"In recent weeks, Hong Kong's recording industry has flexed substantial legal muscle in its fight against online music filesharing," says Hong Kong's The Standard.
"It has sued an unemployed father of two and driven a 15-year-old girl to depression, vowing to broaden its legal offensive until it has successfully stamped out illicit music downloading.
"But lately, it has also been trying to send a different message: we care about families, too."
Sure it does. Just ask Patti Santangelo. Or Jim Trojan. Or Tanya Andersen, a disabled Oregon mother who's suing the Big Four under the US RICO (Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization) act. Or Candy Chan. Or any of the other American parents the Big Four Organized Music gang members are currently terrorizing as part of their appalling international sue 'em all marketing campaign.
Families make perfect targets. After all, what mother or father wants to see his or her child mugged by a hard-core Sony BMG, Warner Music, EMI or Vivendi Universal lawyer?
By, "carefully balancing an unrelenting legal campaign with a calculated public relations appeal aimed at parents and students," the Big Four have, "so far managed to avoid being painted as a ruthless profit-obsessed machine - a perception that the American experience shows could do the industry more harm than good in the long run," says the story.
Ruthless profit-obsessed machine? A perception? It's the reality. And add unprincipled.
The IFPI is one of the dozens of alphabet organizations such as the RIAA owned by Organized Music and dressed up as trade groups.
IFPI is short for the International Federation of Phonographic Industry and more and more, the IFPI is, "seeing the need to take a more sensitive approach, especially since all of the offenders in the first round of litigation were the young children of Internet subscribers, all between 12 and 19 years old - a fact Fung described as 'surprising'," says The Standard.
Fung is Ricky Fung, ceo of the 'local' IFPI branch.
"After announcing its latest legal campaign last week, Fung tried to shed the industry's bad-guy image by adopting a more comforting voice of concern, educating parents about the perils of Internet downloading," the story continues. "The work we're trying to do now is to face Hong Kong parents and tell them to watch their kids and their online behavior," Fung said.
The Big Four also wheeled out Stephen Selby, the Hong Kong government's director of intellectual property, to unveil a 'new' brochure showcasing the gentler approach.
" 'There are ways to enjoy downloaded music and still stay safe and legal,' says a smiling boy in a cartoon on the cover of the brochure," The Standard emphasises. 'Get your children to show you how they are using the computer and what they are sharing. Talk about copyright, and who loses out when songs get distributed on the Internet - performing artists? Songwriters?' "
It's complete rubbish. But it isn't surprising. Hong Kong is the place where the Big Four record label cartel's like-minded brethren in Hollywood managed to weasel the local scout movement into introducing intellectual property merit badges. And No, we're not making it up.
Meanwhile, there's nothing new in either the tone or the approach. In fact, it's a reprise of a tired dis- and misinformation scam originally introduced in Europe and in which Britain's The Times played a shameful role.
As a reader says in a post to our first Jim Trojan story, "We have a recently defeated political Party here in Canada who was in power so long they developed a 'culture of entitlement'. The companies behind RIAA/MPAA were successful in maintaining a grip on distribution and pricing for the longest time until the internet came along.
"They think they can move forward on government favours and lawsuits, but they'll sink clutching their treasure."
They will indeed. Thanks to the Net, the critical mass point has almost been reached.
(Thanks, Geoffrey Y)
Also See: The Standard - New tone in music piracy fight, April 14, 2006 Patti Santangelo - How low can the RIAA go?, April 14, 2006 Jim Trojan - Organized Music strikes again, April 14, 2006 Tanya Andersen - p2pnet talks to Tanya Andersen, March 21, 2006 Candy Chan - The 'We're Not Taking Any More' club, September 17, 2005 not making it up - Scouting with the MPAA: IV, May 5, 2005 shameful role - The Big Lie: Part II, June 8, 2005
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