According to a column in Webwereld, the Dutch film industry is asking the government to help them combat illegal downloading, but in fact doing nothing to solve their problem. Let’s have a look at their arguments.

The people who are currently petitioning the government to do something about downloading are movie theatre owners, represented by an ex Minister of Justice. Movie theatres have seen their profit increase by 30 percent in 2010. What’s all the fuss about then? It’s the video shops that are closing, not movie theatres. Record shops are closing left and right, but somehow that’s regarded as normal.

Another argument is that the government should ban downloading and make it illegal. How are they going to enforce it? There are enough measures already many experts will tell you. And they don’t really work.

There is no legal alternative to downloading movies in the Netherlands. If there is, please tell us. Seems like there’s a nice gap in the market, so why is nothing being done? Let me guess, the legislation is messed up and nobody wants to wait six months like a second-class citizen to watch the latest movies anymore.

Yes, people should be paid for their wares, yes downloading hurts many industries, but technology is just going to evolve further, so the time to get creative with solutions is now.

The report was labelled ‘strictly confidential’ and yet it winded up on the Internet for all to see. Either the document wasn’t ‘strictly confidential’ or the people working on this report are not the brightest of lightbulbs.

(Link: webwereld.nl, Photo of film cans by tallfoot, some rights reserved)