Verizon Starts Passing On RIAA Infringement Letters To Users

from the what's-next,-though? dept

Allison K alerts us to the news that Verizon is the latest US broadband provider to agree to pass along the RIAA letters accusing Verizon customers of unauthorized file sharing. AT&T, Comcast, Cox and some other ISPs already do this. The letters don't include specific threats of action (so, no "three strikes" type policies), but the RIAA is clearly hoping that by passing on the letters it will discourage unauthorized file sharing. It's a bit of a waste for Verizon to need to spend resources on this, and it really is just the RIAA's first step in the door to eventually push for kicking people off of the internet, but on the whole it's not that terrible to pass along notices. In the end, my guess is that it will actually serve to do a lot more to promote encryption services than anything else. Maybe some encryption service can approach Verizon about "sponsoring" those customer notifications.

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Police Allowed To Hang Onto Seized Computers For Anti-Piracy Group, Despite No Gov't Prosecution

from the that's-bad dept

We were just noting that the IFPI thinks it's going to start seizing computers directly to get evidence of unauthorized file sharing, and wondering how that would work. At least in the UK, they may have just received some legal support. Over the summer, we wondered why an anti-piracy group in the UK was given access to and allowed to keep computers from a criminal investigation into an online service, called Surfthechannel, accused of unauthorized file sharing. The police seized the computers, but decided not to pursue criminal charges. It never made much sense that private, industry-backed anti-piracy group FACT was a major part of the criminal investigation, as they're quite the biased party. They were given seized computers as a part of this investigation -- and once the police decided not to pursue criminal charges, FACT kept the machines, saying it was considering a civil suit. However, the lawyers for Surfthechannel noted that the police and FACT had no right to keep the seized machines after the decision was made not to pursue criminal charges.

Apparently (and unfortunately) a judge disagrees. A reader alerts us (via comments on a totally separate story, rather than a submission -- not sure why) to the news that the judge in the case has said that police have every right to retain seized computers, even after they've decided not to pursue criminal charges. The judges noted that the law allows police the retain anything seized "so long as is necessary in all the circumstances" and then ruled that the potential of a civil suit from FACT was one of those "circumstances" that qualified. It's difficult to see how that makes any sense, but so ruled the court.

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More Independent Film Makers Embrace News Of Their Film Being Pirated

from the good-exposure dept

Alan Gerow was the first of a few folks to send in the news that some independent filmmakers not only discovered that their film, Ink, had ended up being widely available via Bittorrent, but that they were quite happy about the exposure. Alan sends over the email that the filmmakers sent out:

Dear Fans and Friends,

Over the weekend something pretty extraordinary happened. Ink got ripped off. Someone bit torrented the movie (we knew this would happen) and they posted it on every pirate site out there. What we didn't expect was that within 24 hours Ink would blow up. Ink became the number 1 most downloaded movie on several sites having been downloaded somewhere between 150,000 to 200,000 times as far as we can tell. Knowing there's absolutely nothing we can do about it, we've embraced the piracy and are just happy Ink is getting unprecedented exposure.

As a result, Ink is now ranked #16 on IMDb's movie meter and is currently one of the top 20 most popular movies in the world.

This all started as a result of the completely underground buzz that you've each helped us create. We've had no distributor, no real advertising and yet the word of mouth that you've generated has made the film blow up as soon as it became available worldwide. So many of you came to see the movie multiple times, bringing friends and family and many of you have bought the DVD and Blu-ray from us. All of this built up and built up and suddenly it exploded.

We don't know exactly where this will all lead, but the exposure is unquestionably a positive thing.

Ink hits Netflix, Blockbuster, iTunes and many more tomorrow! Remember to get your signed copies, t-shirts and posters at the Ink Store.

Thank you so much for the constant love and support.

Jamin and Kiowa
Double Edge Films"

Again, we've seen this with other films as well, but it's always nice to see filmmakers who realize it doesn't make sense to freak out, but to look for ways to take advantage of this as a promotional opportunity.

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PC Game Developer Pirates Own Game As Promotion

from the nice-work dept

A bunch of folks sent in stories about the decision by smaller, indie PC game developer RedLynx to put its own "pirated" game on BitTorrent the same day as it released the game. The one difference is that it removed one feature (a leaderboard, which the company describes as "the soul" of the game) from the "pirated" version, hoping that those who got the game that way would eventually agree to upgrade to the full version later. The company's CEO explained:

"Piracy is here, so how can we take advantage of that? What we did actually, on day one, we put that game immediately on all the torrent networks ourselves..."

I'm of mixed opinions when it comes to disabling features in "free" versions, but it appears to be working for RedLynx. It's certainly better than freaking out and complaining about "piracy."

Of course, not everyone agrees that putting any content up was a good idea. Over at Escapist Magazine, they drag this guy over the coals for even admitting that piracy exists:

In my mind, posting even a gimped version of your game to pirate sites is counterproductive to attempting to earn money developing said games. Doing so implies that piracy is tolerable, which it isn't. Plus, any traffic which the game may or may not generate to such torrent sites may facilitate users downloading other pirate games which legitimate companies did not leak.

Even if RedLynx made the unscrupulous decision to post their game to a torrent sites, why in the name of Jehovah would the CEO tell anyone about it? I see no advantage for that information to be made public and, conversely, there is a huge possibility for an industry-wide backlash.

This makes no sense at all to me. The CEO is correct. Piracy exists. Piracy of this game is going to happen either way. Figuring out ways to take advantage of it as a promotional tool is the smartest thing you could do. It's not implying that piracy is "tolerable," it's saying that piracy is here, it's not going away, and there are ways to take advantage of it. In many ways it's the reverse of saying it's "tolerable." It's saying that there are benefits to using it to your advantage. Apparently, the folks at Escapist think the proper business strategy is to put your head in the sand. Can't see how that helps at all. As for questioning why he would tell people about it -- again, that's not so complex. By telling people about it, he again is getting a lot more attention for his game and doing so in a way that shows he respects users, rather than thinks that they're all criminals. He trusts that some of those who play the pirated version will decide to upgrade to the full version. And why should he care if others in the industry don't like it? His job, as CEO, is to get more people to pay for his game. If he's found that this method works, what's the problem?

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The Moral Argument In Favor Of File Sharing?

from the is-it-wrong? dept

I've discussed in the past the question of whether or not there's even a moral question to consider when it comes to copyright, if you can first show a situation where everyone is better off (i.e., if the end result of content being shared, willingly, is better for both the content creators and consumers, why should morals even be a question?). Separately, I have made clear that I do not engage in any sort of unauthorized file sharing -- noting that it is illegal and, I personally believe, wrong. Some people have pushed back on that latter point, suggesting that my labeling it as "wrong" is, in fact, a moral statement as well. A couple months ago (yes, I'm slow, but I'm catching up on some old "saved" submissions), SteelWolf sent over some thoughts on why file sharing is not wrong, and why there's actually a moral argument in favor of sharing:

It is through sharing that we develop a culture and advance humanity. Creative works like art and music are, at their core, about sharing with others. They tell stories, reveal personalities, or comment on the world in ways that others can appreciate, forming a part of our culture as they are spread around. Gregor Mendel's discoveries about genetics had no value while they were gathering dust on the monastery bookshelf; it is only when those discoveries were shared with the world that they became vital.

Infinite Goods Should Be Shared

Say you have something that is good for others, and it is infinite, so you will not lose any of it by giving some away. I don't think it's a stretch to say that most people's idea of morality would dictate that they should share that thing. In general, information is something that can be seen as a public good. If somebody has a discovery or an idea, it costs nothing to give it away, it is not scarce, yet it can potentially benefit the world.

On this, I absolutely agree -- but it is much more the argument for why the content creators themselves should share their content first. And that's where things get tricky. I do think it makes sense to share content. I think that content creators would find themselves better off if they share their works (and do so strategically, in combination with a business plan that takes advantage of it). But what if the original creator doesn't want the content shared? Then what?

SteelWolf argues that there's a moral imperative to share, but again, this seems to apply more to the content creator, than those downstream:

Faced with an infinity of good things in the form of content information, why would somebody chose not to give it away? What is gained by hoarding something that can help others and costs nothing to share? Let's say you figure out that you can protect people from a deadly virus, say, influenza, with a vaccine. While it costs something to manufacture physical vaccines and mail them to everybody in the world, sharing the information behind it is free. Others can chose whether or not they want to invest money in creating their own, but sharing has given them the option to do so where before it did not exist. Faced with this situation, who would chose to let thousands of people perish by denying them even the potential opportunity to save themselves?

Yet this is exactly the choice many people are making in the name of "intellectual property." They would rather see others suffer than share something infinite with them, desperately clinging to business models that depend on scarcity. In the 21st century, ideas, information, digitized content are all infinitely available. For these things, the Star Trek replicator has been made, and it's time to use that as a stepping stone to greater things.

Faced with an infinite supply of information that can potentially benefit billions of people, I chose to share. Those who try to hoard this information are both attempting to drink the ocean and doing wrong.

While I think this is interesting, and at times compelling, in the end I'm still not convinced there's a moral component here, except potentially for the creator/innovator. But, at the same time, I still believe that we're better off taking the moral discussion out of it. Perhaps a moral argument like the one above is helpful to convince some, but it leads right back to the economic discussion, where some will ask why anyone would bother in the first place, if they're just told they need to give it away for moral reasons.

Instead, I'm more convinced by economic arguments that show greater opportunity in sharing infinite goods, in that it decreases the cost of creation, promotion and distribution, while making it easier reach a larger audience for selling scarce products. Again, if you can make the economic argument, and then throw in the moral benefits of spreading information on top of it, that makes sense. But a purely moral argument still falls a bit short for me. Still, I'm sure it will lead to an interesting discussion here.

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Attacks On File Sharing Simply Drive People Further Underground

from the it-doesn't-make-them-buy dept

Admittedly it's just an estimate, but reports coming out of Sweden suggest that, rather than stop file sharing, under the new IPRED law, a growing number of file sharing users have simply gone further underground using anonymizing services. Of course, this shouldn't surprise anyone, as plenty of people have been predicting that's exactly that would happen for the better part of a decade. You would think that folks in the entertainment industry might actually pay attention since those predictions from years back have come true. But instead, they'd rather attack those of us who have pointed out why their strategy isn't working. At what point do they stop and realize that their critics actually are giving them good advice?

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Yet Another (Yes, Another) Study Shows File Sharers Buy More

from the how-many-more-do-we-need? dept

Pretty much every single non-industry-backed study has shown this same thing, but just for the record, here's yet another study showing that those who engage in unauthorized file sharing end up buying more media. The study, looking at the UK (home of the new proposal to kick people off the internet), wasn't even close. Those who engaged in unauthorized file sharing tended to spend £77 on media per year, while those who did not spent about £44. And yet file sharers are the enemy? And the industry wants to kick them offline so they discover less new content? How will that help?

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Anti-File Sharing Lobbyists/Lawyers Shove Each Other Aside To Blame P2P Rather Than Dumb Guy For Congressional Leak

from the try-harder dept

A couple years ago, some entertainment industry lobbyists hit on a new idea for trying to get Congress to legislate against file sharing software: figure out ways to blame it for stupid employees. More specifically, figure out a way to blame it for stupid employees... in the government. So, those lobbyists have worked hard to highlight every single time some sort of sensitive government information was leaked via file sharing programs, and then even got Congress to investigate file sharing programs, rather than government security policies or how the government deals with stupid employees who put sensitive information on home computers that also have file sharing software installed improperly (set to share everything). The latest is that they were even able to get a ridiculously poorly thought-out law proposed that would cause problems for nearly every software you use online. Brilliant.

So, of course, as the news broke that there was a leak of a Congressional ethics investigation, because a staffer put the document on his or her home machine that had file sharing software on it, the usual crowd of folks wasted no time at all in highlighting the use of P2P software and presenting file sharing as if it (rather than dumb employees and bad government security) was a huge national security threat and (of course) to urge Congresss to pass laws against file sharing programs. The one thing in common? All of those calls come from people who get paychecks from the entertainment industry.

Funny, I don't see them calling for laws that would lock down and secure laptops, even though government employees lose thousands of laptops every year -- many with sensitive information. I don't see them calling for laws against email software, though I would bet that a lot more sensitive information is leaked by people simply emailing it to the wrong party. They don't call for laws against the telephone, even though people leak info over the phone. What? No laws against dining in restaurants where you might hear some info from folks at the next table? This has nothing to do with file sharing software. It has everything to do with poor security setup and dumb government employees. The claims that this happens so often are misleading. The federal government employs nearly 3 million people. We hear about these sorts of "leaks" once every year or so. Out of 3 million people, if anything, I'd be amazed there are so few leaks.

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Debunking The Idea Of A Music Tax For The Creation Of New Music

from the just-slightly-better,-but-not-much dept

SteelWolf writes in to let us know about a blog post rehashing the idea of setting up a "music tax" to support musicians through a flat fee charged to everyone's ISP account:

Music is important. It is ubiquitous today with good reason: we just can't get enough of it, and its life-enhancing effect is ever-changing and ongoing.

If it had been possible for the past ten years to download nails, most of us would long ago have acquired all the nails we could possibly need, nail factories would have closed down, their workers and bosses found new jobs for themselves, and it would be a dead issue. But music-making is such an important act that millions do it even though they receive nothing for it. They always have done, even back in the heyday of the recorded music industry, when students bankrupted themselves to get it (I know I did) and bands scrambled to play gigs for next to nothing (guilty, again). So in the scheme of things music is at least as worthy of state subsidy than, say, the automobile industry. Music isn't any less precious than it used to be, it's just that its commodity status has eroded: unlike car workers the customary method of getting (some) artists paid is failing.

I am in favour of a flat fee on each internet connection, collected by ISPs, to encourage musicians to keep producing new work.

Now, I've gone into great detail on why a music tax is a terrible idea in the past -- but that was addressing ideas like Jim Griffin's Choruss plan (which, by the way, we're still waiting to find out who the tens of thousands of students who are supposedly already using it are, but we'll leave that aside for now). This idea, from Chris Ovenden, is slightly different. It is not a "download license" or a "download tax" as it's really a fund to pay for the creation of new music:

I would use such a fund to commission new works directly from up-and-coming and established artists. I certainly wouldn't try to monitor all downloads or anything hyper-impossible like that. If the problem of trying to monetize or prevent private copying goes away, so does the threat of monitoring all communications which is being suggested as a "solution" to the "problem" of filesharing... Keep the amount each person has to pay low, and spread the collected funds widely and evenly among as many working artists as is feasible. The more successful acts will most likely have other income streams and won't need a massive top-up; smaller artists will be grateful to have their next recording project funded. And everyone will benefit from an influx of lots of new work (released under CC license or similar).

This is, obviously a bit different than the usual suggestions for a music tax, but that doesn't make it much better. First as is noted in the comments on his post, if you open the door (even slightly) for this to happen in music, then you have to do it in pretty much every other content industry as well: movies will want their own tax, as will software, photography, newspapers, quilt making, painting, blogging and so forth. Where do you draw the line?

Second, this will still leave people who file share open to lawsuits. While he claims that the "threat" goes away, there's no way that the record labels say that they'll allow all past infringement in hopes of getting a few dimes sent its way from some bureaucracy.

Which, of course, brings up the third problem: you still have a bureaucracy, and how does it determine who to distribute the funds to? How is it possibly fair for someone -- rather than the fans themselves -- to determine who gets the money.

And that brings up the biggest point of all: this isn't needed. At all. There are plenty of ways for artists to set up a smart business model that allows fans to support them directly and to fund their future works. Why make it more inefficient by adding unnecessary and market-distorting middlemen? The only situation where this makes some sense is if there weren't ways for artists to go direct to fans with their own models. But there are -- and it's getting easier every day. So, instead of a "tax" give fans a "reason to buy" and it becomes a better situation for everyone involved.

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Medical Researchers Resort To File Sharing To Get Access To Journal Research

from the those-filthy-pirates dept

When you hear about file sharing and unauthorized access to information online, the view pushed by many copyright maximalists is that it's just a bunch of morally corrupt kids who don't want to pay for stuff gleefully "stealing" music and movies from those hard working entertainment industry employees. Of course, the real picture is a lot more complex. For example, apparently there's a growing community of medical researchers using file sharing to exchange information and research reports that they have trouble accessing otherwise. In the past, we've talked about the growing effort to get scientific research published in open access journals, rather than locked up in ridiculously expensive (especially given that they don't have to pay writers or even the peer reviewers) old school research journals.

While open access journals are certainly becoming a lot more popular and useful, there's still plenty of useful research that's very difficult for many to access. At least in the medical field, it looks like some researchers took a page from various private file sharing communities. Christian Zimmerman points us to a report looking at one such community that had over 100,000 registered users sharing scans and uploads of medical research reports from non-open journals via some basic forum-type software (so not really peer-to-peer... yet). The community that was looked at contained nearly 300,000 postings, with people requesting certain reports, and others delivering them.

Apparently, the system was quite effective, with nearly 83% of requests for certain articles resulting in delivery of the requested article. The analysis notes that the 83% is probably low, as there would likely have been a higher success rate if people making the requests followed the stated rules for making a request (some did not). The analysis also noted that people weren't doing this to get back at the journal publishers, but just to help each other out:

From the participants' comments made in the forums, however, there does not appear to be any vindictiveness on the part of the participants against the journals or holders of copyright, but a mood of togetherness, of openness and sharing, and communal assistance. Most remarkable, is that the activity described in this paper did not occur within closed, secure, password- and firewall-protected environments, but within open environments, easily publicly accessible, and easily searchable and referenced by general search engines such as Google.

Though, it should be noted that this particular forum apparently later did go behind a private wall. Still, it's interesting to see the parallel between this and other types of file sharing -- showing, again, that people of all types are recognizing that access to information that's out there should be a given.

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The Death Of File Sharing Is Greatly Exaggerated

from the i-think-i'll-go-for-a-walk dept

There have been a few reports lately claiming that file sharing is decreasing. Often, the "explanation" is that more people are switching to streaming services. But that doesn't seem to make much sense, given that the streaming services are still greatly limited and have their own share of problems. And, indeed, it looks like at least some of these reports are being misinterpreted. The most recent story that got a bunch of headlines claiming that P2P was "dying"? Turns out that it's all relative. What the report actually said was that P2P file sharing is growing less fast. So it has a smaller overall marketshare -- but in terms of absolute numbers? It's still growing. However, given the size of the "market," that's not too surprising. It's pretty saturated.

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More Musicians Realizing File Sharing Isn't Evil; Shakira, Norah Jones, Nelly Furtado Say It's Ok

from the figuring-it-out dept

A few different people have sent in the news that some more well known singers are saying that the industry is overreacting to the issue of file sharing. Sky News talked to three top female singers, Shakira, Norah Jones and Nelly Furtado, and found they all recognized that it was pretty much the natural state of the market, and it helped gain more exposure:

"I like what's going on because I feel closer to the fans and the people who appreciate the music. It's the democratisation of music in a way, and music is a gift. That's what it should be, a gift." -- Shakira

"If people hear it I'm happy. I'm not going to say go and steal my album, but you know I think its great that young people who don't have a lot of money can listen to music and be exposed to new things." -- Norah Jones

"If you love music you're going to make it anyway. You'll find an audience, and you may not make like millions of dollars but you'll make enough to have a house and a family and a car." -- Nelly Furtado

Looks like more and more musicians are realizing that fighting file sharing doesn't make sense, but learning to embrace it has tremendous benefits. Maybe, one of these days, the record labels will figure this out as well.

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So Much For That 'Education' Campaign: Fewer And Fewer Swedes Think File Sharing Is 'Theft'

from the people-don't-believe-things-that-are-obviously-untrue dept

The entertainment industry continues to insist that its antipiracy campaign is largely an "educational" campaign to get people to realize that file sharing is evil and "theft" from content creators. Of course, pretty much anyone who thinks about it in any amount of detail recognizes the difference between "theft" (something is taken and the original owner no longer has it) and "copying" (you made a copy, but the original owner still has his or her original). Apparently a new study in Sweden suggests that the entertainment industry is badly losing its battle to convince people that file sharing is "theft." The study shows that a rapidly decreasing number of Swedes thinks of file sharing as theft, down to only 30% from 38% just a year ago. Time to rethink that education campaign. Perhaps, next time, don't start with the assumption that most people are too clueless to recognize the obvious differences between theft and copying.

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File Sharing Sites Team Up To Help Promote Indie Films

from the no-legitimate-purpose? dept

While some continue to insist that there's nothing good or legal that comes from file sharing sites, many content creators who have embraced those sites have found them to be wonderful tools for distribution and promotion. Now, it looks like a bunch of them are teaming up to do even more. Mininova, The Pirate Bay, isoHunt, Miro, Vuze and Frostwire have all agreed to work with a new project called Vodo, which will help promote indie films. Filmmakers can offer their films through Vodo and get promoted on the various file sharing sites -- and the system is designed to let people easily donate. While I'm not a huge fan of a pure "donation" business model, it should be interesting to see how Vodo evolves over time. Certainly, it could be a valuable tool to indie filmmakers who recognize that obscurity is a much bigger threat to their efforts than piracy.

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Anti-File Sharing Propaganda Back To Focusing On That Horrible Malware You'll Get

from the unprotected-file-sharing-is-bad dept

The thing that you sort of need to admire about the copyright maximalist lobby is that they attack the problem from so many different directions on such a constant basis. It's almost impossible to keep up -- though, you do begin to notice some patterns. A particularly popular move is to alternate between the moral argument against copyright infringement (stealing! bad!) and the idea that file sharing is going to destroy your computer (we're just looking out for your safety!). It looks like the industry is back on that latter kick, as two recent stories indicate.

First, the BSA has its widely debunked "piracy" numbers -- but it's now getting news for focusing instead on how you're going to get malware if you file share. Since it can't actually back up its bogus numbers, instead it's hoping that most people don't know that correlation doesn't mean a causal relationship -- but at least we know that most of our readers know better. The report notes that there's a correlation between higher piracy rates and higher malware infections, but seems to totally ignore exceptions to that rule (the US) or delve into other variables that may explain either the piracy rate (already questionable) or the malware rate (education levels? poverty? shared computers? etc.). Even more amusing, they claim (with no actual evidence) that those who get malware have to spend more to repair their computers than it would have cost to get the legitimate software in the first place. I have no doubt that there are risks for those who file share, but this report does nothing to show the actual risks and is yet another in a long line of weak propaganda from the BSA, that despite being called on it for years, never seems to do anything to back up its reports with facts.

Then, we have the story of the MPAA apparently sending a bunch of anti-piracy comic books to New Zealand, home of one of many different fights on how to change copyright law. The comic book, like the BSA report, involves plenty of ridiculous and unsubstantiated claims about how file sharing will unleash nasty malware and viruses all over your computers -- but drawn in nice comic book form. Can we send those kids who got the MPAA comic book a copy of the Tales from The Public Domain comic books as well? There are free digital downloads for anyone who wants to hand them out in exchange for the bogus MPAA ones....

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BPI Unhappy With Techdirt, Seeks To Correct The Record... But Still Gets It Wrong

from the sorry,-that's-just-not-accurate dept

So, we recently wrote about how Geoff Taylor, head of BPI (the UK's equivalent of the RIAA) seemed to be going after British Telecom (BT) with a variety of highly questionable claims about how BT had some sort of obligation to stop file sharing on its network, and that BT was using unauthorized file sharing to prop up its own business model. Both claims are flat out ridiculous, but BPI apparently was quite upset with us pointing that out. Of course, rather than actually respond in the comments where we might have a conversation about it, they've been sending us a series of emails, taking issue with our statements and laying out their claims in more detail. In the interest of an open debate, I'll post BPI's comments here, with my responses mixed in (but of course):

It's unfortunate that in a piece which wrongly charges BPI with making things up, you have misrepresented what our Chief Executive said. He did not say that "BT broke the law in not stopping file sharing", as you assert.

Hmm. Let's look at what he did say: "If you operate a commercial service and know it is being used to break the law, taking steps to ensure it is used legally is a cost of doing business." Perhaps there's a way to interpret that, which doesn't imply that BT is breaking the law in not stopping illegal activity, but it seems like that is the rather clear implication of his statement. But, BPI goes on to say they actually just meant BT has a "social responsibility" to stop the illegal activity. Ah.

BT fosters a reputation as a socially responsible company. BPI has questioned whether it's appropriate for such a company to do nothing about 100,000 instances "a small sample" of the illegal behaviour that BT knows is occurring on its network. BT knows about this activity because BPI provides detailed weekly notifications enabling BT to verify each and every infringement. BPI's notifications are based upon robust copyright infringement detection techniques which have been accepted by the UK High Court in over 150 cases.

I see. Would that be the same "robust copyright infringement detection system" that a recent study in the UK found was accusing elderly couples of downloading gay porn, along with a significant number of other "false positives"? Furthermore, there's quite a difference between knowing that there is illegal activity on the network and being able to stop it. As we noted in one of our original posts, in a land with due process (the UK has that, right?), people aren't guilty upon accusation. It appears that BPI has leapfrogged beyond even the draconian "three strikes" proposals and is looking for something of a "one strike."

But this is a serious question for BPI: really, what would you have BT do? You are informing them of activity you claim is infringing, but BT has no way of verifying that is a fact. Secondly, by the time you've informed BT, the activity is over. So what is BT to do at that point? Finally, how is BT to determine what ongoing actions are actually legitimate? Plenty of smart content creators choose to give away their works on purpose. Plenty of the record labels represented by BPI, even, have long histories of sending out mp3s themselves for promotional purposes. BT has no way of knowing which content is legit and which is not. Pretending that BT can wave its magic wand and suddenly be all-knowing is just silly.

Oh yeah, as for the claim that BT "fosters a reputation as a socially responsible company," I would think that such would include not violating the civil liberties of its customers by spying on what they do online in an effort to prop up someone's obsolete business model. Wouldn't you?

We understand that BT employs very sophisticated traffic and network analysis technologies that allows it to see the proportion of network traffic that is P2P. We have never said that all P2P traffic is illegal, because not all of it is. But the weekly notifications we send to BT relate solely to music files which we know are being shared illegally.

Again, BPI assumes that BT can magically tell which content is infringing and which is not. Just recently, we pointed out that EMI -- in the UK -- was happily distributing infringing mixtapes from Lily Allen off of an EMI owned website. If someone is downloading such content, should BT stop them? How could it possibly know which content in real time is authorized and which is not? And, more importantly, why should that be BT's responsibility? Just because the folks at the labels that make up BPI haven't been able to adapt? If BPI believes that individuals are breaking the law, why is it not going after those individuals? Obviously, because it knows that it would be a public relations nightmare. But just because BPI has a PR issue, it doesn't mean that BT should have to spend a ton of money trying to fix BPI members' broken business models.

Since 2003, annual UK broadband revenues have increased from £0.6 billion to £2.7 billion (2008). Recorded music revenues have fallen every year in the same period, principally due to illegal filesharing. It is therefore not difficult to see that the growth of BT's consumer broadband business has been assisted by the increase in illegal filesharing.

Wow. I mean... wow. Talk about a logical somersault. Seriously? First off, just because one industry's revenue falls and another's grows, it does not mean the two are causal. I mean, this is really, really basic stuff. Correlation, causation, blah blah blah. But, even then, the link is so tenuous as to be laughable. First, the claim that recorded music revenue is falling. Well... be careful. As we've been pointing out, PRS in the UK has admitted that the music industry is actually growing, not shrinking. Apparently, the folks at BPI don't read the PRS economic reports. If they did, they'd know that the study found that the overall industry is growing, with a big shift in money going from recorded music to live music.

BPI, you're blaming the wrong culprit! It ain't the ISPs, it's the live venues! And those bands playing live shows! Why aren't you demanding that they cut it out! After all, wouldn't it be the "socially responsible" thing for them to stop gigging so that people would go back to buying CDs?

And, of course, the whole claim that the decline in recorded music sales is "principally due to illegal filesharing" is also flat out, ridiculously, laughably wrong. Study after study has shown that file sharers tend to buy more. Isn't it a lot more likely that the decline in recorded music revenues is due to a shift in the marketplace due to technology? That technology has taken away the monopoly on distribution that BPI members used to have. Whenever you lose a monopoly on distribution, it's to be expected that you lose monopoly rents and your revenue goes down. That's Econ 101 (or maybe 201, if we're talking monopoly rents... depends on your econ prof).

Besides, we spend a lot of time here working with and talking to and about musicians who have embraced file sharing, and put in place smart business models to take advantage of it. And, you know what? They're doing better than they did in the past. The problem isn't "illegal filesharing." It's bad and obsolete business models. Those who are embracing file sharing in combination with a good business model are doing better than in the past. That rules out "file sharing" as the problem, and suggests the real problem is BPI's resistance to smarter business models.

Other ISPs are recognising that it is not sustainable in the long-term for a high percentage of ISPs revenues to be based on the transmission of illegal data, and that in future they need to share in revenues from providing high quality entertainment services for their customers

This is again ridiculous. ISP revenues are not "based on the transmission of illegal data." ISP revenues are based on the fact that pretty much everyone needs an internet connection these days just to function. It's how people communicate, you know? Claiming that BT is making any more revenue because people file share is laughable. People are using the internet because it's useful for all sorts of things. Hell, we keep hearing ISPs saying that they need to break net neutrality because all this file sharing is filling up their network and costing them too much in network upgrades. How can they be making so much money off of file sharing if it's costing them so much?

Once again, this is typical entertainment industry drivel. They totally overestimate how much their own stuff is "worth" to the wider ecosystem, and then demand that everyone just pay up. Except... that's not the way the world works. The world works by having smart people with smart business models figuring out ways to make people want to give you money, not by sitting back and demanding others just hand over money.

So, thanks for the emails, BPI, but at least work on making your statements a little more believable next time. And, as always, our comments are wide open for you to reply to and interact directly with people here.

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Congress Moving Forward On 'P2P' Warning Law

from the unintended-consequences,-anyone? dept

Back in May, we wrote about a bill being proposed by Congress, at the urging of the entertainment industry, to force any kind of file sharing app to put certain ridiculous restrictions on the app, such as requiring it to put up a big warning sign every time you use it for sharing files, and requiring the user to "consent" to use the software. Public Knowledge notes that the bill is back in action and going through the markup process, with little in the way of complaints or warnings from the many, many software developers this will impact. Public Knowledge outlines many of the problems with the bill:

1. Legislating Software Design: The bill is aimed at a specific technology and kind of application instead of simple non-tech-focussed consumer protection and disclosure principles. Instead it's aimed at legislating the design and workings of common software. It's the exact kind of thing that has all kinds of unintended and unforeseeable consequences.

2. Over / Under Inclusive Definition: No matter how narrow the definition of "covered file-sharing program" may seem, it's going to include more and less than is intended or desirable. Over inclusive: bill would include basic operating systems like Windows 7 and Mac OS X that enable file sharing; iTunes shares media files as well. Under inclusive: bill would not include applications that simply upload the entirety of a user's hard drive to the web.

3. "Initial Activation" Needs Clarification: The amendment, just like the previous bill, requires the software to notify the user at installation and "initial activation of a file sharing function." The problem remains that there are a number of interpretations of what this means, here are three: A. The first time an application is installed and launched; B. Every time the application is launched; or C. Every time the feature is enabled. Unless the language is made clear, developers not wanting to incur penalties will err on the side of notice, which means the most notifications.

4. Applies to Software Already Written: Software that has already been written and is still being distributed, but not maintained by a developer or manufacturer may fall prey to the provisions of this bill. Unless otherwise exempted, this would require developers to update their older software at great cost, unless they wanted incur penalty of law.

5. Interferes with User and Administrator Choice: This bill would require a fundamental change in how much software operates. Users, especially system administrators, make informed choices about the applications that will meet their needs -- especially those that "just run" without user interaction. In many cases, how an application installs, launches, and operates behind the scenes is part of their decision, and this bill would interfere with how they run their systems.

This bill is bad news, and it's yet another attempt by the entertainment industry to get Congress to start slapping specific restrictions on any software it doesn't like.

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Billy Bragg's Backwards Approach To Helping Artists

from the blame-others dept

While I may be a fan of Billy Bragg's music, I have a lot of trouble getting behind his take on the music industry. Last year, we had a bit of a back-and-forth with Bragg when he suddenly wanted to demand a cut of Bebo's sale price to AOL, claiming that it was unfair since he had put his music on the site for free. When asked whether or not Bebo would have the right to demand some of Bragg's money if the company had flopped, Bragg didn't seem to have any answer at all.

That episode is a precursor to what appears to be Bragg's current position on the industry, which has a mix of good and bad. As with Bebo, he supports using new online services, and not being anti-consumers (good!). But, as with Bebo, he seems to want to demand entitlement to any revenue that anyone makes (bad!). It's entitlement society again. Rather than recognizing that the responsibility is on him -- and on other artists -- to come up with business models that work, he demands that others (and the gov't) create those business models and just hand him a check. It puts the responsibility off of him and onto everyone else, as if they owe him a business model.

On the one hand, he talks up how useful new technologies are for distribution and promotion, but then he immediately talks about "the damaging aspects of illegal downloading on the livelihoods of the creative community." It's only damaging for those who don't put in place a smart business model. As we've seen time and time and time again, put in place a smart business model that embraces file sharing, combined with good music and a strong connection with fans, and piracy isn't a problem. It's free marketing and distribution.

Bragg talks up the need to compete with sites like The Pirate Bay, but why isn't he looking at actually using The Pirate Bay to his advantage? Plenty of others are. Why does Bragg need to demand help from legislators?

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Paramount COO Shows FCC How To File Share, Blames Tech Companies, Has FCC Hide Its Presentation

from the funny-how-that-works dept

Last week, the FCC held what was ostensibly a panel discussion about the National Broadband Plan, but which was actually focused on copyright issues. How, exactly, is copyright an issue for broadband? Well, mainly because the entertainment industry has been trying for years to get ISPs to act as copyright cops... and apparently the FCC felt the need to hear them out. While the deck was mostly stacked in favor of the entertainment industry in terms of speakers, thankfully the FCC allowed Gigi Sohn of Public Knowledge to take part as well -- and she questioned whether the FCC even had any mandate over such issues and wondered why the hearing was even being held. However, beyond stacking the deck of speakers, it appears the FCC gave significant other beneficial treatment to entertainment industry speakers.

Paramount's COO, Frederick Huntsberry, not only was given twice the amount of time to speak as the rest of the speakers had (10 minutes, instead of five, as Gigi was told), but also was able to convince the FCC that his talk was "owned" by Paramount, and should not be placed online -- as the FCC has done with all its other hearings. Wow. Yes, this was a public government hearing. Thankfully, the folks at Public Knowledge went through a low quality video of the whole proceeding and pulled out Huntsberry's part, where he not only demonstrates how file sharing works for the FCC, but goes on to implicate plenty of companies as aiding in the process, including Google, Yahoo, eBay, Boxee and others:

In the video, he demonstrates using Mininova and Drop.io (which is an amazingly useful site for many things that have absolutely nothing to do with unauthorized file sharing -- and is now being unfairly tarred by Paramount). There isn't really anything surprising in the video. He basically shows what everyone knows: it's easy to share files these days. But he seems to miss the point of that. That is, he wants the gov't to come in and try to stop this (an impossibility), rather than recognizing that it's time for him to shift his business model. Yes, distribution is cheap and easy these days. In most businesses when distribution becomes cheaper and easier, that's a good thing. Why is it that Hollywood top execs still can't figure out how to take advantage of it?

Mehan Jayasuriya points out the many problems with the way the FCC handled this whole event:

• Any presentation delivered at a public government hearing should be made available to the general public in a convenient format. Not everyone is able to travel to Washington D.C. for hearings and those who cannot should not be excluded--rather, they should be encouraged to participate in the debate. The mission statement on the Commission's new Broadband.gov site seems to agree: "A great way to create a connected America is to involve all Americans in the development of a National Broadband Plan. The FCC welcomes civic participation, and we look forward to more interaction through this website." If Paramount was concerned that its video would encourage "piracy," then the company should not have presented it at a public hearing. It's as simple as that.
• All of the other presentation materials for all of the other workshops are available on the FCC's website, so that citizens can download, read, comment on, reference and critique them. Why should Paramount's statement be treated any differently?
• During the presentation, Huntsberry seems to suggest that a number of legitimate technology companies, including Drop.io, Twitter, Google, Facebook, Apple, Boxee, Sony, LG, Yahoo!, PayPal and Rapidshare, are arguably acting to enable or encourage unlawful filesharing. These companies and the users of their products should have an opportunity to respond to this allegation.
• In the beginning of the clip, Huntsberry walks us through a timeline of when various camcorded copies of Star Trek were leaked to the Internet. This timeline provides a great example of how widespread the problem of camcording is, though it's worth noting that camcording is already illegal in most U.S. States and has little relevance in the context of this workshop (it's also worth noting that Star Trek made over $200 million at the box office regardless of the fact that camcorded copies were available within hours of its theatrical release). This evidence that films are commonly pirated while still in theaters undermines many of the arguments made by the studios in the FCC's Selectable Output Control proceeding (i.e. "We need to be granted the power to shut off outputs on the back of your A/V gear, otherwise you will unlawfully copy the films that we broadcast via cable").

Not only did the FCC treat Paramount's presentation with kid gloves, the agency also treated the Hollywood execs preferentially throughout the course of the workshop. Upon entering the room where the workshop was held, attendees were greeted by a massive vinyl banner--presumably belonging to Paramount--on which the aforementioned Star Trek timeline was printed. While I appreciate the fact that a visual aid can be helpful, I can't help but feel like a PDF file submitted to the record would have sufficed.

But that's not all. Though these workshops were technically less procedural in nature than a formal hearing would be, MPAA Chairman and CEO Dan Glickman was repeatedly allowed to call his technical expert, MovieLabs CEO Steve Weinstein, up to the stand to chime in with additional comments--even though nothing he said was actually technical in nature. The Commission allowed Glickman to do this so many times that Weinstein also started calling others from the audience up to the stand, including Disney Executive Vice President Preston Padden and Disney Vice President Troy D. Dow. Perhaps I'm being overly cynical but I doubt that the Commission would have allowed any of the other panelists to engage in this kind of behavior.

And, again, uh.... what does copyright have to do with broadband policy in the first place? And where is it in the FCC's mandate that it has any say in copyright policy?

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Elton John Flip Flops: Kicking People Off The Internet Is Good! No, Bad! No, Good!

from the does-he-even-know-what-he's-saying? dept

Sometimes you have to wonder if certain celebrities even know what they're talking about half the time. A few years back, Elton John went on an anti-internet tirade, where he suggested shutting down the entire internet for five years for the sake of saving music. So, it was a bit of a surprise a few weeks back to see him among the list of big name rockstars coming out against kicking people off the internet for file sharing. Apparently, though, no one told Elton John that he was on that list, because now he's switched positions again and is saying that he's all for Peter Mandelson's proposal to kick people off the internet. Yes, just a couple weeks after his name was on a document against the very same proposal. Perhaps we shouldn't take much of what his opinion is this week seriously, when even he doesn't seem to know what it is.

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