BBC aired a documentary about internet named “Virtual Revolution” done by Aleks Krotoski. It is done in 4 episodes. I saw the first one “The Great Levelling?”. It was about the development of internet and web. She talks about different applications of web and its history. For her net is a great thing sharing of ideas, it is open and democratic. But when it comes to sharing of files they showed their true nature. Her great speech about democracy, sharing of ideas etc vanished.
They completely ignored the community of people who like to share knowledge and files legally. Initial computer programmer’s group believed in sharing of programs. During 1984 a new community began. Their name is Free Software Foundation. Today more than 29 million people uses their work. They developed an Operating system name Gnu/Linux that can be shared. Instead of copy right they believe in Copy Left. Those computer programmers work motivated a lot of people in different domains. Artists and musicians are among them.
They created Free Art License and some Creative Common kind of licenses. They created communities like Jamendo and Magnatune, where people are allowed to share music. There is no mention of these kind of movements, where musicians are getting most of the money where as traditional record industry they get only 5%, in BBC’s documentary. 95% of the money that record company gets goes to non- musicians. Instead of revealing the real pirates, the corporate, they gave chance to Metallica to talk about his losses by Napster kind of file sharing like in the old story of Alexander the Great and small fisherman.
Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich asking plumbers and car mechanics whether they would like it if he used their services for free. There are answers for these questions. But Aleks Krotoski, who calls herself as a journalist, did not tried to get those answers or ignored the answers.
Music is not a new thing that Metallica invented. It was there from the beginning of civilization. Classical arts, music etc are protected and encouraged by King/State and folk kind is protected and encouraged by the people. Nobody was restricted to performing or enjoying it.
But when Thomas Alva Edison invented the recording technologies then it become a weapon. Now these arts and music got owners. With age old copy right laws from the time of Guntert, they attacked people asking for money. This new digital media is designed for easy copy. You cannot change its property. So they brought Govt. and made anti-social law against people by using their enormous amount of money.
As an neutral media BBC has the responsibility to tell the story of both sides. Its really bad that BBC missed one side. You are rhetoric about the democracy, openness of internet and gate keepers role in internet, but you yourself showed censoring of ideas. That is the real problem. I am not saying that you should be in our side. But what I am saying is that just show the people that there another perspective in legally sharing of file as per Gnu General Public License.
If all the knowledge world has available to everyone, then we can solve all the issues in the world. But people like you manipulating people by hiding the truth. Shame on you.