The evils of the Internet

I mentioned the Sabip report into illegal downloading. Here are a couple more gems from the BBC article.

The report blames the wicked old Internet for confusing consumers about what is allowed:

The fact that so much on the internet is free only added to the confusion, it said.

If only everyone charged for stuff, rather than giving it away out of the goodness of their hearts, we would never have got in this mess in the first place, eh?

The BBC article also had the following to report:

The latest report for the SABIP said the new generation of broadband access at 50Mbps could deliver 200 MP3 files in five minutes, a DVD in three and the complete digitised works of Charles Dickens in less than 10.

The complete works of Charles Dickens, of course, are in the public domain and therefore may legitimately be downloaded. Give it a couple of hundred years, unless the recording industries get the law changed in their favour, and most media produced today will be too. What will happen to copyright then?