UPC director has no sympathy for downloaders

UPC director Diederik Karsten has clearly expressed himself to Webwereld yesterday: downloading copyrighted material without permission is theft. He was aware of the fact that this statement will make him unpopular with the public. "In the Netherlands we have some divergent laws which permit downloading for personal use. The UPC-director doesn’t seem opposed to any international laws against (free) downloading of copyrighted materials. ??

Karsten distinguishes between two types of pirates.

Firstly there are the tough guys who prefer downloading as much music and movies over the internet as possible, 24 hours a day, 30 days a month. Such use puts a heavy burden on the bandwidth and is also contrary to the UPC principles of fair use. This type of pirate gives UPC the most concerns, although caused by only a fraction of the total UPC subscribers. ??

Karsten isn’t very sympathetic about the second kind of pirate as well: "Then there is a larger group of people who do not like paying for the creative work of others, which they apparently appreciate because they want to have it." "I would like to take these people into a bookstore, take a pile of books under the arm, walk out of the shop and if they say something of this make a remark: they are for personal use. Perhaps it will begin to dawn on them what download really means. Legally, that is simply stealing. No, that doesn’t make me very popular with many people ".

20 May 2010