Local Celebrities Happy with the Ban on Illegal Downloading

Kuala Lumpur: Homegrown celebrities have support behind the Government’s move to block access to several Internet file-sharing sites.

“ The move to ban illegal file-sharing sites is not a form of censorship but a way to prevent a violation of the law by irresponsible parties for us,” said Datuk Freddie Fernandez, president of Karyawan, the group presenting local entertainment celebrities.

“ The extent that pirated CD or VCD sellers find it hard to sell their products and illegal free downloads via the internet already have wrecked the industry,” he said yesterday.

He said again that he was commenting on the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission order to all Internet service earlier this month to block access to 10 file sharing websites.

So many believe that even do they block it would not solve the violation of copyright.
Karyawan and its artisted said that music fans must bear the consequences of piracy and illegal download to ensure the survival of the local music industry players.

“Setting up a downloading portal was not difficult as relevant software was easily available” said managinging director Music portal 2crank.com Mohmad Hazmi Ya’cob.

“The public still can easily open another illegal downloading site even do we ban a few sites now.”

“The Government needs to do is to address the public’s attitude toward the piracy through education,” he said.

The vocalist from a local band Emergency, P.Vijay, said that the fans must know that when they download free songs it consider as they are not supporting their idols but killing their careers instead.

The veteran composer Aznan Alias said that they could not afford to produce music album either they are old or new talents and those who did mainly resorted to home studio as they could not afford the cost of the professional studios.

“The effects really hits us so badlly that we don’t encourage our children to become musicians with the illegal downloading.

“It hard to even dream of putting our kids through college for the local artistes,” said Aznan- The Star