Aussie Government Brings Back Piracy Talks

joshgnosis writes "The Australian Attorney-General's department is set to hold a closed-door meeting with internet service providers, film lobby groups and consumer groups over proposals to reduce piracy on Thursday. The meetings were at a stalemate after sources said that neither the ISPs or the film groups could see eye to eye on the best proposal but the department confirmed that the meetings will go ahead and will this time include consumer advocate groups, who were previously excluded from the meetings."

Comments

Surprising

[multiben]

I didn't know Thursdays were particularly bad for piracy

Re:Surprising

[niftydude]

For some reason, many governments around the world have always had a specific and disproportionate dislike of the use of Piracy On Thursdays (or Pot).

Don't ask me why though.

Re:Surprising

[Centurix]

I could never get the hang of them.

What about the price of piracy enforcement

[GoodNewsJimDotCom]

Calculate both the price of piracy enforcement and the price of piracy honestly, and see which costs more.

You don't even need to calculate the benefits of a society with free access to all the works of man, where poor people have just as much access to culture as wealthy individuals. For if you start calculating the benefits for a society to have free educational books, and as much culture as it wants, a more educated populace far outweighs a kings ransom. You start getting into the realm of,"While we'd need to rework compensation, we can't discount that a better educated populace would have the ability to create superior works."

So yeah, there's untold wealth to be gained for limited copyrights, but lets just focus on the cost of piracy vs cost of enforcing piracy. The cost of enforcing piracy according to PIPA and SOPA is freedom of speech. Wait, you're saying we'll give away everything that matters to us just so a couple people could hold onto an antiquated profit model of limited distribution channels? Well I guess it isn't really calculating societal costs at all, but just making sure the select few continue to be catered to.

Re:What about the price of piracy enforcement

[Darkness404]

What really needs to happen is we, as a society, need to realize that intellectual "property" is not property at all and we should stop treating it as such. IP and property have nothing in common.

Re:What about the price of piracy enforcement

[CanEHdian]

Calculate both the price of piracy enforcement and the price of piracy honestly, and see which costs more.

But that's the whole dirty, nasty trick. It's totally irrelevant which costs more. The point is that the costs of piracy enforcement are assumed by the tax payer, not the beneficiaries. The call for an Intellectual Property tax is in part to offset these costs.

You don't even need to calculate the benefits of a society with free access to all the works of man, where poor people have just as much access to culture as wealthy individuals.

For sound recordings, the 'works of man' start to become interesting with the advent of the vinyl sound recording (and not many people appreciate mono recordings, stereo was introduced later). Can you guess how many vinyl LPs have passed into the public domain?

Re:What about the price of piracy enforcement

[bhlowe]

1. Monetary investment and man-hours go into making things--be they widgets, houses, software, photos, or movies.
2. Stealing physical property is "wrong" and usually "illegal".
3. Someone who invests in the creation of a product has some right to expect to be able to sell their works for a profit.
4. Massive downloading and viewing "pirated content" deprives the creators of some financial return.
5. This lost revenue could impact every aspect of the creative process--from salaries and jobs to taxes collected.
6. Governments, creators of content, and ultimately consumers have an interest in preventing mass piracy.

Re:What about the price of piracy enforcement

[tbird81]

3. Someone who invests in the creation of a product has some right to expect to be able to sell their works for a profit.

Not true at all. (Well, what you've said is techinically true, they have a right to expect profit, not to make a profit.)

If I go around making balls of dust from the vacuum cleaner bag, I don't have some entitlement to make money from that. Even if I worked really hard to make them, and even if I hired staff to help me make them. It's something no-one wants and it's something people can make themselves, so I'm not going to make money.

If I paint my fence outside my house, I can't expect people to have to pay to view it. Even though mucheffort went into it.

In short, there's no inherent reason why anyone should be paid for writing a song. There's some rules that governments have made to get these guys money - but now they've forgotten that, and they expect to earn millions for doing nothing.

Re:What about the price of piracy enforcement

[rtb61]

1. Normal people often do stuff for free and even pay for the privilege, be it sports, hiking, handicrafts, or making music or being in plays. Why should the community pay for some else's hobby?
2. Copying is not stealing it is copying. If you want no one to copy it 'shh' keep it a secret, we wont care.
3. No one is taking your work from you, you still have your copy and you can sell it.
4. We don't believe you about massive downloading, you always lie, always. You lie about the quality of your content. You lie about the value of your content. You pay off politicians to lie for you. You sell advertisements which most often are lies. You infected news which now sells lies as news. You are lying liars that always lie.
5. So what? Get a real productive job to subsidise your hobby just like everyone else. You lie about the taxes, yet another lie. Money not spent on your content will be spent elsewhere in the economy, often with far better social returns and, still generating taxes, liar.
6. Yet another lie. Consumers for a start would be far better off spending that money on better quality food for example rather than on dubious quality often anti-social content. Besides when do we have enough content, there is already more than any one person can consume in a life time. Why should an artificial creation of value continue when it supplies something we already have to an excess.
7. All your points are distorted PR=B$, lies for profit and greed. It is what you do. To further the 'USEFULL' arts and sciences, an 'ARTIFICIAL' opportunity to profit was created, when that work fails in that regard it is not entitled to that artificial monopoly, when that work is not 'TESTED' to ensure it meets that requirement it is not entitled to that artificial temporary monopoly.
8. You are your industry are not a benefit to the economy it is a parasite upon the economy, that can only be afforded when the economy produces as surplus. Right now global economies are tightening due to increasing population and depletion of resources, guess where that places you parasitical industry versus food, clothing, healthcare, transportation, education, energy production, potable water provision, heck you're even way below refuse disposal on the requirement scale.

Re:What about the price of piracy enforcement

[mcgrew]

Someone who invests in the creation of a product has some right to expect to be able to sell their works for a profit.

Yeah? Tell that to someone with an underwater mortgage, or who bought faceBook stock.

Massive downloading and viewing "pirated content" deprives the creators of some financial return.

Fallacious. When Lou and Randy in Britain want to see the latest Big Bang Theory and they pirate it because its simply isn't available there, how are they costing the producers any money? If they download a movie thay think might suck that they would never have paid for, how are the studios losing money? Especially if they're happily surprised that it doesn't suck and they buy a copy?

When Joe McDonalds cook and Suzie college kid who can't afford to buy a movie downlod one, how is the studio losing money?

The truth is, Hollywood keeps making these claims of loss with no proof whatever of veracity, and studies all show they're wrong. But keep the lies going, fellow.

What's worse, I buy my movies at WalMart but lately I;ve been thinking of simply going to TPB. Why? Because the pirate version is superior to the paid version! When I buy a DVD, I have to sit through often unskippable trailors (yeah, I REALLY want to be forced to watch commercials in a product I already paid for, you're making me pay TWICE you damned thieves), wait for a lame animated menu to stop animating, and hit "play" again, and then am assaulted with three separate unskippable piracy warnings when I'm not pirating in the fisrt damned place! If I start pirating, I just hit "play" with the mouse and the movie starts.

Listen up, Hollywood, if you want to keep me as a customer, you're going to have to make the paid for version at least equal to the pirate version. When I put the DVD in, start the god damned movie NOW you stupid fuckweeds! You can have your menu when the movie's done, with trailors as an option, not forced.

Piracy is rampant because the entertainment industry is run by idiots.

So let me guess...

[Darkness404]

So let me guess, media companies are going to complain about all the "lost" revenue due to "piracy" and completely ignore the fact most of the highest grossing films have been in the internet age....

Re:So let me guess...

[Lord_of_the_nerf]

They could also bring in the struggling artists, technicians and producers that piracy really hurts like James Cameron, Joel Silver and Joel Silver's coke dealer?

Re:So let me guess...

[Anonymous Coward]

At least you had the option to buy... in the arse end of the world, (Australia according to most media types) I have had literally no choice but to Pirate some shows as they were unavailable by any other means. I literally went to 3 shop,s and tried online to buy the TV series Felicity before giving up and heading to The Pirate Bay, where I had all 4 series available within 3 days. This was a few years ago so the situation may have changed, but they did loose $100+ of sales that day.

BTW Legend of the Seeker was another series incredibly difficult to buy here for a long time.

Dear Australian Government,

[Anonymous Coward]

Please tell the content providers to stop attempting to control my life.

If there was a reasonably priced method of getting my movie, music and gaming fix online, but without any kind of DRM, I would happily use it.

Without the channel for getting these items legally at a reasonable price online, I am left only with stupidly over priced CD/DVD/BlueRay (why is a BR so much more expensive than a DVD when production cost is almost the same?), paying a pay tv provider to watch ads, or piracy.

Without the channel being free of DRM, I am left only with piracy. If I have some new or innovative way to watch or use my music and movies (they are mine, I bought them), then I have to break the law to do so.

For now, I wait for the movie on TV where I use a PVR with ad skipping to watch it. I only listen JJJ for my music (No ads!), or purchase from something like bandcamp. I only buy the humble bundles for games.

Content providers - you do not control me. You have lost. Wake up and change, or go bankrupt.

Re:Dear Australian Government,

[balzi]

"then I have to break the law to do so."

I don't pirate because the people who created media have expressed their wishes quite clearly;
If I value it, then I'll pay the price they ask.

However, suggesting that you are forced to break the law is absurd. There is no real threat to your well-being by having the latest music/TV/movies/software. Even if you argued that your quality of life would suffer without your favourite show or game (a BIG stretch), there's plenty of other crap to choose from.

Do I think the typical media owner is driving people away with DRM measures? Absolutely.
Do I think there's a happy medium where everyone could be happy? Yep.
Do I feel entitled to anything? No.

This argument gets very heated, and from my armchair it makes both sides look like spoiled brats! You can continue for my [free] entertainment as long as you like. :)

Matt out.

Re:Dear Australian Government,

[xenobyte]

"then I have to break the law to do so."

I don't pirate because the people who created media have expressed their wishes quite clearly;
If I value it, then I'll pay the price they ask.

However, suggesting that you are forced to break the law is absurd. There is no real threat to your well-being by having the latest music/TV/movies/software. Even if you argued that your quality of life would suffer without your favourite show or game (a BIG stretch), there's plenty of other crap to choose from.

Excuse me, but... bullshit!

Why should I have to wait/live without while John Doe can get everything, just because he lives in a different place than me?

I have money in hand - I want to pay! But they don't want to sell.
I find it perfectly reasonable that if they refuse my money I'll just steal the stuff instead. After all, it's their choice that it is so.

Pointless talk fest(thankfully)

[Eskarel]

The Greens won't go along with anything they decide, the opposition will support anything the government tries to do when hell freezes over, and so no one has the numbers to do anything. Copyright issues barely even get a blip on the radar here so the government isn't going to expend a whole lot of energy on it. They'll talk about it, try to make the content people feel they care and then do nothing much at all.

Stop Consuming

[Anonymous Coward]

Consume only those works for which you can pay the artist directly, and absolutely ignore everything else.

If everybody followed that rule for a year, we could be rid of this backroom deal piracy enforcement nonsense.

Piracy is mayhem at sea.

[ColonelZen]

Can we *stop* calling unautorized use of information "piracy".

It rather by definition cedes criminal conduct when in many casesm however draconian laws are worded, proving criminality is way beyond plausible.

Most "piracy" is at a civil matter and usually of dubious merit, not murder, and theft on the high seas.

Call it what it usually is. Retrieving information without a license. Enjoying a film or song without having paid a corporation for the privilege.

-- TWZ

Re:Piracy is mayhem at sea.

[Mashiki]

Arrrrr.

Just remember the jackholes are trying to make it criminal instead of civil in a lot of countries. Arrrrr...now where's me swag and parrot-cat.

Oh good. I can't wait go.

[Sasayaki]

I'm an Australian author with two novels, seven short stories and a couple of other things under my belt (sequel's out, woot woot http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0080XLF2Q/). As a natural born citizen and rights holder, I'm sure that the people at this conference would love to hear my voice as a representative of local grown IP, especially one distributed digitally and therefore quite prone to copyright infringement. I look forward to being able to give my piece -- that, in summary, the best way to combat copyright infringement is to:

- Produce a better product than pirated copies (so DRM/FBI warning/copyright warning free)
- Which is easy to obtain (Amazon's 1-click buy process)
- With sufficient safety nets (7 day no questions asked return policy)
- Cheaply (my novels are $5, shorts $0.99)
- In a timely fashion all over the world (Australians are used to waiting 3-6 months for TV shows they can bittorrent the day they're broadcasted in the US)
- And with sufficient protection for derivatives and fan-works (a Creative Commons, CC-BY-SA-NC licenced universe bible is due out as soon as I apply the last of the polish and hit submit).
- Without alienating people who do pirate it anyway (some people, even if it's cheap, readily available, DRM free, timely, safe and reasonably free-as-in-freedom, will not pay and attempting to coerce those people into being customers is not only pointless but detrimental since it makes you look like an arse and writers trade based on their reputation)

I eagerly await my invitation to this discussion which I'm confident will not be dominated by direct representatives of Hollywood insisting we DRM the universe and filter all aspects of the Internet, all in the name of protecting foreign interests to the detriment of domestically produced IP.

Re:Oh good. I can't wait go.

[Sasayaki]

It's interesting, but that's what Amazon has. It actually really relies on what I wrote about purchasing being easy and cheap; to buy is easy, just a 1-click process, but to return you have to go to "My account" / "Manage my Kindle" / "Books" / Scroll down to the book in question / Click / Apply for refund / Enter refund reason / Click go.

For 99c, or $5, or whatever, it's just not worth it for some people. That said, there are a number of people on readers forums who boast that they've never paid for a book because they always just return it when they're done reading it, or return it then buy it again if they want to "keep" it for another 7 days.

I get probably 3-5 returns per 100 sales so I just don't really worry about them and I'm guessing Amazon isn't either, or they'd start tightening the return policy. The only main issue with a lot of returns is if you get a flood of returns all with the same reason ("copyright issues", "poor quality", "typos/editing issues", etc) you can get your book pulled for review.

Look at it this way. If you were at a cinema watching a movie and, at any point for 7 days after watching a film you could stand in line and fill in a short form to get an immediate refund... would you? And we're not talking about $13 or $14 here, it's $5. Or $0.99. Most people can't be bothered.

Some people will, some people will even if they make you fill in a mountain of paperwork, but they'd probably just pirate it anyway. I don't think the 7 day returns policy affects sales much and it's a definite selling point. "Try my book!" I say, "If you don't like it, 7 days, no questions asked return policy, even if you read the whole thing."

Wrong premise

[heretic108]

Framing the discussion as "piracy reduction" is long obsolete. Might as well call it a "reduce gas diffusing in a vacuum" conference.
They need to restart with a premise of "finding ways for content creators to be rewarded for their works". Then we might start getting some workable and relevant ideas.

Re:Irony

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, so you're the one pirating Aussie movies! Shame on you!

Re:Good Luck

[nedlohs]

And he claims it was an imposter looking just like him and using his phone.

ABOLISH COPYRIGHT

[barv]

Start out by halving the term of all existing & new copyright licences.

If, after a year that seems to be working, halve it again. Recursively.

Copyright is theft. And it is just not true that creative work would stop in the absence of copyright.

Motion picture companies make their money in theatres. DVDs etc are a trivial offshoot.
Musicians can make a living playing live. Recordings would be free or cost 99c from their website, (See Apple)
Artists could sell the original painting. Copies would be free advertising to make new works more valuable. Authors could make a living by publishing chapters on their website. Advertising would pay for their work. XKCD, Girl Genius, Questionable Content are proof that that is a workable model.

At the moment, the people who make the lion's share from copyright fees are the agents and distribution corporations. Not the artists.

There is a much better distribution model. Its called the internet. We must cut out the middle man.