Music biz to 'hijack' Europe's data retention laws

[RoyGBiv]

From Terrorism to Filesharing

By Lucy Sherriff
Published Friday 25th November 2005 17:40 GMT

The entertainment industry is trying to commandeer the proposed European directive on data retention to help it prosecute filesharers in the European Union, it has emerged.

The newly-formed Creative and Media Business Alliance (CMBA), an informal grouping (it says) of companies including Sony BMG, Disney, EMI, IFPI, MPA and Universal Music International, says it wants the data protection directive to be modified specifically so that it can be used to go after pirates.
Click Here

. . . .

According to Suw Charman, founder of the Open Rights Group, this means the door is officially open for the entertainment industry to use legislation designed to protect European citizens from terrorists to prosecute them instead.

"The industry is attempting to pervert this legislation, to back up a failing business model based on little more than speculation ," she told The Register.
"There is no public good in creating legislation that empowers the creative industry to sue its own customers."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/25/data_retention/

[Karenina]

1. Creative industry?

Such a generous reference.