Yes, yes, I understand that illegal downloads are costing rhe record industry millions. £1.1bn over three years in fact. It says so in The Times and Reuters and the Evening Standard. There's also the same story here, here, here and here. And I mean exactly the same story. But where's the methodology? How on earth were these figures arrived at? No one seems interested in any consideration, certainly in challenging the figures. Only the good old BBC seems to have done any further analysis (though Monsters and Critics mysteriously carries the same quotes). But, hey, if you're a hack just print the press release, right?

While the Sony debacle winds to a sorry end, with mass apologies and extreme harm to the company's brand image, almost unnoticed there's been a debate going on in Europe about fair use of CDs and DVDs that threatens to scupper US attempts to institute worlwide controls on their 'you might think you're a consumer but actually you're a potential criminal' model. The IHT reports on the continuing arguments over the four-year old Copyright Directive, which allowed for 'private copies'. As any fule no, such terminolog is hard to define. On the face of it, once you've bought a DVD, you'd be able to copy it as many times as you want as long as only you used it. This is completely contrary to the increasingly obvious US agenda which is trying to re-institute pre-home taping understanding that for each 'play device' you must purchase another copy of the work. As the report, pressure is mounting in France (and has already won through in the smaller EU countries) in favour of more consumer rights. We'll see how the American corpos react. With white phosphorus perhaps?