Burnham seeks to start global war on downloading

Andy Burnham, out of the DCMS, is still seeing his job as doing the record company's bidding and not protecting the consumer, and wants an international strategy to beat "illegal" downloading:

"I am working towards an international memorandum of understanding, it is time for much more serious dialogue with European and US partners. No solely national solution will work. It can only be durable with international consensus," he added.

Seriously, Andy? You think a handful of snaffled mp3 files and a tiny sum in potential lost sales is so bloody important you need to convene a world parliament to fight BitTorrent?

An internationa memorandum of understanding, no less. Serious dialogue. International consensus.

This is people sucking down a few old Wham! songs and the odd record-company-created leak of U2's latest you're talking about, Andy. It's not The Penguin weaponising his umbrella, or global warming. God forbid you worry more about global warming.

Still, Burnham's got to get it right at home first. He's going to need a strategy. No, that won't do it. There must be two strategies. At the very least. In fact:

Burnham said he is aiming to "bring the threads together" with a five-pronged strategy to help the UK music industry. "It is an incredibly important industry to this country and perhaps it has not been focused on in the way it should. There is a strong sense that this is the year we have to bring this stuff off, we have a head of steam, a bit of momentum," he added.

It's nice to see Burnham demonstrate the strength of the UK's creativity by using a metaphor coined in the age of steam trains.

You've got to love the idea that Burnham seems to believe that nobody has really focused on the unlicensed download question. Even while John Kennedy of the IFPI is stood in a court testifying in the Pirate Bay trial.

By the way: The Digital Britain report - which includes the suggestion that it become law for ISPs to send letters to filesharers - is currently being sliced and diced to allow you to comment through the mighty WriteToReply.org.