlemen, but the accusation being thrown at the major record companies by a number of consumer rights groups across Europe.
The accusations relate to the European Union's Data Retention Directive. This is a new bit of European legislation which aims to give police and intelligence services across the Union easier access to the digital communications (online and mobile) of suspected criminals by forcing internet service providers and mobile companies to make the information they hold about their customers more readily available to the authorities.
Having themselves faced expensive legal problems in getting information out of internet service providers regarding suspected illegal file sharers, a number of music and entertainment companies have been pushing for the remit of the new European legislation to be extended to include online piracy. The Creative And Media Business Alliance which represents, among others, SonyBMG, Disney, EMI, Universal Music, the IFPI and MPA, has written to MEPs to amend the directive so that it does not just apply to "serious" organised crime and terrorism. The letter told the politicians: "We would appreciate your support in ensuring that this becomes an effective instrument in the fight against piracy".
When voted on by the EU Committee On Civil Liberties last week the word "serious" remained on the directive, although lawyers point out that without any clarification the definition of "serious" is likely to include the illegal sharing of copyright content via the internet. This has angered consumer rights groups who say the entertainment industry is hijacking legislation intended for quite different security issues for their own needs. Suw Charman of the Open Rights Group told reporters last week: "The [entertainment] industry is attempting to pervert this legislation, to back up a failing business model based on little more than speculation [that downloading is harming the music business]. There is no public good in creating legislation that empowers the creative industry to sue its own customers."
The directive will now go to the European Council, and if they approve it, it will go to the European Parliament to be voted on next month.
PS: The fact the music industry wants to use the directive to step up its anti-download offensive is perhaps the least worrying bit of this legislation, given that it essentially increases the rights the authorities have to spy on all your email, mobile and web communication. File sharing of copyright content is, of course, illegal, and therefore, arguably, there is nothing wrong with content owners monitoring it. But some in the civil rights community worry about this legislation being used to spy on people engaged in legal activity, especially of an anti-establishment nature. It's all in the name of anti-terrorism of course, though IT types point out that all the dodgy people these days tend to have the know-how to encrypt their communication and, if nothing else, to host their email accounts in countries outside the EU.