Following long-running disputes and complaints about online piracy, Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour party, has called upon the Government to introduce a ‘digital bill of rights’ to offer increased protection for musicians, their rights and their intellectual property (IP) in the digital age.
Discussing the content of a ‘digital democracy manifesto’ recently published by the Labour party, Mr Corbyn stressed the importance of digital rights for creative content producers such as musicians, outlining proposals to clamp down on online piracy.
“Downloading music for free sounds fine. But this means musicians do not get paid. That is why digital rights are so important,” he said, speaking in east London.
Mr Corbyn’s manifesto adds: “The human right of personal privacy should give legal protection for British citizens from not only unwarranted snooping on their on-line activities by the security services, but also unjustified surveillance by CCTV and other hi-tech methods within the workplace”.
The comments come shortly after The Queen announced a new Digital Economy Bill in May, with hopes of introducing new “provisions about protection of intellectual property in connection with electronic communications,” and cracking down on online pirates and IP infringement.
A recent study conducted by internet giant Google found that online piracy websites have experienced an 89 per cent decrease in web traffic since 2014.