Slashdot Mirror
UK ISPs Near Agreement On Illegal File Sharing
ISPreview UK writes "UK Music's chief executive, Feargal Sharkey, claims that progress has been made on a deal between the music industry and broadband ISPs to tackle illegal file sharing. The comments came during yesterday's annual Internet Service Providers' Association conference in Eversheds, with an ISPA spokesman confirming that 'some kind of agreement between rightholders and ISPs can be reached,' adding, 'everyone wants to work together to make legal online models work.' The news follows July's crucial Memorandum of Understanding agreement between copyright holders and six of the UK's largest ISPs, which account for roughly 90% of the country's broadband market. The initial agreement approved a principal of sending warning letters to customers who have been accused of downloading illegal music or movies."
Interesting to view the 6 ISPs involved - BT, Virgin Media, Orange, Tiscali, Carphone Warehouse (TalkTalk, AOL) and BSkyB - on this independent UK ISP ratings site
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
don't do anything really annoying like have a mandatory "music and movie tax" on all broadband connections.
You may be joking, but there are proposals to change the TV licence fee to do exactly that.
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
Doubtful, because they almost certainly won't publish the list of who they sent letters to and so they won't have done anything to impact your reputation. I'd imagine that'd be one thing that Legal were keeping a close eye on (as well as how to do it to reduce their bandwidth while not getting caught in any other legal issues).
If people would just get these sayings right, there would be less confusion.
Originally, it was "eat your cake and have it too", which basically means you want to get the value of the cake (by eating it) and yet still keep it as "savings". As always, Wikipedia gets the details right.
The Music Industry is so happy that they could come to an 'agreement' with the ISPs.
But they don't understand that the 20th-century business model of corporations 'owning' music recordings is outdated and irrelevant as we enter the 21st-century (there's always a 10-15 year lag between the calendar year and the consciousness awareness that things are different in the new century). Everyone has the ability to copy everything that the music industry 'owns' quick, discretely, and easily. Everyone has the ability to exchange these copies freely. This isn't going to change regardless of how much what's left of the 20th-century music industry clamps down on the exchange of what they have deluded themselves into believing is their 'property'.
The best, the very best, that they can hope for is to lock up the music recordings of the 20th-century. Which turn a profit for them now, but won't when they are removed from circulation because they don't fit into 21st century business models and are forgotten. The music industry will, in 50 years, still 'own' the rights to control distribution of the Beatles and Brittany Spears. But by then that right will be as profitable and as relevant as the right to distribute 17th-century Bulgarian folk songs is today.
If you don't like the music industry and their RIAA goons, then make your own music recordings (and musical events), and keep them hidden from all the 'cool' people who make their living off the music industry.
The music industry is imprisoned by this idea that music consists of marketable individual disk units of audio recordings. Which they claim is form of property that they own. Music is an arrangement of repetitive audio patterns which are perceived by people as pleasant primarily according to their cultural training. Music is the one thing that can never be property. As the technology of the 21st century reduces the influence of audio disk recordings as the definer of music, the RIAA will become less of a burden as each year passes.
So let them have what they want; let them think that they've won their war, and move on to other forms of cultural enlightenment through music.
But, as you do, for Goodness sakes, don't tell anyone in the music industry about what you are doing.