"Not to sound over-dramatic, but..."

Oh, I'm against illegal downloading and music piracy generally of course, but you can always rely on someone from the record industry to make me want to change my mind. Here's Paul McGuinness in the Irish Times:

Mr McGuinness, one of the music industry's most vocal critics of illegal downloading, said internet service providers (ISPs) such as UPC were being "utterly disingenuous" in stating that they were "mere conduits" and could not be responsible for the behaviour of their customers.

The record industry lost a High Court case earlier this week in which it sought an injunction against UPC to force it to deal with illegal filesharers...

In an interview with The Irish Times , Mr McGuinness said the defence of "mere conduit" was "not an excuse when there are questions of national security, child pornography or terrorism".

Nice move, pivoting from music piracy to raping children.

Oh wait! There's more:

"Not to sound over-dramatic, but frankly it has got to do with the future of civilisation and a culture within our society. If we allow it to become accepted that writers and artists and musicians are not entitled to get paid for their work and they are, in some kind of daft way, pursuing hobbies where we will be in the future? We will get news from Google search and the telcos (telecommunications companies) and the ISPs will dominate the horrible new world".

You hear that, music pirates? If you don't stop, you'll destroy civilization and produce a world run by paedophiles, terrorists, and... uh... Google.