To Lord Mandelson's Attention.
I strongly disagree with Lord Mandelson's proposed policy on dealing with online piracy. His attitude in tackling this problem, if it needs to be tackled at all, is wrong, and he oversees crucial advantages of the so-called piracy.
I shall not dwell on the reasons that have been publicly expressed already - breaching human rights by disconnecting people from internet; or the fact that there are hundreds of ways to hack wireless networks, download files illegally and throw suspicions on an innocent person; although these arguments are quite strong themselves, and need to be addressed.
I believe that file-sharing is a human right. If people are allowed to share arts, by visiting galleries, museums and exhibitions, why can't they share music, movies and video-games? Surely, the producers suffer financial losses. However, all these years that file-sharing has existed, producers still had high profits, if their products deserved them. There always have been, and will be, people, who go to the cinemas and buy licensed disks. There will always be people, who say "no" to piracy, deeming it dishonest. It is their right to do so. Those people will always bring money to the producers. A good example here would be X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a movie, which leaked on-line about a month before the initial release. Despite the fact that an estimated 1.5 million people saw it before the release, the movie was a financial success.
How much money the intellectual property brings, only matters to the producers, not those, who produce, but those, who invest money in it. People, who really create movies, games and music, are usually paid at fixed rate, so profit is not vital to them.
I am not suggesting to apply communistic principles. Let them pursue profits, but people must have free access to their works.
So many people earn money, only enough to pay for the rent, food and necessities. They can't afford to pay more money to listen to licensed music or watch licensed DVDs. If you deprive them of file-sharing, you will cut off their opportunity to develop and learn something new. All intellectual property should be accessible similar to books in libraries. File-sharing programmes are the libraries of the 21st century. If Lord Mandelson's plan succeeds, it will be dark times for Britain, and believe me, you will see surge in crime amongst youth in Britain. Of course, Facebook does great job in keeping potentially aggressive people at home, but if tomorrow, one of those will not be able to download the new "call of duty" and will be disconnected, you'll see that person on streets, bored. God knows what a bored aggressive youth can do! You wish to see that in the UK, Honourable Lord?
I hope not.