Mark Thomas talks about the Digital economy Bill

Comedian & Activist Mark Thomas talks to Billy Bragg (co-founder of the Featured Artist Coalition) & Feargal Sharkey (head of UK Music) and discusses the challenges the music industry faces from illegal downloads and the potential impact of the UK Governments proposed Digital economy Bill.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• Mark Thomas
• Digital economy Bill
• Cory Doctorow
• The Culture Show

[22YearOldBoy]

Creative Artists want LISTENERS/VIEWERS. Greedy Labels/Organisations want MONEY.

[MrFilistine]

"Now I've got a cousin called Kevin

He's sure to go to heavin

Always spotless clean and neat

The smoothest you can get them..."

Don't sweat it Fergal - no one's going to be nicking that.

[Liamski06]

Well said, Billy

[thethomasshowextra]

Leave mandalson alone he is only doing what we allow him & his power broker friends by saying nothing we say its all ok for them to make the rules that we live by but they as international diplomats do not have to adhere to so the only power they have is the one we give them by our silence and ignorance

[TechnologyTheReviews]

The thing about this is the people that do illegal download, even if they where cut off, they would still not buy it. These corporations say their losing millions when in fact their not, the down loaders would not normally buy it, or maybe could not afford it.These corporations earn billions and billions each year and they are greedy all they want is more. They should not have the right to cut someone off for a false accusation. They will find ways round it very quickly. The ISP's will not do it

[PuppetsNStuff]

@jacksawild Well it's kinda unavoidable that these people make that amount of money simply because Hollywood films are expensive to make. In order to pay all the people involved they are designated a percentage of the budget which is essentially a simplified way of how other businesses work out their workers wages. However films cost millions of pounds to make so a percentage of that budget is going to be higher than the budget of, say, a newsagents. The rest of your points make sense though.

[natmanprime]

wtf feargal sharkey??!?!?

this moddafoka pop out o nowhere sheit

[TrowbridgeHardcore]

tis funny beeause right this minuite im downloadin all marks channel 4 episodes via filesharing

[1977RiSK]

Another good reason to despise Fergal Sharkey.

[davidgbarron]

The media companies have lost control of the market. They can no longer tell their traditional markets what they can charge, think about how much CDs and Videos were in the 1980s and 1990s. The supermarkets, then online retailers drove prices down to the point that the media companies are not making large profits anymore. Then they were slow to realise the potential of downloading and are now blaming people for being more tech savvy then they are.

[djblade99]

Its crap, the companies have NOT LOST, they just haven't made as MUCH profit.