UK ISPs To Pay 25% of Copyright Enforcement Costs

Andorin writes "The UK's Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has released a report (PDF) related to the new Digital Economy Act. The debate between copyright holders and ISPs about who should front the costs for the enforcement of the Act's anti-piracy provisions has come to a close: Rights holders will pay 75% of the copyright enforcement costs, with the remaining 25% of the bill going to ISPs (and therefore their customers). Says the Minister for Communications, Ed Vaizey: 'Protecting our valuable creative industries, which have already suffered significant losses as a result of people sharing digital content without paying for it, is at the heart of these measures... We expect the measures will benefit our creative economy by some £200m per year and as rights holders are the main beneficiaries of the system, we believe our decision on costs is proportionate to everyone involved.' Not surprisingly, some ISPs and consumer groups are up in arms about the decision, with one ISP calling it a government subsidy of the entertainment industries."

Comments

Thank you for legitimizing bittorrenting

[Anonymous Coward]

This cost will get passed on to the ISP's customers. Everyone with broadband will be required to subsidize the entertainment industry as it pretends to die from losses to piracy while reporting massive profits. If they're forcing me to compensate them for losses based on arbitrary made-up amounts for 'imaginary' lost sales then I will force them to compensate me by giving me free movies & tv shows based on my arbitrarily assigned figures for its value. I think a 2500th of it's retail price (as they like that figure and use it to calculate lawsuit settlements) is fair. I'll be more than happy to bittorrent the equivalent value with my broadband connection.

Re:Thank you for legitimizing bittorrenting

[Dancindan84]

Canada has a blank media levy (from the 80s era of mix tapes I believe, but that's not explained in this article) that a judge ruled gives us carte blanche to download (but not upload) music to burn to those media. Maybe the *IAA pushing for levies will backfire on them.

Re:Thank you for legitimizing bittorrenting

[dubbreak]

.. the entertainment industry as it pretends to die from losses to piracy while reporting massive profits.

Last time I checked they also pretend to not make any money. They may report huge gross income and brag about biggest box office sales ever, but somehow they never make a net profit (even before the days of internet piracy).

Good thing we have all these philanthropists funding the movie industry, because between piracy and films just not being profitable all the big film companies would collapse under a mountain of debt!

Re:Thank you for legitimizing bittorrenting

[nacturation]

Last time I checked they also pretend to not make any money. They may report huge gross income and brag about biggest box office sales ever, but somehow they never make a net profit (even before the days of internet piracy).

Yeah, it's too bad that Titanic, which cost $200M to make and grossed over $2B worldwide ended up losing $200M. A shame indeed.

Re:Thank you for legitimizing bittorrenting

[denis-The-menace]

Not if they use reverse "Hollywood Accounting".

That way they ISP will be paying WAY MORE than the 25%.

Re:Thank you for legitimizing bittorrenting

[Joce640k]

I hope the ISPs bill the monitoring of users at 25% of the cost of enforcement, therefore paying nothing to the RIAA.

Even better, bill it at 50% and ask the RIAA to make up the difference. The RIAA uses the same sort of accounting on artists so it's only fair....

Re:Thank you for legitimizing bittorrenting

[sqldr]

It's the wrong way round. The entertainment industry should fund my internet costs for all the shitty adverts they keep stuffing down my internet connection.

Re:Thank you for legitimizing bittorrenting

[S.O.B.]

It doesn't matter that it's 25% paid for by the ISP and 75% by the content owners it will eventually be 100% passed on to the consumer.

Eh...

[Pojut]

They instead should have figured it based on how likely the Act would have come into law had the copyright holders not lobbied.

If the answer is "not likely at all", then the copyright holders should foot the bill.

Re:Eh...

[Pojut]

How do you figure? It's something that directly impacts the ability of ISPs to provide customers with the same quality of service for the same cost...while NOT enacting the Act wouldn't affect the ISPs in any way.

This is purely being done in the copyright holders' interest, with zero positive effect for the public or ISPs. Why should one company have to either increase the cost to their customers or reduce their own bottom line because another company had the means to buy a law?

Re:Eh...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Copyright holders probably didn't lobby for anything. It's usually those "organizations that represent the interests of copyright holders" that are involved with the government.

What do UKers think?

[Dyinobal]

'Protecting our valuable creative industries, which have already suffered significant losses as a result of people sharing digital content without paying for it, is at the heart of these measures... We expect the measures will benefit our creative economy by some £200m per year and as rights holders are the main beneficiaries of the system, we believe our decision on costs is proportionate to everyone involved.'

Wow this quote is gold, I am curious how those of the UK will react. Seems a load of tripe to me.

Re:What do UKers think?

[TheRaven64]

This quote was the one I found particularly offensive:

The Government is indirectly subsidizing the Creative industry by taxing the internet industry and giving the taxes to Rights Holders

No they aren't. As a member of Britain's creative industry, and someone who has been a 'victim' of copyright infringement, I doubt I will see a penny of this money. It is a subsidy on the litigation industry, not the creative industry. Those of us who actually do create things are more worried about turning potential customers into real customers than suing people.

Re:What do UKers think?

[TooMuchToDo]

How can we become your customer (I'm a fan of putting my money where my mouth is)?

Re:What do UKers think?

[eudaemon]

So you don't mind if we restore copyright to something 10-15 years, then, since the likelyhood your getting paid is almost nil in any case?

Re:What do UKers think?

[MoonBuggy]

Those of us who actually do create things are more worried about turning potential customers into real customers than suing people.

I feel like this should be shouted from the rooftops.

It's getting depressing the amount of time, money and effort the government is spending in the vain hope of protecting some special interest groups who generally speak for a tiny minority of the creative industry. What's worse is the amount of collateral damage in the form of both technical and legal measures that can be used to infringe on our freedom to speak.

Copying someone's hard work without paying for it is a dick move. Restricting said work with onerous DRM so that it's not possible to pay for a copy that can be used as one wants, or taking my money on the assumption that I'm infringing your copyright, or crippling the connection between my PC and monitor, or trying works up in copyrights so long that we'll never see them made public in our lifetimes, or tracking my online behaviour, or any number of other moves made by the entertainment industry lobby, is such colossal asshattery that the initial act of infringement pales in comparison.

Re:What do UKers think?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually 10-15 years is just fine. Most sales tend to be in the first 1-2 years of release anyway for the vast majority of things. Copyright isn't suppose to be about making sure your kids get an old age pension off some tripe you scribbled off one day.

Re:What do UKers think?

[Anonymous Coward]

As a member of Britain's creative industry

If you're not a "Rights Holder", you're nobody. If you merely produce "creative" things but hand over the rights to someone else, you're no more part of the creative industry than a lettuce-farmer is part of the fast-food industry.

Re:What do UKers think?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not the kids though it is. It's the corporations that buy the "rights" to become the "rights holders", and get perpetual income from works. Yes, copyright does have a limit, but we all know when that gets nearer, it'll be bumped up again. Each year we should be getting a new bundle of out of copyright works coming into the public domain, reality is we get nothing.

Elvis died in 1977 IIRC, John Lennon three years later. All their works are under copyright and will be long after my death. Why? They're not creating anything, and not performing. Why should their works still be locked away 30 years after their death?

Re:What do UKers think?

[delt0r]

This is depressingly insightful. It has never been about the artists. Or they would be permitted to be independent.

Re:What do UKers think?

[Mordok-DestroyerOfWo]

You're exactly right! Boy back in high school when I was in my band that's all I could think about...how my great grandkids wouldn't have to work if I could just get famous!

Re:What do UKers think?

[schon]

fewer people would go into the music business if they had no way of providing for their loved ones if they died an untimely death.

Yup, just like fewer people would go into the janitorial business if they had no way of providing for their loved ones if they died an untimely death.

Or fewer people would go into the plumbing business if they had no way of providing for their loved ones if they died an untimely death.

Or fewer people would go into the lawyer business if they had no way of providing for their loved ones if they died an untimely death.

So - if people won't go into "X" business unless they can guarantee they'll get paid for years after they're dead, how does anything get done?

Re:What do UKers think?

[TheRaven64]

10 years would be fine. My sales drop to close to zero after 3 years, so I doubt it would affect me much, other than by giving my publisher an incentive to commission new stuff more frequently.

This, by the way, is exactly what the Gowers report, commissioned by the last UK government, recommended. Labour extended copyright terms shortly after reading this report. Apparently we're getting more of the same from the ConDems.

Re:What do UKers think?

[TheRaven64]

You could buy something from this page, if you can find something that you find interesting.

I've not tried for a while, but Google used to return a pirate download site as the first hit when you searched for my Xen book's title. Some asshat also decided to post a copy of the PDF version to the Xen Devel mailing list a while ago. I don't encourage piracy, but I don't see the point in doing anything that harms legitimate customers in an attempt to reduce it, which is why I added a clause to the contracts for all of the books that I've written (the third one's due out later this year) forbidding the use of DRM in the eBook editions.

I recently talked to a guy in India who pirated my second book. His family's income for a week is about the cover price (he's using it to learn GNUstep - he can't afford a Mac either) so I've clearly not lost anything from his piracy - he couldn't have afforded it anyway, and he wrote a positive review of it so I might have got some sales out of that.

Re:What do UKers think?

[mcgrew]

As a copyright holder I wouldn't object to a twenty year term (and I have two registered copyrights that would have expired if that were the case), but I object vehemently against the insane lengths of today's copyrights. Having a copyright last longer than a human life hinders and harms creativity. Like science and technology, art is built on what has come before. Imagine how badly technological innovation would be stifled if patents lasted as long as copyrights? These insane lengths help nobody but corporations.

Cory Doctorow credits the fact that anyone can read his books for free, whether hardcover from the library of downloaded from his website, for his status as a New York Times best seller. Nobody has ever been shown to have lost any real money to copyright infringement, but many have been greatly harmed by obscurity.

Ten years is a little short; I wrote a series of journals back in 2003-2005 that I'm just now getting into book form. But OTOH I'm using the CC license; any noncommercial use is OK with me, and I'll thank anyone for uploading or downloading or torrenting or sharing in any other way. Like I saw on an indie music DC, "Be kind and burn a copy for a friend."

Anybody who doesn't want anyone to see his work until it's paid for probably isn't very good.

Re:What do UKers think?

[TheRaven64]

See: RIAA, MPAA, writer's guild,

None of these are producing copyrighted works, they are organisations of lawyers representing the publishers who won't adapt. My publisher is happy to change their business model (see: Safari Books Online, InformIT) when they think it can make them more money. The RIAA and MPAA (and writer's guild, although to a lesser extent) are groups of lawyers who would rather change the world than change themselves.

Richard Stallman and his freakish infectious copyright ideals.

I don't really disagree with Stallman - I've signed a copyright assignment with the FSF for the GNUstep stuff I've done and my (second) Objective-C runtime is a GNU project. Stallman's ideas are quite simple - creating is harder more valuable than copying, so that is what should be financially rewarded. The copyright system exists so that you can do the hard bit (creating something original) for free and then get people to pay you for doing the easy bit (creating copies of it).

Re:What do UKers think?

[Nadaka]

Lucky you.

When I was at walmart I earned ~$1000 a month.

rent on a 1 bedroom next to a crackhouse? ~$500.
Utility cost in a poorly insulated rat trap? ~$300.
We are talking about a low density area (Mississippi), car required: ~$300 (assuming insurance + gas + either a low note or regular lemon repair costs).
Now you have to eat? wait, you are already 100 dollars in the hole...
So we also sell our blood plasma for an extra $300, now you can afford ramen noodles and peanut butter for special occasions.

God forbid you have any kids, need to buy clothes/furniture, date a girl, stimulate your mind or go to a doctor.

The only way to make a living on a wal-mart salary is if you are lucky enough to be in walking distance from wal-mart and have a home that is already bought and paid for, or if you can split expenses 3+ ways with other people working similar jobs. Splitting the costs 2 ways won't even really cut it because even if you skimp on entertainment and only shop at goodwill, you still won't be able to save for either inevitable emergencies or for the future.

Re:What do UKers think?

[mcgrew]

Why should there be a time limit when someone is no longer entitled to the fruits of their labor?

Because the author does NOT own the work, at least in the US. If you're an American citizen PLEASE read the constitution. It grants a limited time monopoly to encourage more creativity, NOT ownership of the work. Intellectual Property belongs to the people, not the "content creator".

I suppose you'd like people to pay the hundred dollars that you used to have to pay for paroxetine when it was till under patent (Paxil), rather than the ten you pay today? The construction worker doesn't get paid for the next hundred years for the house he built today, why should a filmmaker or band or novelist? A patent only lasts twenty years, why should a copyright last longer?

The greed is on the part of the people who want to be paid forever for work that took a limited time to produce.

It should go both ways.

[Zeek40]

If they're being forced to foot the bill to protect the Right's Holders interests, ISP's should start getting 25% of the profit the Rights Holder's make from those Interests.

Re:It should go both ways.

[pacinpm]

Profit? What profit? Didn't you hear pirates take it all? And there is always Hollywood accounting after all.

Hmm..... interesting

[mark-t]

So does that mean that if someone is copyright holder that hasn't had any issues with trying to enforce their copyright, they can claim some sort of tax benefit to receive a portion of that 25%?

Flag in front of cars

[commodore64_love]

In other news, the UK Parliament passed a law requiring car owners to have a flag bearer walk in front of cars. The Minister of Roads claimed it was to protect the safety of pedestrians, but critics say the law is to protect the locomotive industry.

This new 25% Law is equally preposterous/bullshit
.

interesting...

[Essequemodeia]

So the people who pirate are forcing the ones who don't to help rights holders regain a portion of revenue that would otherwise be lost to them. Looks like media companies are attacking pirates socially rather than financially.

Re:interesting...

[mcgrew]

So the people who pirate are forcing the ones who don't to help rights holders regain a portion of revenue that would otherwise be lost to them.

Nobody has ever been shown to have lost a penny to piracy, but studies show that music pirates spend more money on music than non-pirates. There is no revenue lost to piracy. Most people have a limited amount of money. If a broke college kid pirates a $900 image editor, the publisher didn't lose any money because the kid didn't have the money to spend in the first place. In fact, it might result in a sale of that program down the road, because college pirate is now employed and is likely to buy the later, updated version of the software rather than the competitor's because that's what he's used to and comfortable with.

If he hears a song he likes on the radio and shells out $20 for the CD, only to find that there's only one good song on it, he's going to stop buying CDs from that artist and maybe even that publisher. In that case, a sale has resulted in lost sales.

If he spends $20 on two indie CDs, that's $20 he doesn't have to spend on one RIAA CD, and the label has indeed lost a sale -- but not to piracy.

There is one instance where piracy can hurt sales, and that's when the content is crap. If a crappy movie gets on the net before it's released, people will find out it's crap and not go see it.

Piracy only hurts crap. It helps good content. The people who pushed for this law are selling crap.

Re:taxation without representation

[commodore64_love]

Corporations should have zero rights. The people INSIDE the corp has all the various right due a human being, but a corporation should have no more rights than a rock or tree or cow.

In related news...

[slapout]

UK ISPs To Pass 25% of Copyright Enforcement Costs To Customers

It's only fair...

[thestudio_bob]

It's only fair that if you are "subsidizing" an industry because of claims of "lost profit", then said company should open up their books so the public can see what losses they are talking about. And I guarantee that ain't going to happen.

Shooting the messenger

[southpolesammy]

Would you penalize those that build highways for giving road racers the smooth and long pavement on which to drive recklessly? It's not their fault that people choose to break the law (or in this case, violate copyright).

I don't see how it's the responsbility of the providers to be liable for their customers use or abuse. That smacks big time of collusion in politics. Who in the UK parliament is supporting this bill?

Re:Good

[click2005]

Most of the public wont hear about it. The companies that lobbied to get this Act passed are
very closely connected to the companies that show most of the people their news & current events.
Filesharing in the media is almost always shown in a bad way and they never mention it's legal uses.

Re:Good

[Ironhandx]

Not really, the public accepted this tax in Canada because the way it is done the 10% surcharge basically gives us free license to pirate anything we want without having to worry about it. They can only really successfully prosecute in Canada nowadays if you made money off of your piracy. There is a legal situation where if you are the originator of a file that could be considered to be damaging to the company that you can get charged but basically as long as you're not the originator you're fine.

Re:taxation without representation

[betterunixthanunix]

However, corporations should not have rights, even if they do. A corporation is not a person, and should not be treated like a person.

Let's get our definitions right

[serutan]

By "creative industries" they mean of course, "businesses that sell copies of other people's work and pay the creators a tiny portion."

Yet another lawyerism tax

[Drakkenmensch]

... that will subsidize artists who are convinced that there is no link between poor sales and their complete lack of talent.

Re:taxation without representation

[tibman]

I think the individuals in the corp should go to jail for an aggregate total of punished time. But the division of how long each person stays in jail is based upon pay, benefits, bonus, and responsibility.

So if someone in the next fuctional area got someone killed, i wouldn't have to be in jail with them. But if i was in their department, my jailtime would be based on my position within that department. The department head would carry the brunt of the punishment, or the CEO/directors if it was policy being implimented by the dept.

I don't think this system would work with fines or death penalties though.

Argh!

[turgid]

I'm one of these sad people who doesn't (knowingly) infringe copyright on purpose. I'm a UK citizen and I respect copyright laws since they allow things like the GPL to operate and I make a reasonable living working for large companies that use Free and Open Source software in commercial products.

I'm not interested in "pirating" all of this main-stream music, TV and cinema. Life's too short to spend it ingesting drivel. I utterly resent having to pay for it just in case I might decide to "steal" some of it. I am selective about what I give my attention to and I like to obtain it fairly.

I like to support my favourite bands. I buy their CDs (and I break English law when I rip them and FLAC them for personal use) and I go to their shows. My wife and I spend hundreds of pounds a year going to see our favourite bands (including tickets, travel, food and drink, t-shirts). None of these are top-40 acts, by the way. The last lot we saw were Voivod when they played in Nottingham. This year we have also seen Les Claypool and Slayer.

I don't go to the cinema. There's nothing on. It's all aimed at retarded 7-year-olds. I don't "bit torrent" any films. We buy anything we do want to see (and keep) on DVD, including good TV programmes like Frasier, Father Ted etc.

We don't do ebooks. They are an abomination. Books are to be printed on paper and read.

I do "bit torrent" my Operating Systems and they are "copyright" (sic) i.e. copyrighted: but I'm not stealing since they are licensed under Free and Open Source terms and conditions.

If people want to earn money, they'd better jolly well produce something of value that people are willing to pay for. Hollywood cinema and manufactured pop music ain't it.

Any ISP...

[fluch]

Any ISP who will forward me any such kind of harassment letter will get from me a reply which will tell them that the allegations are completely unjustified (and that I want to see any proofs of them supporting their allegations). I will warn them that if they continue to harass me, that I will with out further notice cancel my contract with them and move to an other ISP. If I receive another letter I will cancel my contract without any further warning. If they refuse to accept my cancellation I will sue them for harassment and I doubt that they will have any evidence whatsoever that I did anything wrong. So they will lose in court (and meanwhile I do have other means to get to the internet if things really go bad)...