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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."
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.
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.
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'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.
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.
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.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
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.
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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?
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
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.
I am a free slashdotter. I will not be modded, blogged, DRM'd, patented, podcasted or RFID'd. My life is my own.
By "creative industries" they mean of course, "businesses that sell copies of other people's work and pay the creators a tiny portion."
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.
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