News
An odd-fellows union of AT&T, Viacom, NBC Universal, Cisco, Microsoft and the Songwriters Guild of America has banded to support a new organization called Arts+Labs.
The new organization’s charter is to “encourage enhanced development of innovative and creative Internet content distributed over safe and reliable networks.”
In other words, the group plans to advocate for legal downloading practices. Further, the group said it may even create new content distribution channels.
The idea is to ensure that artists – and their representatives – get paid for creative content.
Arts+Labs says it will also “raise awareness of the growing problem of net pollution – which includes viruses, malware, hack attacks, spam, illegal file trafficking and other activity that threatens to degrade consumers' Internet experience.
So the group is conflating the issue of illegal downloading with safety on the Internet. Which is to say, the group wants to convince consumers that they should be careful, if not even a little bit afraid, when it comes to downloading – illegal downloading.
According to Arts+Labs co-chair Mike McCurry, “We want consumers to have exponentially greater opportunities to access creative content in a variety of formats, and with confidence that they are safe from viruses, hackers, malware, illegal file trafficking and other net pollution that puts them at risk.”
McCurry is the former White House press secretary to President Bill Clinton. The other co-chair is Mark McKinnon, a former songwriter and newspaper editor.
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