Tuesday, 18th August 2009
SHOPPING CLOSE
Ms Grace Borg, a redoubtable and indefatigable champion of the music industry in Malta, took the ISPs to task last week (an ISP is one of the people involved in getting ‘Net content to pop up on your screen) and told them in no uncertain terms that they have to play a part in stopping illegal downloading.
I have no quarrel with Ms Borg and her redoubtable and indefatigable efforts to protect the music industry. Just to define my terms, what we are talking about when we refer to "the music industry" in this context is not a bunch of struggling bands being helped to propagate their stuff and sell the fruits of their talent. To an extent, the only local talent that Ms Borg has ever interested herself in, if her public utterances are any indicator, is the local talent that tries to get itself representing Malta in the Eurovision Song Contest, which is to my mind a somewhat oxymoronic way of convincing anyone that you have talent.
But I have no quarrel either with this aspect of Ms Borg's activity - which is very much a side-line to her very successful retail activity - and if she enjoys it more power to her snazzily-clothed elbow. After all, so many people seem to enjoy Eurovision and commenting about it, why shouldn't she have her fun too?
Recognising, as one should in a society ruled by the law, that the fruits of one's endeavour and talent should be rendered unto the owner thereof, I have no quarrel, either, with Ms Borg's defence of the music industry as I have now re-defined it. In other words, I recognise that she has a commercial interest and that she has every right to defend it and to scream and shout in an effort so to do.
After all, this is what people do and you can't blame them for it. Look at the GRTU, for instance, as far as they are concerned, the revision of the rent-laws, which might make it possible for owners of property to get a commercial rent from property rented to commercial operators for peanuts, should be carried out in such a manner as to protect the commercial operators and not the owners.
The GRTU's brief is to protect its members and while the rest of us might feel that commercial people should act commercially and not seek the protection of antediluvian laws, you can't really blame the GRTU for trying it on.
Just as you can't, in a less wide scale, blame the operators of shops in the Freedom Square / City Gate area for bleating and whinging. The rest of us know they don't really have a leg to stand on, and that they certainly knew that the area was going to be re-developed and that their leases were somewhat precarious, but why shouldn't the Reggie Favas of this world stamp their feet and try to get something out of the situation?
It's not as if Mother Theresa was a shop-keeper, after all.
So it's understandable that Ms Borg wants to protect her market and that she wants to be able to charge what she likes for the music and movies she imports. Back in the good old days, before play.com and amazon.co.uk and whatever, if you wanted to get your hands on some music or on a movie, you had to trot along to one of the shops of the Exotique chain and shell out some hard-earned dosh. You could rent a dodgy video, of course, but there were limits.
Or you could wait till you went on a trip to London or wherever and take advantage of the way cheaper prices that Virgin, HMV or whoever seem able to charge. No doubt the pricing structures had something to do with economies of scale and monopolistic architectures, but the bottom-line for us poor flippin' consumers was what it was.
But while on the subject of downloads, which is where we started, why isn't Ms Borg campaigning for LEGAL downloading, instead of whining at the ISPs to stop illegal downloading? If you try to go onto iTunes and download music or other content legally, by paying for it (or onto play.com or any other place where you can buy stuff) you find that Malta is not included amongst the countries from which you can do this.
Why this is has never been fully made clear, though I'm sure that copyright has something to do with it.
Ms Borg could, but perhaps might not, turn her talents to persuading iTunes that, since we already buy most of our content from play.com anyway, there's nothing really dangerous to opening the taps a little bit more and making it even easier to get cheaper music and movies.
In the meantime, though, the market will rule, however much Ms Borg stamps her foot: if you can get stuff cheaper (or free) you will and the more artificial barriers that are put up, the more resourceful people will try to get around them.
Make it easy and cheap and I, for one, would buy rather than faff around, on the other hand.
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Comments
The arguments, details and experiences are somewhat immaterial.
What is important is that Malta has an international reputation for honesty
and since it is largely depemdent upon tourism then the subjects
of rip-offs by such as taxi and bus-drivers together with pestering
timeshare touts should be urgently addressed together with a tidy-up in general.
None of these actions costs a red cent and the failings of other nations
would highlight the attraction of Malta. Google the subject of airport
luggage pilfering and mention is made from this paper of bag
handlers at MIA objecting to the installation of cameras and breaking them.
If baggage between Malta and the UK is pilfered let it be at "Thiefrow"
and not MIA.
These thoughts arise from observations from gentle readers
who are well aware that all is not well with international postage to Malta.
You're probably right.
Most of us Maltese are very critical about our ways and the products we produce and we compare our output negatively as opposed to other European countries’ yet we don’t like other Europeans to criticise us. I don’t have any problem to understand that attitude and I think it also prevails in Britain and the European Continent. Isn’t it just like when we criticise our partners and our family but we don’t like others to underscore the same shortcomings? I don’t think its oversensitivity, it’s a normal reaction. Having said that, most of us here consider you one of us at least I do.
@ Charles Buttigieg:
Yes it is perfectly true what you write Charles but it is not the point at issue.
All sorts of factors come into it but it is the standard response of some Maltese who read a foreigner being critical of Malta to say that it is the same in the foreigner's own country.
Whether the comparison is true or not-and I am not arguing on that- the original question related to the known problems of some firms being reluctant to deal with Malta and I have had personal experience in that direction.
I am not particularly patriotic regarding the UK but I would wish for Malta to have a higher standing in the world.
Malta and the Maltese have a high standing in my personal regard but then there are special considerations and surely one may be frank with a friend.
I have been through this problem, or rather question, of the hyper-sensitivity of the Maltese so many times and so many foreign writers about Malta have nade the same observation but one just has to accept it I guess.
I haven’t been to Petticoat Lane Market for donkey’s years but they say that you can still get more fakes there than you can get pastizzi on a Sunday morning at our ‘monti’ in Valletta. Yet Malta gets the bad reputation and the Brits blame the Asians for their Island’s reputation.
Whilst I am not particularly in terested in he subject that ABC presents, I am concerned at the suggestion that lays behind Franco's observation.
Now far be it from me to upset you Maltese but it has to be said that Malta's international reputation is not of the highesst. It is well-known that fakegoods (particularly CDs) are regularly and readily available on the Monte. Speaking of piracy this mysterious vessel intercepted near the Cape Verde islands is flying a Maltese flag of convenience.
Forgive me for bringing this up but I shall not labour the point.
There is one thing that you might, or not, think about: the fact that if you try to buy CDs and music from Amazon, you will find that as soon as you mark MALTA as the destination of the wares bought, the system will inform you that they are unable to send these music wares to Malta. My question is a simple one: why?