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UK Consumers To Pay For Online Piracy
Wowsers writes "An article in The Times states that UK consumers will be hit with an estimated £500m ($800m US) bill to tackle online piracy. The record and film industries have managed to convince the government to get consumers to pay for their perceived losses. Meanwhile they have refused to move with the times, and change their business models. Other businesses have adapted and been successful, but the film and record industries refuse to do so. Surely they should not add another stealth tax to all consumers."
Anytime I feel bad about the current state of affairs here in America a story shows up with EU, UK, Australia, or Canada doing something that would be worse. It makes me remember that we haven't hit those points yet so we always have somewhere else to look at whatever policy in practice before we have to deal with it
Anything can be found funny, from a certain point of view.
Now when anybody in the UK contemplates pirating from the Big Ones, he'll know they are already reimbursed for it.
One that hath name thou can not otter
So it won't be piracy anymore, they will just be taking delivery on the goods they paid for.
On the contrary. They found that their old business model wasn't profitable enough so they switched to the far more lucrative business model of convincing the government to subsidize them. With the old model people could vote with their dollars (including piracy) but this new model removes all of those pesky market forces entirely.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Yes, but about their "percieved losses": "money we could have made" 'lost revenues'.
No, no sig. Really.
ThePromenader
Doh! 'money we think we could have made' is not equal to 'lost profit'.
No, no sig. Really.
ThePromenader
How much of this money will the artist see? Wouldn't suprise me if it was zero. Still, the real losses are worth $0 too so it's just another industry bailout in an industry posting record profits.
If this were an act of law enforcement and the money were a fine, I believe some sort of trial would be required.
What's actually happening is that the UK's government is forcing ISPs to warn people who they believe are breaking the law. Of course, ISPs are saying that this is expensive and that they plan to pass the costs along to consumers.
I think this is going to be a laughable clusterfuck.
So if I pay this "tax," then that means that I'm free to download to my heart's content, right?
If everyone is being taxed for the "perceived loss", shouldnt that then make piracy legal? Wouldnt the pirated material being downloaded have been paid for by the people... thus making piracy completely legal?
"There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped or turned back, for their private benefit." - Heinlein
So, let me see if I understand this. These industries claim loss of profit for something where the people acquiring the product would not have paid for it anyway? I think the answer is simple really. Clamp down on the operations that are making money from stolen I.P., and turn over cash and assets that was made illegally. That is where real and quantifiable "losses" are. Anything claimed to be a loss where no money was exchanged, and where no data is gathered statistically becomes merely speculative. And isn't it convenient how Pirates are confused with downloaders. Yes, there really is a difference. One is the opportunistic thief that intends to merely take a copy of a product for their own use, the other is the opportunistic thief that wishes not only to copy your product but also wishes to make money from it. Now decide for yourself which is the actual pirate? Of course, the industry lumps them all together, but only talks about the downloaders and sharers who really don't tend to profit in a fiscal sense from what they do.
If you want to stop the law breaker, make in unprofitable for them personally to engage in such activities. Punishing the masses via hidden taxes which are alleged to be aimed at recovering/combating perceived losses merely serves to alienate people the people who you wish to be sympathetic to your cause. But the reality is that it isn't about failing business models or reclaiming "lost" profit, but about creating a new business model where you can make a claim about anything you like, win support from government, and acquire NEW profit without investing in an actual product. This is about adding value to their existing products... getting something for nothing as it were. All that guff about it being unfair to those poor wealthy media barons is merely a smoke screen, which governments and the majority of the unwashed masses are being blinded by.
The music and film industries are becoming nothing more than clever pickpockets on a grand scale, and using governments to use taxpayer's money to do their thieving for them.
"Look at the pretty performance I put on for you while my government stooge sneaks into your pocket to remove your wallet!"
Seriously, if I were in the UK, spending money on music at all would feel like being double-charged after this fiasco. I'd feel I'd already "paid" for it through taxes. The irony is that the money will be wasted on punitive measures, so the industry won't even profit from it - and if it causes music sales to drop, they will be even worse off.
I honestly suspect that normally music piracy encourages more music sales, not less. But now the industry has managed to shoot even that in the foot.
What's actually happening is that the UK's government is forcing ISPs to warn people who they believe are breaking the law. Of course, ISPs are saying that this is expensive and that they plan to pass the costs along to consumers.
I think this is going to be a laughable clusterfuck.
It's worse than that.
The UK's government is forcing the ISPs to spend money to augment the benefits of the media business.
So, essentially, business A is paying the government to force business B to raise his prices and spend the money in business A's benefit.
And it won't be a clusterfuck because it's currently impossible to prove whether the imagined benefits will in fact exist.
And so smart.
Dear
Comment removed based on user account deletion
With piracy, a company sells a copy and the buyer makes a copy for someone else(and whether that someone else would have bought a copy without piracy is debatable). If I buy a 99-cent song and give you a copy, that is "piracy".
With robbery, someone takes someone else's belongings. If someone takes your money without giving you anything and without your consent, that is "robbery".
This is robbery.
"We are confident that those costs will be a mere fraction of the stratospheric sums suggested by some ISPs, and negligibly small when set against their vast annual revenues."
This is from a recording industry spokesman.
Funny how they never talk about themselves in this way, even though it is vastly more true. Didn't they just have a record year, despite all the "we're all going to diiiieeee" whining?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The music/movie industry want their cake and eat it too.
The content industries will NEVER accept the new world because they know that in the new world, they wont be the king of the hill anymore.
Right now in the old world, companies like Sony, Warner, Fox, Universal, Disney, EMI and Paramount are king of the hill.
With the new world order eliminating the huge production costs (you dont NEED a big studio full of gear to record a song anymore, you can do it in your garage with a PC, some software and some microphones to record with) and distribution costs (you can distribute your songs either for free or for pay online very easily without a middleman), you dont need the big dinosaurs anymore and they are doing everything they can to stop it from happening.
And unlike previous times when disruptive technologies were invented, those who stand to loose the most have the ear of government and are attempting to outlaw the disruptive technologies BEFORE they become mainstream.
If laws like this are put to pass, think of the opportunities for various other business models!
"I published a shareware program which includes a payment of $10 after 30 days of use. This is not really enforced or even nagged on about. The software has had 200k downloads and 20 people have actually paid for it." => lost revenues $1999980 => get payment from government.
Or FLOSS-style: "Our team developed a popular webserver/database which we distribute for free, only getting revenue from support contracts. 50M downloads, yet only 2k acquire a $2000 yearly support contract." => lost revenues $99.996G => drive government to bankruptcy.
Or even: "I put up a stand to sell lemonade to passing people. I had $2 worth of soda, enough to serve 20 people, $0.5 each. Yet no-one bought anything (-10C weather might have had something to do with it). Instead they bought lemonade from the nearby megamart." => lost revenues $8 => get pocket money from the government.
This law also solves the classic underpants-gnome problem: 1) Bank on a failing business model, 2) ??? => Make the government pay for your failure, 3) Profit!
Mr Petter said that the Bill, which is being rushed through Parliament before the general election next year, had been poorly thought out.
And they're not giving music guys free money (yet). The proposal is about cutting off repeated offenders from the net.
TFA seems to imply that the cost of "identify offenders, notify them, and cut them off" procedure would amount to 500m GPB, though it is not very clear about the numbers and whatnot.
Just convinces me to get a dozen 100 TB HD's and dl the whole internet, all apps, albums and dvd rips that come out. I'll sell them to you when it all blows up =)
Someone should have told them the cake is a lie.
And it won't be a clusterfuck because it's currently impossible to prove whether the imagined benefits will in fact exist.
I was thinking that it would be one for that reason, as well as the gray legality, but upon further thought you may be right. The ISPs might not be able to actually do as ordered, but they'll spend money on creating a department of Bill X Compliance, pass that cost onto the consumers, and it won't be possible to prove that it isn't having any major effect. After all, the media companies can just claim that the piracy rate would have increased even more if it weren't for the ISP's efforts...
I'm not sure what the bill's chances are of being passed (the summary says "will", but it's a "would" if I understand the article correctly).
As another poster put it, but worth repeating: the new business model is buying laws. Far more profitable. In the next step they'll be able to do away with the product altogether.
One is the opportunistic thief that intends to merely take a copy of a product for their own use, the other is the opportunistic thief that wishes not only to copy your product but also wishes to make money from it.
The latter group sounds like it includes Sony, which has taken Idol outtakes and made albums that they don't feel obligated to pay the performer for their efforts. Sony also still owes the Bay City Rollers about $60 million from the 70s, which they haven't paid because Sony "lost" the original contract and isn't sure how to pay it out -- so they've kept it for 30 years. Then there is the list of 300,000 songs that all the majors put on compilation albums over the last couple of decades and never bothered to pay royalties on.
Now decide for yourself which is the actual pirate?
"Meanwhile they have refused to move with the times, and change their business models."
I agree their business models should revolve around the consumer getting free content. Just look at how well it worked for the Piratebay. We all would do well to emulate them by working for free like say those open source guys.
This bill is about requiring ISPs to shut off service to repeat copyright infringers, which the ISPs estimate will cost them (and by proxy, consumers) 500 million pounds.
It's not a "tax" and none of the money is going to subsidise the record and film industries, that's just complete crap from the summary writer, as is the crusty old "update your buisiness model, wah wah wah" copperlite.
The bill is also completely retarded, but you do no service to your cause by misrepresenting (and apparently, not even understanding) the enemy.
The only glimmer of hope is that they've drafted so many poorly thought out bills in the last few months, that they're now trying to rush through before May (when they'll be unceremoniously kicked out of office) that they won't have time to get them all through and so some of the really bad ones might not make it through.
Mind you, they seem pretty determined to get this Digital Economy (aka Make Mandleson Supreme Leader) Bill through, probably to ensure themselves of cushy jobs in the media industry once they're out of office.
If you read TFA they actually want to spend the money on trying to chase people who pirate. So it's not officially to "pay for the music", it's to pay for punitive measures - so the music industry won't make any money out of it unless this strategy is effective in increasing sales (which I seriously doubt).
So in the eyes of the recording industry and the government, no, they're not going to be any happier about piracy or consider it paid for. In the eyes of the public being "taxed for piracy", maybe - I would not be at all surprised if piracy increased as a result of this bill.
I'd be happier if they did tax directly to support free music downloads. This money is a sheer waste. If only we could have an evil recording industry, instead of a stupid one... surely enlightened self-interest couldn't be as bad as what we have now.
No, it isn't: http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/3756/artsharingfz4.jpg
If the entertainment industry can still bribe the government to obtain favorable laws, then maybe they're not that broke as they want people to believe.
Or you might get burned. It's not a far step from "the taxpayers are footing a massive bill" to "we should therefore nationalise the groups getting the money." The UK already has a television license, a music and movie license isn't beyond the pale.
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
it is where the government pays the capitalists using taxes from the workers. Awesome!
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
ding ding ding!
were it not for illegal downloads, I wouldn't have come across, say, Russian popular music--or at least I wouldn't have been able to get my hands on it. artists like Kolibri () and Zemfira (Z) would've completely passed my radar.
now, it's another thing if ordering cds or buying mp3s from them helps them much...
If they're already paying for it then the citizens of the UK should be able to pirate as much as they want. The record companies shouldn't be able to double dip like this...
The ISPs are claiming that this will cost them £25 per year per connection to enforce, and they want the content industries to pony up the money.
Now, I don't know about you, but £25 per year per connection seems like a lot. In the US, the process can be largely automated -- DMCA notices now often contain XML that ISPs can parse automatically and forward the notice without any human intervention.
And then there's this load of crap:
I doubt a single household will give up Internet for this. The casual sharers will stop or migrate to hosted services. The hardcore sharers will likely find ways to make their actions harder to trace.
Yes it is. You can spin it all you want, but it is. And the whole "piracy generates revenue so it's good" is pure bulshit. If it really did, artists are free to give their art for free, if they feel it would benefit them.
Also, if you are against copyright, you are against software licenses, which means you think that MS should be free to violate GPL.
Yes, because the general public should pay for the crimes of the public at large. It seems to me that people are going to copy information, and we're taking away a great deal from legitimate information sharing to satisfy the demands of some very moneyed interests. This isn't right, of course. It seems to be becoming the way of things though. It's also a great way of taking power away from people and giving it to wealthy organizations. They are sad because they lost money they pretended they could have made in some lab conditions. As long as the governments get a share...hey...that's better for everyone...yeah? No. But if we pretend hard enough and negotiate the terrain we can laugh nervously and talk about how this utter waste of resources has bought about a better tomorrow. If we don't they'll find out we may have downloaded a song or a show. That would really be tragic and potentially ruin our lives. Ironic.
So do a fair proportion of the 'consumers' of the movie and music industries - but we aren't allowed to talk about that side of it here on Slashdot...
Anytime I feel bad about the current state of affairs here in America a story shows up with EU, UK, Australia, or Canada doing something that would be worse.
Dont' let that lull you into a false sense of security - The US is the main actor behind most of these laws being passed so you will probably find that it is just the boiling frog method of shafting these laws in. Know your enemy. "THEY" are the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), and they have the full political clout of the US government behind them - working to subvert democratic process in just about every country in the world via stealth taxes/three strikes/no presumption of innocence for the sheeple. Countries sign on to this in exchange for "Free Trade" deals. Examples:
New Zealand Reintroduces 3 Strikes:
"IIPA testifies in support of the initiation of negotiations for a Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement (TPP FTA) with Singapore, Chile, New Zealand, Brunei Darussalam, Australia, Peru and Vietnam."... "Specific problems in some of the TPP countries are outlined in the Special 301 reports from 2009 for Chile, Peru, Brunei, and Vietnam".
Where "specific problems" mean: No three strikes laws, no trade deal.
Spain's Proposed Internet Law Sparks Protest:
IIPA report card on Spain. resulting US political clout result: local laws and taxes supporting mafiaa industry.
The sad part is that even though countries that want to be in on these trade "deals" are required to implement draconian anti-internet laws and filters, obliged to extradite civil cases to the US for trial (software piracy in this case), the resulting "Free Trade" agreement rewards generaly do not benefit the countries involved! Which begs the question, who does benefit... perhaps just the politicians who signed off on the deal?
The only way I can see to fight this kind of slide is to create a black list of any group/industry that lobbies any government in support these kinds of anti-democratic process trade deals. If any group supports trade deals that required destroying the internet, then the internet could become one humongous nightmare of bad press blog artices against your industry group. Seems only fair - shouldn't be able to have their cake and eat it too.
As opposed to file-sharing taking away 98% of the meagre pittance earned by the record industries annually? Riiight...
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Don't come with that crap like: oh but otherwise I wouldn't have bought it anyway.. You watched it, so you owe them money, even though you might have found it crap...
Sorry, but you don't get to withhold arguments from the rebuttal.
The true "loss" that the industry suffers from piracy is the total they would earn if piracy did not exist at all, minus what they earned in reality; this magical "you watched it you owe them" concept doesn't apply to actual losses. The simple fact of the matter is that not every download would have translated into a sale without piracy. Be it a poor college student who cannot afford to purchase the same quantity of movies they download, or someone who's already purchased a copy, and is downloading a copy for convenience, or even a person who, should piracy not be an option, would buy a USED copy (meaning no money from that purchase goes to the movie industry), not every one would buy a brand new copy.
But don't confuse this with a defense of piracy; I believe quite strongly that people should be compensated for their work. I just believe a little more strongly that the entertainment industry's conduct towards it's customer base has been morally reprehensible, ie using scare tactics against innocent people because they're convinced that their half-assed unlicensed investigations are accurate. Not to mention to absurdity of decrying piracy as "killing the industry" while reaping record profits, all the while begging the government for "fixes" that erode the public's rights and cost innocent people money. This isn't even mentioning the outright fraud committed within the industry itself (do a search for "Hollywood accounting" if you want to know why most of the top grossing movies in history have either "barely made a profit", or in some cases made a "loss").
I will spell it out clearly, just for those of you who haven't caught on yet: this isn't about them recouping their supposed losses. This is about them raping our rights and making more money, any way they can.
My sig can beat up your sig.
If the record industries can do this, how long until an individual can convince the government that he should get paid for possible losses due to household robbery or carjacking? (yeah I know, never, they'll call him communist in .5 seconds)
This is corporate communism
This was a triumph.
We're making a note here: huge success!
It's hard to overstate our satisfaction.
What you're saying is that for example Sony make or made the CD/DVD writers and blank media, cassette tapes and decks, VHS tapes and decks, MiniDV camcorders/tapes, record players, amplifiers, cables etc. etc. then they moan when the very electronics they produced is used to copy the stuff their record and film production companies puts out.
Either Sony should be forced to be a electronics manufacturer or a film/music company, not both.
Fact remains, the politicians around the world are all corrupt.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
The music industry is morally bankrupt. Perhaps from the phoenix of a music apocalypse we can move on to something better: artists who are respected and supported, new talent nurtured and the people allowed to enjoy music without hassle.
I managed to buy my mp3 player before an "iPod tax" was introduced. Every single mp3 I have is ripped from my very own paid for CDs. I prefer CDs as they are better quality and have no compression artefacts; mp3 players are for music on the go. Why the hell should I pay a tax to compensate for something I haven't stolen ?
The fact is that 90% of the world's iPods are owned by 12-16 year olds with no disposable income to use to buy mp3s, but they can afford $150 of mp3 player and $400 smart phones. Something doesn't add up. Oh wait, perhaps it has something to with how the music industry has stifled talent, spent all the budget on manufactured boy/girl bands to up their profits, and now they're scared they've raided the cookie jar too many times and there is nothing left.
Let me put it this way: fscking Pop Idol and X Factor - no one is downloading mp3s of those "artists" to put on their iPod. Someone should tell the record companies straight: the days of mega sales are over, they were over 20 years ago. If you move to $0.99 an album and actually support your artists (real ones) then perhaps there is a chance of saving your industry.
While we're at it, someone should go over and explain it to Peter Mandelson and Lily Allen. Making ISPs cops and going after people who love music isn't going to help your cause.
I do not condone copying music, IMHO downloading something to preview it is not stealing, as long as you delete it or buy it within a reasonably short time frame; also mp3s (inferior quality and downloaded at users' expense) should not cost as much as a CD album (superior quality on a physical medium).
Something to consider, that the people advocating this sort of legal change rarely do, is that policy drives behavior - but not necessarily in the ways that they want it to.
They believe they will change the behavior of consumers by making the cost of music piracy high.
They may succeed in changing behavior - but likely not in the way they hope to. Most consumers who currently pirate music will continue to do so, but they will do so using different methods so as to not be caught.
The OP is correct in that the music industry is attempting to use legislation to avoid having to change their business model.
A good example of an industry that is affected by piracy and the second-hand market in a similar way to the music industry, is the computer software industry. The computer softeware industry has tried many of the same methodologies the music industry has to combat piracy, mainly involving various sorts of copy protection and security codes, all of which failed to curb piracy, and some of which encouraged it due to legitimate customers being locked out of their legally purchased software by overzealous security measures.
Like the music industry, the software industry has attemtped to use legislation to resolve their problems, and has been nearly completely unsuccessful in doing so. For the most part, their last line of defense has been the "Inquisition" (the Business Software Alliance) which relies for the most part on disgruntled employees denouncing their employers or former employers.
The one bright spot in this is the computer game industry. It is not nearly so monolithic or moneyed as the software giants or the music industry and as a result it has had to find different solutions. Though it has ridden on the coattails of the legislation sponsored and passed by the giants, it is also well aware that said legislation has not had the desired effect, nor have the standard copy protection schema - and so it has begun to move to a different business model, involving downloadable content. While a base game may be pirated, even someone who didn't buy it needs the downloadable content to get the full experience, and the only easy way to get that is to purchase it. This has allowed revenue generation from people who did not actually purchase the base software (in addition to those that did).
One effect of this new model has been a necessary improvement of the quality of the product. If a company wants to generate revenue from downloadable add-on content, the original product must be high enough quality that people want that additional content, and the additional content itself must be worth spending money on. It is also of note that while the total price of all downloadable content may be significant, the individual pieces of it cost far less than the original product. The time and effort of the programmers/artists certainly deserves appropriate recompense, as does the capital risk of the production company - but the true measure of "worth" is what the market will bear. If the music (or game) industry suddenly quintupled the price of their product because that is what they decided it was worth (even if such an increase were absolutely necessary to recoup their costs), their sales would plummet because the market would likely not agree that either was actually worth the price.
That concept - that the consumer sets the price of any commodity by choosing whether or not to purchase it at that price - is what the music and software industries have been trying circumvent. Governments have the same sort of issues when they impose high taxes on goods that end at some arbitrary border - an instant trade in untaxed goods springs up between the taxed and untaxed sides of the border, which the government must then shut down to maintain its revenue. Music and software present an additional challenge because they can be copied and moved digitally at near zero cost.
While some will argue that the worth of a product is directly t
Doesn't it make perfect sense to make consumers pay for what other people steal, or are supposed to have stolen? In Holland, you pay a premium on blank cd's, which goes to the music industry because people use cd's to make illegal copies of music. Even a software company that ships their software on cd's, pays for other people copying music illegally. Also in Holland, companies pay a tax on photocopies for other people's illegal photocopies. The taxes and premium don't give you the right to make your own illegal copies, of course. I've been in the situation that my startup company didn't even have a copier, but we still had to pay the illegal copying tax. A friend of mine suggested introducing a "stolen bicycle tax". In Amsterdam, on average a bike is stolen every two years or so, so we should have a tax on new bikes to pay for the stolen bikes.
These examples are symptoms of a seriously broken copyright system.
no, I don't have a sig
I was discussing this very thing with some colleagues today and suggested maybe it's time to start pre-emptive invoicing of the music industry for filtering services conducted as a revenue stream for ISP's, and every ISP can do it. If the music industry refuses to pay then filtering services stop until the invoice is paid. If they demand filtering services be conducted then they must pay for the filtering being done - why should the taxpayer.
The way it stands is they expect everyone to pay for them. I wonder what the cost to the community is for the innovation they have impeded, now of course, the taxpayer has to pay again.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Piracy is theft
Copyrights are not property, they are special, temporary rights granted by the government for a limited time to encourage particular kinds of activities. Therefore, copyright violations are not theft. Furthermore, we as a society get to define what actions constitute a copyright violation.
Iran and other extermists muslim governments are right: The US is a corrupting influence on the world ("The Great Satan")?
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
I never said that I'm against copyright...I said that file sharing is not theft and it is not stealing. It is _copying_ (theoretically, it's the opposite of theft) something without paying for it...and you can't even say that every copied song is one sell less, because that's not true.
Well, that's easy to say if it ain't your income that is being stolen... Every illegal download is a loss
As a copyright holder, you only get that income because copyright law gives you that income as a matter of public policy. Unlike physical property, society has the right to deprive you of income from copyright without compensation as it sees fit.
If we garantee their income then what's their incentive to produce good product?
If their profit is guaranteed by law then they're going to make the minimum possible effort to 'earn' it.
No sig today...
Yes it is. You can spin it all you want, but it is.
No, it is not. Physical property and copyrights are completely different things.
Also, if you are against copyright, you are against software licenses, which means you think that MS should be free to violate GPL.
The creators of the GPL are indeed against software licenses and copyright; the GPL is intended as a stopgap measure until copyright law changes and the GPL isn't needed (or enforceable) anymore.
Citation Needed
Piracy is what is going around the Red Sea, the Somalia coast and the Indian Ocean http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy.
It has nothing to do with copying media. What the entertainments industry are doing is called privateering - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privateer.
The original model for the entertainment industry was: entertainers appear live and perform. This had high overheads and physical limitations.
The recording model was: mass produce the sound and sell these copies to so many people that they would make more money than anyone could ever imagine and the medium would be so cheap that everyone could afford it and copying it would be pointless. Oops,sorry, they decided to skip the last part.
Posts, MyBio or Sig, may contain satire, sarcasm, bolded nouns be sardonic or even witty & be Church of SD
Labels are not getting any of the money. The money is the cost, to ISPs, of mandatory anti-piracy measures, which it is expected will be passed on to the consumer. The US consumer probably paid a similar amount to their ISP cover the cost of DMCA legal actions in the past decade. It's forcing the shepherd to police the duck pond, which is an entirely different problem that this summary wonderfully distracts you from.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
might as well add in non-murder surcharges and pre-rape taxes.
The US already introduced an equal law - the DMCA. It places similar obligations on ISPs which US residents have been happily footing the bill for in increased internet costs for about a decade.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
If they 'tax piracy' then it must be an act already paid for (i.e. reimbursed), for ANY act of piracy. Therefore it must now be Ok to conduct that piracy for which they are taxing EVERYONE, as opposed to 'taxing' the few who are actually committing that piracy. Since EVERYONE has already 'paid the tax' then by extension it must be OK for EVERYONE to now conduct piracy? After all, you ARE paying for all the piracy now it aren't you? So, now we seem to have a new business model, aka piracy as a service. It must be Ok get out there and commit all the piracy you want! Its already paid for, so there is no guilt trip any more. Just keep your 'tax receipts' just in case you are actually arrested for piracy, and perhaps you can sue the local UK Government for 'double dipping' in court. They can't have it both ways.
IANAL, So don't do anything I say here as it's probably illegal just because it was me that said it. I don't personally condone piracy in any form, but then our definitions may differ somewhat. Such as RIAA:'full fledged piracy' v.s. ME: 'just moving music I just paid for to my personal iPod so that I can actually listen to it'. Why that act would be even considered piracy by the RIAA completely alludes any sense of logic. Should they think to 'tax me', then perhaps I would not hesitate to download rather than buying something, since I already paid for it. Hint to RIAA; Be VERY careful what you ask for in legislation. You might just get it, but then you still won't 'get it'.
According to this fluff piece in the Times.
What's a poor citizen to do?
Every single UK broadband subscriber will be taxed / fined an extra £25 per year, to prop up the film and music industry.
Nice work if you can get it.
Why not subsidise the fax industry as well, and the cassette tape industry, and while we are at it, how about the buggy whip manufacturing industry?
Business has a thing called "externalisation", what it boils down to is putting as much cost as possible outside the business, a classic example is a textile mill that externalises the cost of polluting, simply by dumping the pollutants into the local river. Someone else, downstream, can pick up the tab.
The justification for this is that allegedly the latest Star Trek movie was downloaded 11 million times in 2009.
Around 150 million visits to the cinema per year happen in the UK, if you take the alleged 11 million star treks, add in the harry potters, avatars (holds hand up) etc etc it is no stretch of the imagination to claim that 150 million movie downloads happened in the UK in 2009.
According to this metric, and the false logic employed, if downloading was banned, cinema attendances would double.
Bullshit.
Here is why;
1. There is the false logic assumption that if I had not downloaded Avatar, I would have gone to the cinema and paid to see it. This is utterly false. You would have to pay me at least £5 to set foot in a cinema, to compensate me for the travel, mobile phones, noisy bastards, no smoking or drinking, inability to pause, crap seats, etc etc.
2. There is the false logic assumption that people like me with 46 1080p screens who prefer the comforts of our own homes would substitute the video rental shop for the cinema. Rubbish. The video rental shops don't have anything new, or anything good, or much choice of anything, and quite apart from that I have no interest in watching a Blu-ray that does not let me skip past 15 minutes of promo crap.
3. There is a false logic assumption that the media in question (whether it is cinema or rental) is value for money, I am simply not prepared to pay £5 per head for a cinema ticket, or £5 a night for a DVD, for 90 minutes of "entertainment" It is just way too expensive.
4. There is a false logic assumption, in short, that the 11 million downloads of Star Trek represent even 1 single lost cinema sale or DVD rental... You are reading this because it is free, would you pay £5 to read it? Stupid question. Would you pay £0.01 to read it? Stupid question.
5. There is a false logic assumption that the decline in cinema attendance figures, record sales, etc, say compared to 1970, is due to a change in people's attitudes, we have suddenly become a nation of thieves. Simply not true. These EXACT SAME ARGUMENTS were made about the compact audio cassette.
6. There is a false logic assumption that it is acceptable to impose a fine / tax / tariff on EVERYONE, that would be like mandating that I must buy a television licence, even though I haven't watched television for 20 years.
7. There is a false logic assumption that the technologies that they are going to deploy are actually going to catch people illegally sharing copyright material, ONLY, and NO-ONE ELSE, and indeed this is implicitly acknowledged in the desire to fine / tax / tariff ALL users of broadband, irrespective of what they do.
8. There is a false logic assumption that we are dealing with a static target, the ever evolving technology means that it really does not matter what methods you use to counter copyright violations (NOT copyright theft, no one is stealing your actual copyright, and no one is depriving anyone else of their use) because within the month (and I am being generous) they will be cracked.
9. T
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
Communism refers to an economic model, not a political one. A better term would be Capitalist Dictatorship. Its worth pointing out how smooth China's transition from Communist Dictatorship to Capitalist Dictatorship was - state owned industries were sold for a dollar or so to the people that already ran them! There have been other Capitalist Dictatorships - notably in South America during the late 70s and 80s. They are only just recovering, but if they managed to turn the tide, maybe we can too. I live in hope.
...doesn't mean being right in everything.
So I do actually agree on a few things with muslim extremists, but not on all.
As of late, my main feeling towards the US of A has been of sorrow. A great nation with great people. Falling prey to the claws of headless and faceless capitalist interest groups, buying their way all throughout an otherwise great society.
This is going too far. Check through my posts and you've seen many many times I've been in favour of penalising people who pirate. I've lambasted TPB et al and the people who use them and been modded down many many times. BUT. As a UK citizen who will be paying this, if they're going to extort money out of me for something I've never done, then fuck em, I'm going to get my money back and in that case, that means jumping on the P2P bandwagon. After all, I'm now going to be paying for what I download. I reckon 3-4 MP3s a month is about fair compensation going on the average legal download service track price.
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
black cds labeled "Music" from a few years ago came with this tax pre-installed. That is why they cost 1000% more than regular non "music" cdrs ... the piracy was implied.
You just have and the comment hasn't and won't be deleted. So I think you probably are allowed.
This is the truth that needs to be shouted from the rooftops.
For once, a tax that can almost legitimately be referred to as stealing!
is obvious.
Sony also still owes the Bay City Rollers about $60 million from the 70s, which they haven't paid because Sony "lost" the original contract
And the Roller's lost their copies, as did their management who'd take a nice cut, as did their accountants/legal people too? I think not. You may hate sony, but stop spreading shit to back your dweeb insecurities.
I sure am glad that here in the US we don't have a president who's a shill for the entertainment industry...
The music industry is out of control. I buy all my music on rhapsody for $1 a song. I will rather not have the song then pay $10 for 9 trashy songs and one good one. Where does the music industry get off thinking they are entitled to funds. I think its absurd to say those downloading would have paid if they didn't download. You can't make a leap like this. As far as copyright laws I can see where 300 years from now they are abolished, but right now humanity is still kind of primitive and selfish and doesn't get the bigger picture for the betterment of mankind.
He isn't comparing anything to the Holocaust -- that poem happens to have been inspired by events that took place during the Holocaust, but it is meant to be applicable to any situation where you have the power to help others but choose to mind your own business instead, only finding out later that your inaction comes back to bite you in the ass. Even if it was a comparison to the Holocaust, we are all intelligent enough to realize that there is a difference of degree here -- something can be similar to the Holocaust without being anywhere near as serious. Furthermore, just because you are comparing one aspect of a social phenomenon to a similar aspect of another social phenomenon does not even remotely imply that they are equal in any other regard.
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
What's actually happening is that the UK's government is forcing ISPs to warn people who they believe are breaking the law. Of course, ISPs are saying that this is expensive and that they plan to pass the costs along to consumers.
I think this is going to be a laughable clusterfuck.
It's worse than that.
The UK's government is forcing the ISPs to spend money to augment the benefits of the media business.
So, essentially, business A is paying the government to force business B to raise his prices and spend the money in business A's benefit.
And it won't be a clusterfuck because it's currently impossible to prove whether the imagined benefits will in fact exist.
It's called regulatory capture. Companies have been doing it for years, and some guy got a prize for writing an article about.
Seriously, companies have been using regulation to stifle competition and increase profits for a long time, despite their complaints about being over regulated ( which generally means "I don't like this regulation because it helps my competitor instead of me."
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
if piracy did not exist at all
Well, fortunately, that's easy to fix: repeal copyright completely and we're rid of piracy. The IP industry can play on the same playing field everyone else does with actual free market competition.
The huge dead-weight loss of value between marginal cost of production and the desired sales price of the IP industries creates a vast economic loss for society as is; most copyrighted material simply isn't worth many cents for many people, yet the artificial scarcity creates a mass aggregate damage of all those instances where value could have been created, yet wasn't due to the artificial pricing discrepancy.
But don't confuse this with a defense of piracy
The actions of the IP industries over the last few years have demonstrated that they are a clear danger to democracy and free speech. Denying them any form of revenue has become a moral imperative, and a civic duty in a democratic society. If anything, paying money where any part will go to the industry organizations is morally reprehensible.
That, of course, doesn't mean you can't pay for material from artists or organizations that do not take part in the lobbyist corruptive efforts. But it might be good to develop a safe-for-society mark or sticker to denote independent non-participation in the anti-democratic efforts of the industry organizations.
I believe quite strongly that people should be compensated for their work.
We all like to get compensated for our work, yet if we are to have any form of a free market system we can only get paid for work people want us to do in competition with others, and getting paid because the state forbids anyone else from doing the same work is fundamentally incompatible with that.
decrying piracy as "killing the industry"
And considering that copyright is fundamentally just yet another taxation and transfer scheme (and one whose efficiency levels makes most other government schemes look like marvels of efficiency) that causes higher costs in the economy as a whole, one might decry all the jobs lost due to that. One job lost in the copyright industry is one gained elsewhere, and vice versa; it's not random chance that makes the western economies less competitive all the time, and IP is one of the reasons that the west has lost competitive edge.
i think the best solution to the whole music industry problem is to simply shun them. Don't buy their stuff, don't pirate their stuff, don't share their stuff, don't review their stuff, don't discuss their stuff with your friends, don't link to their sites, don't visit their sites, don't search for material by them. There is no shortage of artist not aligned with the industry, their is no shortage of free, creative commons, or shareware like songs.
"Too much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few capitalists." - The Uses of Diversity, 1921
It gives the appearance that if enough cash is paid into Mandelson's pocket, a corporation can have their own state backed 'enforcers' with the sole purpose of protecting a revenue stream. All at the tax-payers expense. It rather makes a sham of the governments consultation in which people were sympathetic but clearly showed the recording industry is not a special case and should sort out its own problems.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
I'm a bartender part time- I'm to work tonight and it has been snowing heavily the past two days, and as result I highly doubt I'll make as much money as i usually do on Tuesday night due to the poor road conditions.... who do I speak to about remuneration, mother nature? i wish i were a multinational corporation that dialogs with governments on the intellectual level of a toddler throwing a temper tantrum ....
I thought it said 'to pay for online PRIVACY'
and you know, that seems very 'governmental' and so I thought 'interesting, they now want to charge you for your privacy'.
of course it was a mis-read.
or, was it?
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Wow, post-Thatcher UK really can be as corrupt as the U.S. congress in handing out money to corporations. No wonder y'all are fleeing to Spain and France if you can afford it.
Here you go, dipshit. for the record (no pun intended) I'm not the parent poster.
http://www.azoz.com/topics/labels/sony.html
So how should they "change their business model to move with the times?" And what other industry similar to music has already done this? People say all the time that the music industry is "just going to have to change their business model."
Ok ... so HOW?
I'm seriously looking for input and ideas here.
This enforcement cost has been shifted. The civil penalties are being replaced by criminal penalties. Instead of the industry paying lawyers and taking PR hits, now this is just government action. Seeing how much litigation can be removed, there should be quite a hefty sum being saved by the industries in question. If my tax dollars are paying for extra margin or revenue or profits (insert whatever word you want here) for the a producer of a good, then I should have the rights to use the product.
Both, one crime doesn't erase another, especially when their hardly related. Even if some dude kills your brother you can't go kill him, let alone his brother, without the full force of the law coming down on you and it's the same with theft.
Have you no sense of decency? This was not "meant" to be applicable to everything else, especially not something as trivial (relatively speaking) as the topic at hand.
I am EXTREMELY fed up with the overuse of the holocaust by Israel apologist -- no, that your grand grand parents suffered a lot does not give you any right to do the same to innocent people -- for the same reason as I'm disgusted by this overuse of the cliché: it cheapens the tragedy. Perhaps if you'd met survivors you'd know what I mean.
They just need to offer pirates letters of marque to only pirate foreign-owned software....
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
The OP claims that music and film industries are not using the new business model, hence their losses. I hear this a lot. Can someone lay out this business model that would make them successful? If it's that simple, then someone just explain what this supposed model is and how it works. Or is it like saying the only reason we haven't eliminated spam from the internet is because everyone has been too lazy to use the proper spam elimination model?
your just one of those dumb people..
Ah, delicious.
well let me tell you that if it would be that easy to steal a car (or any other physical object) those same people would do it immediatly..
To quote one of those movie preview campaigns, "YOU WOULDN'T DOWNLOAD A CAR..."
If cars could be effortlessly copied and sent down to pipe to my house, fuck yes, I would.
Don't most companies buy insurance to offset theft*? In the case of some companies whose business model can not prevent theft, and they can't buy insurance, don't they change their business model, accept the cost of doing business, or liquidate? How many companies get to levy taxes to the populace at large? Not everyone enjoys listening to popular music, or music in general, by the way. It's almost like asking for a tax to have television signals broadcast for free throughout... oh, wait, UK. Right. Um, it's almost like asking for a tax to have fish 'n chips on every street corner where people can pay as they please. Some people won't pay, so the tax covers the extra cost. But, some people don't like fish 'n chips. Why should they have to pay the tax?
*I'm well aware that copyright infringement is not theft. I'm just using their terminology to show how ridiculous this is from their point of view. It gets even more ridiculous when you use s/theft/copyright infringement/g and s/fish 'n chips/automatic book printer/g
Hurrrrrrrrr
Yes we will soon start having to assassinate artists one by one until they begin to understand.
"Don't come with that crap like: oh but otherwise I wouldn't have bought it anyway.. You watched it, so you owe them money, even though you might have found it crap..."
Really? Did you ever stop to consider the fact that they ACTIVELY prevent me from giving them money? I spent three hours one day trying to pay for one fucking album on iTunes. The artist's page clearly said 'iTunes' all over the damn place, but each time I clicked the link it would just take me to the music homepage. After some research I found out that the album I wanted was a mystical, magical 'French' album. These rare music files could only be accessed using the localized French iTunes, and after a FUCKING HUGE download, I finally found the album and the 'buy' button.
I clicked the button with great hope, only to have that hope knocked in the back of the head with a stale baguette and left bleeding face down on the floor. Apple saw right through my localization disguise, and while they let me see the music, they still knew my account was American and wouldn't even let me try to buy it. So I created a fake French identity, with a generated French name, and a valid but unoccupied French address. Pretty sure that's some kind of felony. That's right, I broke laws in my attempts to pay this artist for their work. Anyways, fake identity in hand, I went back to iTunes logged in as a Frenchie, clicked the 'buy' button... again... and gave them all the information they needed to rape and pillage my checking account.
But wait! Apple doesn't want my dirty American money, that would never do. In order to get the sacred French music, I must first obtain a pure, virgin, French iTunes gift card, or make friends with one of their chosen people in order to utilize their holy French credit card. Anything less would cause all the artists in the world to starve and quit producing!
That's about the point I gave up and downloaded the fucking thing. Think about that next time you decide to feel morally superior to a 'dirty pirate'.
Actually this story probably won't affect your views in any way. I'd bet you think the goatse guy deserves millions, what with all the people viewing his work without proper compensation. I mean, it's artistic, so he should get money. Right?
"While we're at it, someone should go over and explain it to Peter Mandelson and Lily Allen."
So long as the explanation is done with a bat.
I never claimed that we DID have a "right" to watch their content, but the industry's interest extends to more than just who watches their films.
Oh, and have fun with the whole "nothing will enter the public domain in your lifetime" thing.
My sig can beat up your sig.
There are two worlds which can exist here. Let me outline each of them.
In the first world, copyrights are enforced completely and without fail. In this world, when you create a work of art only those who compensate you are ever allowed to view the work and appreciate it. Now since these people paid, they are worth about the same as they were before viewing it. They gained entertainment, but lost money. If the price was right, their net gain is nothing. The artist is really the only person who gains anything, and still he only profits if the popularity of his work is enough to cover the costs involved in creating the work. Sure, the world gets a new piece of art, but again if everyone has to pay, then nothing is gained.
Now imagine a second world, where there is no 'copyright'. In this world an artist produces a work of art, and it is instantly copied to anyone who wants it for (what is essentially) free. This is where your car analogy breaks down. There are no tangible objects which can be fully and exactly copied using the energy from a hand crank or a potato battery. Once a digital object has been created, it is essentially worth NOTHING; yet, it still has value for those that 'consume' the product (single quotes because something that's copied so easily can't really be 'consumed'). So, by freely giving away worthless digital objects, one could create seemingly endless amounts of pleasure for those who want it.
Now don't think that I'm saying I expect $500 million movies to be created just to make people smile. Movies really are a different beast, and without some enforced method of compensation I do worry about losing the huge Hollywood movies. But when talking about music or books... what's the difference between a catchy song that was produced over a few months in someone's spare time, and a song that had $10 million in marketing behind it and was produced by someone who demanded a six digit salary? Is it really all that money that makes it a quality product? Would people stop making music if they didn't think it would make them a millionaire?
Just ask yourself if you really think cops would be jailing people who copied a house by pushing a button. Ask yourself if you would try to prevent a world where everyone actually owned their own home, just because you want the original house designer to have everyone indebted to him.
I also hope you've never, EVER passed a street performer without donating to them. After all, you DID hear their work. That means they deserve money according to you.
In exchange for 5 billion pounds in economic waste (other people's money), the MPAA can expect to see a "return" of 1.7 billion pounds. It's the very definition of externality. See also the broken window fallacy.
If the UK regime is going to milk the population for cash, perhaps they ought to be pumping that cash into floundering UK science. The STFC is cutting funds from vital research, whilst a bunch of twats who played guitar instead of paying attention in maths class get to use the government coffers and their personal fucking piggy bank.
I'm burning with anger over the pure injustice of this. There is an -ocracy word meaning 'rule by the worst' that I can't remember right now, but it fits the situation. I guess I can stick with 'Kleptocracy' for the moment.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Both, one crime doesn't erase another, especially when their hardly related.
I never said it did. The question was "Who are the real pirates?"
The average file-sharer is a music fan and, at worst, guilty of copyright infringement, a civil offense. Copyright infringement is NOT theft, it's copyright infringement.
The labels are guilty of massive copyright infringement for profit, as well as actually stealing directly from the artists by non-payment or questionable accounting practices that skim off the top. When they get caught, they keep 90 percent anyway.
The file sharer is a music fan; the record labels are true pirates and have been since the 50s.
Even if some dude kills your brother you can't go kill him, let alone his brother, without the full force of the law coming down on you and it's the same with theft.
I've got almost 100 songs on my website, which have been downloaded a half-million times in the past five years. Every last one of them is still there. No one has ever stolen even one song.
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I have household contents insurance.
I pay a premium to my insurance company who promise to indemnify me against the PHYSICAL LOSS of my PROPERTY under certain circumstances. Robbery is included.
As everything is insurable for the right price (Policies for alien abduction/ singers bottoms) maybe the recording/movie industry should look to insure themselves against such potential loss.
Or do you think that insurance companies would laugh at them when they come to claim that John Smith downloaded a Metallica record asking them to prove where loss took place?
The financial crisis of the last year and a bit was caused in a big part by much the same thinking that the record companies have now. .
The property market was in a boom. Everyone wanted a house (2 or three) because the value of these things just kept rising. People/banks and companies were highly over-inflating what a house/section or development was going to be worth to the potential buyers.
For a while they were right, but then something happened. The market decided that these things were not worth the over inflated cost. Suddenly People had debt which outweighed the "potential value" of their properties. And although John Smith still had a house. He no longer has the potential value he thought he was going to get for the house. John is now upset. He has his house, but no one is wiling to pay for it what he was hoping they would be willing to pay for it when the market was in boom. The market has changed.
The recording industry need to realise that the Market has changed. Distribution channels have changed. and the Potential Value they put on a copy of their product is not what they once thought it was.
. .
Jane, you ignorant bitch. You have it backwards. Copyright is the privilege, not the right to view divulged information, knowledge, Britney,whatever.. AND... it's supposed to be a temporary privilege.. So it's the content "owners" who are attempting the grand larceny here.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
As a Brit, I am so glad that I do not live in my home country. The Labour government there has gone completely mad with laws that impinge on their citizens rights. I would hope that at the next election this current crowd of no-hopers and bullshit artists are kicked out and that the new government will repeal all the restrictive laws the old government has enacted over the last 12 or so years. It is with a sigh of resignation that I am not optimistic that this will happen.
Nope, it's equal to "estimated lost revenues". You still need to pay your fixed costs though.
An analogy: go to an auction, and steal something. The auction house will have lost a certain amount of money: they can't sell the thing. They're losing a lot more than just profits. They only profit if they can sell the thing for at least as much as it cost to put it on the auction block -- which includes buying the thing, renting property (a fixed cost), and so on. They lose a lot more than just "profit" on this transaction.
Well, your argument could apply if the music company didn't have the music to sell anymore - but here we are talking about a product that can be duplicated ad infinitum.
No, no sig. Really.
ThePromenader
Are the rights of a corporation more important, or the rights of an actual human being more important?
To quote something I read before on slashdot (pardon me for not remembering your name, although I hold you in the highest regard!):
Companies don't need anything. People need things. Companies are nothing more than tools we create in order to benefit actual human beings. When you talk about the needs of companies, you are treating them as ends, not as means. Then we--human beings--become the means to satisfy their needs.
Yadda yadda.
Analogies suck. This is a sucky analogy, a tired cliché, and a disgraceful comparison.
I rest my case. Yeah, I know.
For those few who haven't properly read through the article, here are the main numbers (skip to the end for a summary);
The government estimates that the initial cost of the "letter-writing" stage (i.e. "some evil corporate lawyer has got some very weak evidence that someone on your connection may be pirating; stop now or we'll cut you off") will be £1.40 ($2.25) per subscriber. This is the administrative cost to the ISP which they will have to pass on to their customers.
The report estimates that this minor increase will be enough to force 40,000 households (not people) to cancel their internet connection. So much for encouraging the uptake of broadband. None of this money will go to the music or film industry (although the Royal Mail might to well out of it).
The ISPs have estimated that the cost of implementing all the measures will be roughly £25 ($40) a year to broadband subscribers. This is where the £500m figure comes from, assuming 20,000 households with broadband. This money will not be going to the music or film industry (or book, magazine, porn, or similar creative industries, never mind individual content creators) but will presumably cover part of the administrative costs of the system as well as making up for the 40,000 lost subscriptions mentioned above. Note that if ministers expect an increase of £1.40 a year to lead to 40,000 cancelled subscriptions, when you also add on this £25 (plus the £6/yr broadband tax introduced last month) that number may go up dramatically.
Finally, ministers have estimated the benefit of this law. They estimate that it will lead to £1.7bn in "extra sale" revenue to the music and film industry over the next 10 years. Now, I'm fairly certain that most people on /. will happily shred the above concept, but for now, let us assume the figure (which is mysteriously close to the £180m/year losses the BPI claimed recently). From this, the government estimates that it will gain an extra £350m in tax revenue (about $560m). Now, I make that about 20%, which seems a little high to me, (VAT being 17.5% iirc, and with most of the industry being based abroad and knowing how to use a tax haven), but again, let us assume this figure.
So, in summary, the following are the initial effects of the Digital Economy Bill (ignoring rights issues, assuming government figures etc.):
Am I the only one who can see a slight discrepancy here? There are many reasons I am supporting the UK's Pirate Party, thank you, Lord Mandelson, for helping our cause so much.
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Your posting has improved a bit over the simple "piracy is killing the industry" crap you were posting before, so for the sake of pointing out the fallacies in your post, I'll deign to reply.
> The OP claims that music and film industries are not using the
> new business model, hence their losses.
No, the OP makes no erroneous claims about losses, considering that the music and film industries (hereafter: BM - for Big Media, of course) are currently still posting profits, sometimes even record profits. The summary talks about "perceived losses", in other worlds, the losses that BM imagine that they have lost because they don't live in a magical, make-believe world where their customers:
> Can someone lay out this business model that would make them successful?
You are claiming that BM isn't successful? Personally I'd love to have the opportunity to pocket 0.1% of their profits or losses over the next 5 years. As a long-term investment, I'd advise looking elsewhere. Eventually, reality will catch up with them.