Slashdot Mirror
UK "Creative Industries" Call For File-Sharers Ban
siloko writes "An alliance of so-called 'Creative Industries,' including the UK Film Council, have signed a joint statement asking the UK government to force ISPs into banning users caught sharing illegally. In an 'unprecedented joint statement,' the alliance predicted a 'lawless free-for-all' unless the government ensured the 'safe and secure delivery of legal content.' The previous tactic of pursuing individual file-sharers in the courts appear to have been abandoned. 'Instead, [the government] should provide enabling legislation, for the specific measures to be identified and implemented in an Industry Code of Practice,' it recommends. One wonders how they remain 'creative' in their vocation when they keep on trotting out the same old story backed up by imaginary statistics (they claim 50% of net traffic in the UK is illegal content but provide no evidence for this figure). The BBC also has a blog entry dissecting their statement."
Didn't the European Parliament just rule that this sort of thing was illegal?
"The dew has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning"
The only creativity in this situation seems to be that involved in pulling numbers and "legal" justifications out of one's ass.
Also, is the phrase "the government should provide enabling legislation, for specific measures to be identified and implemented..." equal parts vague and sinister, or what?
Encryption. Now, kindly STFU, "creative industries"
... you should not make the law stricter, you should change the law.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Is file sharing. Rather than waste time trying to fight this, find ways to work with it. Look at what Apple did with their music store, even in the days of "piracy" they're still doing quite well for themselves. Digital distribution is here to stay, rather than go after people downloading illegally, give them a reason and easy means to acquire your product. I know lots of people that pirate, and when they find something they like, they buy it. Funny how that works like that...
The musings of just another geek and his junk.
They claim that 800,000 jobs are threatened, with the loss of £112 bn in jobs and sales?
Money doesn't just disappear like that. If a file-sharer doesn't buy media and downloads it instead, they have more money to go see a movie, or have a nice meal at a restaurant - whatever. The money is still used in the economy, just not in same industry as media.
To suggest that filesharers are causing an 8% drop in GDP is idiotic, as well as the 50% of all traffic is illegal. And they want to ban illegal filesharers? Ok, lets ban half the population of the UK from surfing the net, or more!
Let's see how your sales drop after that pal.
An alliance of car thieves are calling for legislation to force people to leave their keys in their car.
While I agree that it's important to keep up with such stories, can't we just wrap up all twenty or so of these in a 'This Week (or Today) in Intellectual Property'. For the sake of poster's time, I'd suggest an auto submit with the twenty or so most popular comments.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
The banning of people from ISPs without due process of law (i.e. a hearing in the courts) is the antithesis of a democratic Republic. It is a nullification of human rights philosophy. It is the return of a class system where Monarchs and Nobility rule by default in the United Kingdom.
Bravo conservatives! If you succeed, you will have wrestled control away from the people. It took 200 years but you finally succeeded in turning the people back into mere commoners, to be declared "guilty" with a mere flick of a noble parliamentarian's effeminate wrist. No jury by your peers. No defense of liberty.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Isn't the Internet a "lawless free-for-all" anyway? On one hand, you have commerce sites like Amazon and Newegg, news sites like the New York Times et al, government sites, and so on. On the other, though, you have plenty of sites out there -- and plenty of people -- who are basically outlaws. But for all that, the Internet works. If this "alliance of creative industries" doesn't want to play ball, they should yank out their LAN cables and go home.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
Over the past decade or so, I've watched companies freak out over source code becoming more and more available to the recipients of software. First it was Java and how "easy" it was to decompile. Then it was HTML/Javascript and how easy it was for someone to steal unobfuscated code. Nowadays, practically every bit of compiled code is easy to reverse.
Invariably, this caused managers to attempt to buy into bizarre technical solutions to "protect" their investments. Which was ridiculous. The correct hammer to use was a legal one. If someone stole your code and tried to hide it (which isn't easy to do successfully, as the GPL violators can testify), the correct hammer is a legal one. It's much easier to legally go after someone dumb enough to steal code rather than running around like chicken little trying to protect something that's inherently unprotectable.
Fast forward to today, where the core concern is content and the theft thereof. Again, the industry tried the technological hammer (DRM) and predictably failed. Now they're trying the legal hammer. Which is only partially a correct tool to use. Yes, feel free to root out the pirate organizations. But for the vast majority of the users, the real solution is proper paid access to the content.
I remember when MP3s first came into existence. I said then, "The music companies should sell their music online. That would prevent people from illegally distributing MP3s." As expected, the music industry was not going to go that direction. What happened? Well, the market found what it wanted: Napster. And the music industry lost BIG TIME. A service like Napster with fees for song downloads could have been huge. But instead, the industry allowed the public to get a taste of the "free" mentality.
Even so, it's still possible to reverse the effects. (To some degree.) The correct solution is to continue embracing digital distribution. Offer a fair product at a fair price and people will pay for it. For the vast majority of users, their time is worth more than tooling around trying to find the content they're interested in. But as long as companies make it worth more to run through virus-laden torrent sites than to download off of their websites or iTunes, then consumers will go for the virus-laden torrent sites.
Welcome to the new competition media industry. For the first time ever, you have to compete. And guess what? You're competing against yourselves. ;-)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
They want the government to sign into law an 'enabling' act, designed to curtail free speech and free association, in response to a vague threat which they've refused to provide evidence for the scope of?
Some people are just asking for Nazi comparisons.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Innocent until proven guilty.
In the 19th century the invention of the automobile was delayed by restrictive legislation in Britain. File sharing may well be the future if the internet, I agree with you in that, but a legislation that tries to freeze the past could delay considerably the progress.
To suggest that filesharers are causing an 8% drop in GDP is idiotic, as well as the 50% of all traffic is illegal. And they want to ban illegal filesharers? Ok, lets ban half the population of the UK from surfing the net, or more!
Their argument is self-defeating. If 50% of people are really file-sharing, and they want all those people banned from using the Internet... well, just imagine what would happen to the economy if 50% of Internet-users were forced to stop using the Internet. These are people who are supporting numerous businesses with their web browsing (e.g. ads), purchasing products online, running their own businesses using the Internet, etc. Imagine the number of lost sales, the number of jobs lost, the number of small-business bankruptcies... (Not to mention other economic disruptions: e.g. people less productive at work because they can't web-browse at home; the creation of a black-market for net access.)
The UK GDP would take a far greater hit from 50% of their net-using population being forced off the net than it does from the same 50% illegally sharing some content.
Didn't the European Parliament just rule that this sort of thing was illegal?
A harsh ban is illegal? Sure, that makes sense; but I don't think that's the point that this group of companies is trying to make.
They are simply whining because there's money involved; and people often listen to whiners, don't they? "Ask and you shall receive."
The fact that they're allied on "facts" that are more fiction says to me that someone's just stirring the pot.
50% was a very early "guesstimate" for file sharing "losses". It may be proved to be false, but it ignores the mathematical world of statistics.
Just watch: if they get their way, even the newspaper that's printed will be DRM'ed so you can't photocopy it.
The "victims" of what's called "piracy" get FREE advertising and product demos from people who only want something that works for them. That's a population segment that isn't completely covered by their lazy or ineffective marketing.
They should be looking at this as a PR opportunity rather than whining because other people can't grow up. What bothers me is the "you're stupid, so I'll act stupider" mentality. It never ends!
And now that the dead horse is beat, I say "neigh" to it all.
There are no perfect answers, only the right questions. More questions at http://foresightandhindsight.blogspot.com/
This doesn't strike me as an issue. I can't imagine how you'd draft a statute that would effectively suppress torrent traffic by content. Users just have to encrypt their torrent traffic, which would render ISPs unable to determine the legality of the traffic over their networks. Granted, they could try banning all torrent traffic, but that's a whole different kind of problem..
This story started the day being reported sympathetically by the bbc and others. Thankfully they have since updated their stance to include the views of ISPs, the people who would have to implement this measure (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8046028.stm). They rightly point out that such a move is impossible and disproportionate, "Ispa members have consistently explained that significant technological advances would be required if these measures are to reach a standard where they would be admissible as evidence in court." I particularly like the use of "in court" here. We all know what often happens when file sharing cases actually get to a judge who understands technology
how does the market work for tangible, physical products ? it's based on the assumption that after i buy something, the manufacturer loses all control over the good. i can resell, rent, loan, give it away, etc.
now why doesn't this work for music and video ? because they want _control _ ? well, FUCK control. think on profits, damn it !!!
work like that: ANYONE can resell ANY music or movie they wan't, as long as they buy it beforehand.
set up a music wholeseller. this service will only work with online stores and sell licenses for the content. so, i set up my online store and connect to them, everytime one of my visitors click on "buy", my system contacts the distributor, transfer a few cents and get a digital receipt, this will prove that the content i just re-sold was sold legaly. i collect the money from my costumer and keep the diference.
i'll have to keep comprehensive logs of everything that was downloaded from my site, and it'll be required that the downloads match the number of digital receipts i have on file.
this would establish the same relationship for abstract products (i.e. digital contents) that exists for real products. in other worlds, to be able to resell a pen, i must first buy a pen from a wholeseller, have the pen delivered to me, then i can resell and deliver it to my costumer. only in the digital version, instead of buying i'll just buy a license for the content over the wire.
this system would allow pretty much anyone to resell any digital content. artists and studios would receive their share, the public would have easy and convenient access to whatever it is and there would be competition on the market to keep proces down.
win-win situation. and piracy would end simply because it'd be unneccessary and obsolete,
What ? Me, worry ?
Is it just me, or is this yet another happening that will generate votes for the Pirate Party at the upcoming EU elections...?
A good education is a bit like a STD - it makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and gives you a desire to spread it.
That's it, instead of competing against free illegal copies of dubious quality with a superior, consistent, higher quality product, distributed as cheaply, try to strong arm an tangentially related industry into propping up your obsolete business model.
I'm sure that'll work out of ya, just look at the horse & cart industry.
Question everything
Innocent until proven guilty.
thats criminal law
this is civil law which means its about money and with civil law you can keep appealing (with grounds of course) till someone runs out of money/gives up.
They are artists, creative people. They should be in the forefront of the development of human culture. Then they base their business model on certain technological limitations. That is bad in the first place, but then, when the limitations are overcome, they try to force the limitations back, just so they won't have to adapt to a new reality. That's not very artistic. With that kind of attitude, I'm not sure I want their stuff, for free or not. Then again, I hope very few actual artists think in this way. I guess it is the industry people, who are very rich and conservative, and want to stay rich and conservative.
Nobles, Romans, Geeks, lend me your ears. This is not going away. They will not stop, no matter how many times they are proven wrong. No matter how many times they are slapped down by the courts. They will keep coming at us, and they will never stop. They have a lot of money, and they think they have it all to lose. The only solution is to disappear.
Start working on your darknet, today. The only way out is to become invisible.
There are others, and I think this one shows promise:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I2P
I am not advocating copyright infringement. I don't think you should use a darknet to break the law. But you absolutely should do what you can to make your Internet behavior inscrutable. It is none of their business, but they will keep monitoring you, and finding new things you are doing to outlaw, until they own you, or you disappear.
This, copyright infringement, is only one tiny piece. It is not the only field in which you are being watched, and it is far from the most dangerous one. The only way to protect free speech and free association is to make your speech and association impossible to observe.
Now go, and actively engage in the hard work of being free.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
I also support other such measures like:
Stripping people of their cars for speeding.
Banning certain people from owning hammers after being sued in civil court for a case only tangentially involving a hammer.
Chopping the dicks off of sex offenders.
Taking aspirin to pretend I don't have cancer.
Making razor blades illegal to stop cocaine abuse.
I have this really funny quote that I like to put here. Unfortunately, there's this really annoying thing called a char
When CDs first came out, I remember press citing that they were more expensive than tapes only because economies of scale and scope were not in place. In time, prices were supposed to come down. They did not. Instead, as more and more people stopped buying their (imo) overpriced tripe, they started charging more. The only new CDs I've bought in the past 13 years have been from bargain bins. I've purchased everything else from used book stores (hurray! Half Price Books), rummage sales, and online. Recently, I've been picking up some albums via Amazon MP3 for under $5. I think you're right. If they were to price new albums at the $5 mark, they would sell boatloads more than they do today.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
Any time there is a call for:
enabling legislation,
it always seems to turn out like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_Act_of_1933
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Irony, folks...irony.
I know lots of people that pirate, and when they find something they like, they buy it.
And I know plenty of people, and many sub-people, who pirate with no intention of ever buying it. They collect digital files of music they don't like, books they can't read, even pictures they don't understand, all for purposes of uploading them to thousands of strangers for the odd reason that it makes their dick grow to be such a big "contributor" to the "community"
Not at all. 84% of the UK population spend time writing sums in the little book they've got concealed in an alcove next to their TV.
Its our politicians gleefully rubbing their hands at each erosion of freedom, and the population is too broken, demoralised, and drunk, to do anything about it.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Presumed innocent until proven guilty.
I will never pay for digital downloads.
If I'm prepared to wait or search around a bit, I can buy any CD cheaper than the digital downloads, plus I get something tangible that is nice & shiny, not lossy & therefore sounds nice in my reasonably good hi-fi
I do use P2P & Usenet to preview albums that sound like they might be interesting - if they're good, I buy them & if they're crap, I delete the downloads.
I buy 3 or 4 CDs a month, occasionally more, knowing that each one is worth the money I've paid for it because I've already heard it. That means that CDs are, to me, great value & are things I am more than happy to continue to buy. Oh, and I also lend them to friends sometimes who then also go out & buy the albums.
Therefore the record companies do well out of me and I'm happy that they're releasing enough new music that interests me - everyone wins.
The only downside is that my legal purchases subsidise those people who never buy any music & just download it freely. Those people need to stop & think about what would happen to music if everyone grabbed it for free.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
It is not the creative industries that say that, because this would mean the artists. But this comes from the dying (and as we know for a good reason) distribution industries.
The very people that want the creatives to get as little as possible from the sales cake. 1-4% with music, and they still have to pay the expenses, like the studio, from it.
I wonder how this process of article and summary writer selection works here on Slashdot? Do they choose the one with the least knowledge of the topic in an epic contest, similar to the Upper Class Twit Of The Year Show?
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
They aren't saying that 50% of *people* in the UK are sharing illegally, though.. they are saying that 50% of *traffic* is illegal, presumably counting by data volume. That 50% could be caused by a minority of people.
Not that I support them, but we shouldn't misrepresent their made up statistics.
How is this not boil down to corporate interests annexing the Internet for their own locked-down uses away from average citizens' private use?
It will come to only protected content being allowed to travel the Internet. Further, the individual real people will be denied the ability to protect their content because they can't be trusted not to wrap illegal content with private protection.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
I agree this is the only sane approach in the short term. For example, males traditionally murder one another right & left, hence duals being legal in Europe for centuries. But society itself eventually evolved to where it didn't require this outlet.
The war on drugs today has made that situation far far worse by losing control. You can imagine some "war on murder" 300 years ago likewise creating rampant use of hitmen. Duals however kept the problem among men and gave the murder victim an opt-out. I suppose "sex bots" will virtually eliminate prostitution one day too.
The "Way of Piracy" is drastically reducing the rights holders influence over the discourse and cultural evolution.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Distributors would be out of business, and artists would have make a living through performing and struggle like the rest of us.
Fine by me.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
I know lots of people that pirate, and when they find something they like, they buy it.
And I know plenty of people, and many sub-people, who pirate with no intention of ever buying it.
Perhaps Goldilocks would know best with her anecdotes about both types of people.
If you were to see a list of the members of this "alliance of so-called 'Creative Industries'" you would find almost no creative people at all.
They should have called it the "Alliance of Greedy Bastards" or "Alliance of People Whose Only Way to Make a Living is By the Sweat of Someone Creative's Brow".
"Alliance of Buggy-Whip Manufacturers" might suffice, too.
You are welcome on my lawn.
You have a far too simplistic view of things, I'm afraid.
I listen to classic/hard/progressive rock & blues music, hardly any of which is particularly mainstream which means it doesn't get airplay - but it does get advertised on the Internet or in the specialist music magazines like Classic Rock that I buy. No, I don't automatically buy everything that's advertised at me but it does pique my interest and get me to check out that album before I buy it - and if I like it, then I buy it.
The fact is that it is record company marketing money that pays for that advertising, something that an impoverished artist is not going to be able to afford to do. And if millions of artists are all out there trying to get you to buy their self-distributed music, what's going to lead you to any specific artist?
The record companies are almost definitely evil but as a music fan and buyer, I really don't give a toss. 99% of the music they sell is utter trash, but even in that 1% that's left there's more good music than I can ever hope to listen to in my lifetime.
And because I preview any album I buy (yes, "illegally" on BitTorrent) and search for the best prices for a CD, I never buy a bad CD and consider them great value for money - so nothing needs changing.
I doubt there are many musicians out there caring how much I get paid as a telecoms consultant, so why should I give a toss about how much they're being ripped off by record companies?
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
How can an organization call itself the "Creative Industries" when they can't even come up with 21st century business models ...
As far as I can tell, the people who call themselves "the creative industries" are mostly recycling folk tunes and Shakespearean stories, and that's on a good day. True creativity happens in other fields, like, oh, computers, engineering, and science.
Also, file sharing really improves our standard of living. Instead of spending money on an overpriced product, we are now able to use this money on something else. In terms of pure economics, this is a huge productivity boost!
My view may be harsh, but it is not too simplistic.
Music predates recording and distribution by centuries. Musicians were poor of course - but then again it wasn't exactly plain sailing for a medieval peasant or an industrial mill worker. Musicians survived by performance alone.
Because musicians can earn at least minimum wage, as an hourly wage, for their performance if they are remotely good - they aren't owed a damn thing. If they want to live the same life as a full time office worker, they do the hours of a full time office worker. If you don't like it, tough shit - but don't come trying to crush our freedom so you don't have to work full time.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
What does this content taste like that you are accusing me of 'consuming'?
I have never ate drank, or breathed in this 'content' you speak of.
I have listened to mp3's, and watched movies, and read books...but have never ate nor drank any of these.
You're just trying to change the definition to further your agenda.
You can make the argument that calling it 'consuming services and content' is OK because everybody does it but it still does not change the fact that what you are doing is basically dishonest. **boomerang**
When I buy an mp3 file, cd, or a theater ticket I am a customer, not a consumer.
When I eat/drink at a restaurant or pub, then I am both a consumer and a customer.
BTW, when copyright gets reformed to sane standards like it was originally, then we'll debate who has the moral high ground. As it stands now, 'pirates' are in the same class as 'freedom fighters'. Go Pirate Party!
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Good points, all. It struck me, reading them, however, that i don't like the term "music executive" because it mixes the beauty of the art form with the banality of the bureaucrat. Maybe a better term would be "content distribution parasite", since these people do neither music nor anything remotely necessary for the functioning of the industry.
/microrant
They must only be counting out of the less than 1% of net traffic that isn't porn.
Why would you think any more than 50% of online porn accesses are legal?
Regardless of your position on copyright infringement, the content lobby, and IP in general, there is a growing merger of the content lobby with those opposed to freedom of speech and communication. And not just the bs apolitical kind of speech (that should still be free, courts be damned), but now political speech. Sure, at first just anyone who's allegedly infringing. Then, people showing you how to infringe (doom9) will be cut off. Then people just expressing opinions on IP. Then, after people's attention has been diverted from the scandal, people who are opposed to sex offender registries, or no fly lists, or whatever will be denied net access.
The same tech that lets you post relatively anonymously and organize with your countrymen will also allow you to post the AACS key. The same tech that allows you to upload origins.avi also allows you to share video of the Tiannamen square standoff or the assault on the Branch Davidian compound.
So either speech and communication are free for both infringement and for politics, or they are not free for either.
Btw, in tfa, the head of the film council uses the argument that infringement is costing jobs. If this is used as an argument to society (that whole social contract thing?) then it's bs. Any money theoretically lost is retained and starts chasing other goods, resulting in other economic activity. Now, if you argue that the money is going to domestic industry rather than China*, that's at least a valid argument, although I would argue that the real problem is with trade policy, and it shouldn't be covered up by a band aid to the content lobby.
* I use China as an example because I'm American. I have no idea what the UK's trade situation is.
Billy Brown rides on. Yolanda Green bypasses Gary White.
They aren't saying that 50% of *people* in the UK are sharing illegally, though.. they are saying that 50% of *traffic* is illegal, presumably counting by data volume. That 50% could be caused by a minority of people.
If the information in this recent image is correct, only 25% of net traffic is P2P. I guess the creatives are not that bothered about spam, and most web traffic is thoroughly mundane. All in all, there isn't much sunshine wherever that 50% came from...
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
Ensure the survival of creativity by increasing the number of restrictions on people! Way to go creative folk!
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop
He's not claiming it will improve the economy, he's saying there's no loss overall. A clue to this would be where he said:
There's no loss overall.
Indeed, your argument should be at the person who claimed "Multiplier effect", as well as the "Creative Industries". They are the ones who claim that the economy would be magically fixed just so long as we bought CDs and DVDs.
The banning of people from ISPs without due process of law (i.e. a hearing in the courts) is the antithesis of a democratic Republic.
Strictly speaking, isn't it the antithesis of Rule of Law?
Democracy tends to go hand-in-hand with Rule of Law, but none of them imply the other. Correlation != equality.
Currently ACS: Law are sending 1000s of letters to innocent people demanding £600+ for copyright infringement. They claim to have "evidence" linking IP addresses with file sharing. ACS are simply picking up where Davenport Lyons left off last year. I am glad that articles such as this are making the mainstream press. It may eventually lead to educating the judges who are instructing the ISPs to hand over our personal details. Who knows? Maybe soon a judge might say "Hasn't this already been disproved, thrown out of court, and the lawyers involved be barred?" More info at http://www.beingscammed.com/