UK P2P Fight Brewing

forunder writes "Zeropaid has been covering a very hot topic going on in the UK right now. The government, prodded by entertainment lobbyists, has gotten six UK ISPs to agree to help police piracy on their networks. A leaked government letter says they are looking to cut internet piracy by 80%. In the same week Microsoft released a study which found that some 54% of UK file sharers are between 11-16. The UK's Green Party has already spoken up, calling the new policies an 'Attack on Civil Liberties.'"

Comments

How to cut internet piracy by 80%

[patio11]

Release a CC song as good as any one by Britney Spears.

Re:How to cut internet piracy by 80%

[Anonymous Coward]

Release a CC song as bad as any one by Britney Spears.

There, fixed that for you.

Re:How to cut internet piracy by 80%

[oodaloop]

Yeah, all the free music from Beethoven can't hold a candle to Britney Spears.

Re:How to cut internet piracy by 80%

[mccalli]

Yeah, all the free music from Beethoven can't hold a candle to Britney Spears

Unless you're playing it yourself, you will find there's still copyright on the performance of that music.

You're free to take Beethoven's music and form a string quartet to play it. You're not free to take a performance of Beethoven's 5th by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and stick it up on bittorrent - that's definitely still copyrighted.

Cheers, Ian

Re:How to cut internet piracy by 80%

[RDW]

'You're not free to take a performance of Beethoven's 5th by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and stick it up on bittorrent.'

You are if it was made before 1958, here in the UK (where copyright expires on audio recordings after 50 years). And there are plenty of excellent recordings from the 'mono era' that are well worth listening to. You get into a bit of a grey area if you've ripped the tracks from a modern CD rather than the original record, since the digital re-mastering may itself be subject to copyright. It'll come as no surprise that the audio industry wants this law changed, and there's already a proposal from the EU Commission to greatly extend the copyright term throughout Europe. Can't let those Beatles albums go free from 2013...

Re:How to cut internet piracy by 80%

[Candid88]

Exactly. Not just advertising though, but marketing and media attention.

Everyone knows who Britney Spears is whether a fan of her music or not. She's been on TV countless times, has songs played daily on radio stations around the world etc. That's what the record publishers are all about (unsurprisingly, people don't tend to buy music they haven't heard from artists they don't know of). It's a very different job from actually making music.

Music piracy doesn't prevent music being made, it just stops people making large amounts of money directly from music sales. Those who are purely driven by financial reward through direct music sales might stop making music, but 'artists' will keep making music just as now. Through aspects such as concert sales, they still also have the opportunity to make healthy fortunes.

If the stranglehold on music of the record publishers can be removed we will start seeing music return to being based on talent rather than "prospective sales figures" record executives have assigned to new artists. At present, the quality of the music is only a small part of that "prospective sales figures" calculation; aspects such as: sex appeal, ease of publicity (heavy drug use seems to be good for this at the moment) and market positioning feature at least as high on the list as the actual quality of the music.

The less stranglehold a few select record company conglomerates have one the industry the wider selection of artists which will get chances to gain the publicity needed to get a band off the ground.

UK Citizens

[ilovegeorgebush]

If this was truly about piracy and stopping people from infringing copyright, these fascist bastards would stop you from sharing CDs, Vinyl and tapes. Hell they'd bring down radio just to stop you sharing.

Why the hell are they so bent on MP3s? Why don't they get the fact that they stand to make a LOT more money if they embrace the technology and accept that their business environment has changed for the good? I am so sick of reading this, and seeing the everyday person either going buy without knowledge of what the BPI et al are doing, or not realising that it's breaching their civil liberties (and not even caring!).

Keep downloading. Bleed 'em dry - that's what I say.

Re:UK Citizens

[davester666]

The thing is, the internet IS "The Next Big Thing" [or rather, it was 5 years ago]. Both the major music labels and the major movie studios are risk-adverse to new ways of doing things. Even though EVERY SINGLE FORMAT CHANGE has earned both industries buckets and buckets cash.

Music went from LP to cassette/8 track to CD's and now to MP3's
Moves went from theaters to VHS/Beta cassettes to DVD's to BluRay/HD-DVD's [well, it's too early for the 'buckets of cash' for BluRay].

Both industries have millions of people literally begging to have a reasonable, easy, legal way to purchase both audio and video to use on their computers, TV's, portable devices, etc.. [particularly evidenced by the iTunes store, that even with it's crappy, arbitrary limitations required by both industries, has sold billions of songs and millions of movies, even though with only a minimal amount of additional effort, people could get the same thing WITHOUT the limitations for free].
Both industries are also facing rampant piracy on the internet.

What would any self-respecting industry do? Naturally, their first reaction is to keep throttling iTunes, both by refusing to permit it to sell DRM-free music [and DRM-free video], by forcing it to sell or rent a movie for the same price or more than the retail price of a DVD, but without any extra features included with the DVD. By arbitrarily requiring that a $3000 computer connected to a $3000 HD television is limited to 480P because the driver for your mouse is not signed by Microsoft [alternately, you can't view it at all on the Mac because Apple doesn't agree to the ridiculous demands that Microsoft caved to for viewing HD].

Re:UK Citizens

[Mistshadow2k4]

These bastards think we owe them a living, and they are so ingrained (deliberate use of that word - they are ingrained as dirt in a carpet) in our government that we have no hope of ever defeating them.

The racist troll has a point there. Every damn singer or band out there seems to think they ought to be entitled to tax my income just because they once recorded a few songs, even if I don't listen to them. I'm still trying to figure out exactly why I'm supposed to care so damn much about the artists and the music executives. They wouldn't give a crap about me even if they knew me, so to hell with them for my part.

Re:UK Citizens

[houghi]

Have you actually spoken to the artists? I have. They know they don't get any money from the copyrights. In fact they seldom own the copyrights.

It is the copyright holders who are to blame and look who that is. Most of the time this is some company.

Unfortunately

[Kupfernigk]

the current UK government is run by people who are terrified that US companies will withdraw from the UK if we do not do exactly as they wish. Most of them are purely politicians who have never had jobs in the real economy, so all they know about the world is what they get told by lobbyists. The present Prime Minister is a typical example: PhD in the history of the Labour Party, no less, and then a knowledge of economics derived, basically, from what he gets told by people with lots of money. He is now trying to avoid admitting that our financial crisis is worse than that in the US, because the US actually has a lower proportion of its assets in the housing market and banking (US house prices started from typically half what they were in the UK, so a fall is much less serious.)

Unfortunately the alternative is a PR man, so you can guess how well that is likely to play out.

It would be kind of the US to vote in McCain and let us have Obama, thank you very much. Somebody who has at least spent years discussing civil liberties and civil rights with law students, even Chicago law students, has at least put in the groundwork to be allowed to have opinions on the subject, and politically he's probably on the moderate wing of our Conservative Party.

We do have one politician who has a clue about the subject, Jack Straw, but his current opinion seems to be "I'm far too clever to become Prime Minister and then lose an unwinnable election".

Currently Brown will do anything to try and keep the so-called service economy - entertainment, banking, supermarkets - onside. And the chance that a Government full of middle aged white men who single finger type, and only when they have to, will get a clue about the implications of almost free distribution of all kinds of data is extremely remote. Their idea of data sharing is leaving critical Government databases on unsecured laptops in taxis.

Re:Unfortunately

[segedunum]

given that THE ARTICLE HAS NOTHING WHATSOEVER TO DO WITH THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM.

Hmmmm, there is more than one article quoted here to give some background on this whole anti-piracy thing, so I'll give you the link here (actually given above):

http://www.zeropaid.com/news/9652/Leaked+British+Government+Letter+-+P2P+Will+be+Cut+by+80%25

Now, a leaked letter dated just two days before the major revelation has surfaced and shows that the British government is just as adamant over the idea of ISPs being copyright police as the major copyright industry - if not, more so......the British government has secretly set a goal of reducing file-sharing by 80% over the course of the next three years. The letter was signed by Baroness Vadera, the business minister.

Reading the whole article text usually helps. There you go. This is pretty much British government policy. You got modded insightful for not actually reading.

But please, don't let this stop your plans for a generalized semi-conspiratorial anti-government, to say nothing of anti-USA rant. Becaause clearly this is what qualifies as "insightful" here.

Fuck. You've been modded up to insightful because you believe that that comment was an anti-USA rant - which it wasn't in any way, because it describes the situation as-is from the point of view of someone who, presumably, actually, you know, lives in the UK? It certainly rings true with me and the article proves it.

The irony seems to go like this:

1. Attack a comment for something you believe it says, but actually doesn't.
2. Fail miserably to read the context around the article, or even the links, and say that it has nothing to do with something when in fact it does.
3. Add in a sarcastic comment about what passes as 'insightful' around here.
4. As a result of 3, get the mods second guessing themselves.
5. Get a stupid comment modded as insightful.

Re:Unfortunately

[arkhan_jg]

UK government business minister Baroness Vadera is expected to announce a deal she brokered...

The UK government has stated that they will bring in legislation, starting after the summer, to force all ISPs to co-operate with the music labels on copyright infringement if they can't come up with a self-regulation scheme that satifies the labels' agency, the BPI. The UK government is working hand in hand with the french government, who've already started the implementation of the 3-warnings-and-cut-off setup the french government favours.

A number of UK ISP's, with the notable exception of virgin, have been telling the music business to piss off, that policing their customers for potential infringing content and invading their privacy without any say-so from a court or judge is not their responsibility. Unfortunately, the UK government disagress, and is piling on the pressure to co-operate voluntarily before they are forced to do so by laws very much in favour of the copyright cartel.

UK ISP's are already required to keep records on users email and web-traffic due to the RIP act; it wouldn't take much for that system to be expanded substantially and the government have already ballooned the idea of having it all stored in a giant government database instead of at the ISP.

A conservative government would likely be no better; they mooted the idea of extending the duration of copyright for music recordings in exchange for more 'family-friendly' lyrics from rappers for example.

Be under no illusion - this is a direct result of government threats against the ISP industry to spend their time and money to prop up the existing business model of the copyright cartels.

Pointless

[CmdrGravy]

The UK government right now is in such a mess it's almost surreal. They have an unerring knack of seeking out absolutely dreadful headline grabbing initiatives which they seem to think will re-establish them as a party the public would like to vote for but which are in fact unbelievably stupid and ridiculed as such by the public at large. This is just yet another example and just highlights the fact the only people they are listening to are special interest groups and lobbyists.

The ISPs are only going to be sending out warning letters, they're not actually going terminate anyones contract or take any other sort of action except perhaps throttling P2P connections, which they probably do already and there is still a wide choice of alternative ISPs in the UK which have not signed up to this nonsense.

As I understand it the ISPs aren't doing any monitoring at all off their own bat, the arrangement seems to be that the media cartels do the monitoring, like they do anyway, and just tell the ISP a particular person might be doing something they don't like at which point the ISP simply sends the letter. A horrible arrangement for sure but not one which gives the ISP much grounds to go on when people start challenging their accusations of wrongdoing.

Hopefully at some point soon the ISPs will realise this is all much more trouble than it's worth and give up and the current government will call an election and get the boot.

Re:Pointless

[Goffee71]

I look forward to the debate hitting the House of Lords: Leader of the House: "Next motion - changes in copyright law to proscribe peer-to-peer file sharing."

Lord Knob: "Hold on one moment, we're the peers! We share files all the time. Law rejected!"

Lady Felch: "I've got a file! And a drill, in the garage next to my Range Rover, do you want to borrow it?"

House: "Murmur, murmur, mumble, Agreed!"

Re:Pointless

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't diss the Lords. They have consistently stood in the way of every privacy breaking, ID introducing, DNA logging policy from the Commons for the past 5 years. Ironically, I find myself supporting their decisions far more than those of the party I voted in.

Re:Pointless

[TheRaven64]

After visiting Parliament and watching debates in both houses, I was fully in favour of abolition of the House of Commons. It's really worrying how much higher the standard of debate and understanding of the issues is in the Lords than the Commons. They're meant to serve as a brake on populist policies, but they seem at the moment[1] to be serving as a brake on monumentally stupid (and unpopular) policies from a government that is completely out of touch with reality.

[1] And, by 'at the moment' I mean 'for the last decade or two, maybe longer.'

Here we go

[kvezach]

Bring in the encryption and the trackerless DHT system again boys! Then they can't tell if you're sharing Linux or.. something else.

Its about distribution

[Freaky Spook]

Why the hell are they so bent on MP3s?

Its not about MP3's at all, its about distributors holds over the distribution channels, which brings the majority of their revenue.
Digital music and the internet removes any artificial barrier the music/movie industry has traditionally held, and now they are having to resort to pressuring governments into making laws to secure their channels. P2P and file sharing is just the excuse they happen to use to get themselves more control.

Governments happily oblige because at the same time they get more control over the internet too.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[jcd2025]

1.5tb of movies? Im assuming you didnt count pr0n in your movies category.

Protect yourself

[spasmhead]

Just Install peer guardian and configure it to use the Level1 Bluetack blocklist... then your safe as this blocks the vast majority of all anti P2P organisations worldwide. If everyone did this the BPI's job of detecting file sharers would be a WHOLE lot harder and their deal with ISP would become worthless.

On another point, I think its naive to think that if your ISP send you one of these "informative" letters that they wont pass on your personal details to the BPI, who identified your IP address in the first place. The next logical step after is you end up in court fighting a copyright infringement case against the BPI or one of its "partners".

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[jambox]

That's an absolutely appalling post and I couldn't agree less. You think someone on minimum wage, trying to bring up kids, should have their income garnished for 10 years so some wealthy executives can carry on collecting their bonuses? That's sick.

Let's agree something - burning a copy of a Coldplay CD isn't going to ruin anybody. It's a victimless crime and not at all like physical theft.

What this is about is the US Corporate Empire bearing down on weaker countries, trying to protect it's revenue at the expense of others. That is bad enough by itself, but not only that, the music industry in itself is horribly broken. Governments don't seem to care whether cheap trash is peddled at 95% markup, with dozens of companies all sticking their fingers in the pie. Music sales have been falling for years, because it's overpriced, overexposed and often of a poor quality.

Perhaps governments shouldn't care about that. But they should protect their own citizens from vicious attacks by immoral lawyers working for executives that care not for right and wrong, only for personal gain.

Error in summary

[Lewie]

The summary says that 54% of filesharers are children, when the linked article says that in fact 54% of children are filesharers, which is actually much more interesting.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[jambox]

Let me ask you this: what should be the penalty for a shoplifter who shoplifts, say, candy?

A slap on the wrist, first time. Repeat offenders could be taken to task eventually but stealing small amounts of candy should never result in giant fines or prison sentences.

But please, don't let my reality intrude on your comic book view of the world.

I do not live in a comic book. I live in the UK, where virtually everyone agrees that we should not allow corporations to run roughshod over families.

Please tell me more about this theoretical person

Not theoretical! Also, stumping up $20 a month for broadband does not make someone "fair game" for lawyers earning $300,000 per year.

You'll find software from the smallest of the small shareware companies being pirated regularly.

I agree that's bad. Where is the software industry body that's going after those guys? There isn't one. So if you steal software, you get away with it. If you steal music, you get financially crippled for life? Real nice.

Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling

[Opportunist]

To me, tens of thousands of dollars does not seem unreasonable. It's not a crippling amount of money (but it will sting) to anybody who owns a computer[...]

Is it? Does it? Says who?

Fixed fines favor rich people. When you're rich, 100k USD is pocket change. That's the fine you threaten me with? Ok, send the bill when you catch me, but don't bother me 'til you do. That's one of the reasons why you can see a lot of rich people participate in illegal activities where it's even likely to get caught. I mean, who cares about being caught speeding in an illegal street race when the worst you have to fear is a few 1000 bucks fine when he makes more money by just sitting around?

OTOH, when you sue someone who is paying back a student loan or, worse, a teenager who is about to want one, a 100k fine ruins a life. Forever. Ever tried to get a student loan with a debt like that on your back?

If you want a fine to sting (and only that), make it income dependent.

Re:Infringe till they pry it from my cold dead han

[Opportunist]

I don't pirate, I obviously infringe.

I do neither, but obviously I must infringe too. I don't buy the crap that is currently produced. I don't even download it (it's not even worth the bandwidth it takes). Yet still, the dwindling sales (what dwindling sales, btw, I hear year after year that the content industry makes a record plus?) are due to copy culture.

The dwindling sales are not due to people infringing. The dwindling sales are due to a lack of supply that meets the demand. I don't want movies that consist of SFX to hide the threadbare plot. I don't want music that sounds exactly the same as the other moronic American Idol crap you tried to cram down my throat last year. Meet my demand and I will buy your supply.

But no, that can't be it. When people don't buy, it has to mean they copy, because it can't be that they simply don't want the crap.

Re:A Microsoft study says what?

[Opportunist]

It should probably say "54% of 14 year olds don't know yet that you better shut up when you break a law while most adults wised up when they grew up".