Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend of the Who, Elton John, Robert Plant, Brian May and Roger Taylor of Queen and Andrew Lloyd Webber are among the musicians and writers who have signed a letter urging the U.K. to adopt more stringent copyright laws.
In particular, the group is calling for Prime Minister David Cameron to implement the Digital Economy Act of 2010 which would require Internet Service Providers (ISPs), search engines and online advertisers to protect consumers from (i.e., stop them from seeing) illegal sites, especially those that provide illegal downloads of music.
While the world's biggest search engine, Google, is not called out by name in the letter, the industry has been having a long-running feud with the company over their search results showing links to illegal download sites. Google claims that they remove millions of links each month in an attempt to control the access.
The text of the letter, which was originally sent to The Daily Telegraph and will be sent to Cameron:
As the world's focus turns to the UK this summer, there is an opportunity to stimulate growth in sectors where the UK has a competitive edge. Our creative industries represent one such sector, which creates jobs at twice the speed of the rest of the economy. Britain's share of the global music market is higher than ever with UK artists, led by Adele, breaking through to global stardom.
As a digitally advanced nation whose language is spoken around the world, the UK is well positioned to increase its exports in the digital age. Competition in the creative sector is in talent and innovation, not labour costs or raw materials.
We can realise this potential only if we have a strong domestic copyright framework, so that UK creative industries can earn a fair return on their huge investments creating original content.
Illegal activity online must be pushed to the margins. This will benefit consumers, giving confidence they are buying safely online from legal websites.
Also signing the letter were Simon Cowell, Professor Green and Tinie Tempah.
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