The music and film industries are suffering due to file-sharing.

The Government uses claims and research supported by and affiliated with the music and film industries, to support her claim of damages done. These organisations have an interest in over-reporting and exaggerating the numbers, precisely to prompt legislation like the Government is putting forward at this very moment. The Opposition holds, in contrast, that (a) the decline in sales of the media industry can be attributed to many other factors than illegal file sharing, (b) the music industry's definition of damages done is faulty, and (c) that even if the claims have some base in reality, something we believe to be not the case, increased enforcement would not have any effect on the damages to the film industry. (a) To assume that the coincident rise of file sharing and decline of the media industry has a causal link is wrong. Several other important developments have a direct link to the argument made by the Government. The habits of media consumers have changed. They use their 'own', bought, media (such as bought CDs and DVDs) less frequently, and have shifted more to on-demand services like TV-channels. Another development is the wide availability of professional grade production equipment on contemporary home computers, which enables a greater range of people to produce and manufacture their own media. This increases competition and draws revenue from large, traditional media companies to smaller, unaffiliated ones whose revenues are not reported in the figures the Government cites. (b) The damages done by file sharing, as reported by the music industry, are wholly inaccurate. These figures are a combination of missed growth targets, extrapolated estimates, and pure fiction, made to influence public opinion. What really are these damages? Let us analyse them in more detail. For one to do €10 damage to Sony Music by file sharing, they would need to (1) make up their mind to procure some music (say, a single of "Oops, I did it again" worth €5). (2) have been willing to pay the in-store price of "Oops, I did it again". (3) then instead download it illegally. Why the double damages? Taken as a whole, a file sharing network downloads and uploads exactly as much. So, for every person downloading "Oops, I did it again" illegally, on average, they facilitate one other person in downloading "Oops, I did it again" illegally. (Note that it has yet to be seen that someone's Up/Down ratio has been used in a court case to determine the fine/punishment. The fines are mostly set by Sony Music et al. themselves.) These three requirements are often not present when calculating the damages done for a purported criminal engaged in file sharing. For example, (1) is not present when someone sees a file offered for download they have never heard of, then, on a whim, decide to download it. (2) is most often violated - the vast majority of file sharers would not pay €50 for a video game or € 10 for a DVD they now get for free. All of these arguments invalidate the claims the music industry has to any damages, or at least invalidates the amounts and methods reported in current court cases. This means that the Government's argument of solving a great economical evil by their plan does not hold. (c) Increased enforcement will never put the illegal file sharing networks out of operation, which is what is necessary to generate more revenue for the music industry IF their claims are true (which (b) argues is not the case). These networks are global, the music industry is not (e.g. servers hosted in rogue states), and the technologically adept file sharers will find new, undetectable methods of sharing.