UK "Creative Industries" Call For File-Sharers Ban 211
siloko writes "An alliance of so-called 'Creative Industries,' including the UK Film Council, have signed a joint statement asking the UK government to force ISPs into banning users caught sharing illegally. In an 'unprecedented joint statement,' the alliance predicted a 'lawless free-for-all' unless the government ensured the 'safe and secure delivery of legal content.' The previous tactic of pursuing individual file-sharers in the courts appear to have been abandoned. 'Instead, [the government] should provide enabling legislation, for the specific measures to be identified and implemented in an Industry Code of Practice,' it recommends. One wonders how they remain 'creative' in their vocation when they keep on trotting out the same old story backed up by imaginary statistics (they claim 50% of net traffic in the UK is illegal content but provide no evidence for this figure). The BBC also has a blog entry dissecting their statement."
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Future the Internet (Score:5, Insightful)
£112 bn lost? (Score:5, Insightful)
Money doesn't just disappear like that. If a file-sharer doesn't buy media and downloads it instead, they have more money to go see a movie, or have a nice meal at a restaurant - whatever. The money is still used in the economy, just not in same industry as media.
To suggest that filesharers are causing an 8% drop in GDP is idiotic, as well as the 50% of all traffic is illegal. And they want to ban illegal filesharers? Ok, lets ban half the population of the UK from surfing the net, or more!
Let's see how your sales drop after that pal.
In other suprising news... (Score:2, Insightful)
An alliance of car thieves are calling for legislation to force people to leave their keys in their car.
While I agree that it's important to keep up with such stories, can't we just wrap up all twenty or so of these in a 'This Week (or Today) in Intellectual Property'. For the sake of poster's time, I'd suggest an auto submit with the twenty or so most popular comments.
Damn it to hell! (Score:3, Insightful)
The banning of people from ISPs without due process of law (i.e. a hearing in the courts) is the antithesis of a democratic Republic. It is a nullification of human rights philosophy. It is the return of a class system where Monarchs and Nobility rule by default in the United Kingdom.
Bravo conservatives! If you succeed, you will have wrestled control away from the people. It took 200 years but you finally succeeded in turning the people back into mere commoners, to be declared "guilty" with a mere flick of a noble parliamentarian's effeminate wrist. No jury by your peers. No defense of liberty.
The Wild West is already here (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't the Internet a "lawless free-for-all" anyway? On one hand, you have commerce sites like Amazon and Newegg, news sites like the New York Times et al, government sites, and so on. On the other, though, you have plenty of sites out there -- and plenty of people -- who are basically outlaws. But for all that, the Internet works. If this "alliance of creative industries" doesn't want to play ball, they should yank out their LAN cables [slashdot.org] and go home.
You know, it's interesting... (Score:5, Insightful)
Over the past decade or so, I've watched companies freak out over source code becoming more and more available to the recipients of software. First it was Java and how "easy" it was to decompile. Then it was HTML/Javascript and how easy it was for someone to steal unobfuscated code. Nowadays, practically every bit of compiled code is easy to reverse.
Invariably, this caused managers to attempt to buy into bizarre technical solutions to "protect" their investments. Which was ridiculous. The correct hammer to use was a legal one. If someone stole your code and tried to hide it (which isn't easy to do successfully, as the GPL violators can testify), the correct hammer is a legal one. It's much easier to legally go after someone dumb enough to steal code rather than running around like chicken little trying to protect something that's inherently unprotectable.
Fast forward to today, where the core concern is content and the theft thereof. Again, the industry tried the technological hammer (DRM) and predictably failed. Now they're trying the legal hammer. Which is only partially a correct tool to use. Yes, feel free to root out the pirate organizations. But for the vast majority of the users, the real solution is proper paid access to the content.
I remember when MP3s first came into existence. I said then, "The music companies should sell their music online. That would prevent people from illegally distributing MP3s." As expected, the music industry was not going to go that direction. What happened? Well, the market found what it wanted: Napster. And the music industry lost BIG TIME. A service like Napster with fees for song downloads could have been huge. But instead, the industry allowed the public to get a taste of the "free" mentality.
Even so, it's still possible to reverse the effects. (To some degree.) The correct solution is to continue embracing digital distribution. Offer a fair product at a fair price and people will pay for it. For the vast majority of users, their time is worth more than tooling around trying to find the content they're interested in. But as long as companies make it worth more to run through virus-laden torrent sites than to download off of their websites or iTunes, then consumers will go for the virus-laden torrent sites.
Welcome to the new competition media industry. For the first time ever, you have to compete. And guess what? You're competing against yourselves. ;-)
four words. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Um (Score:3, Insightful)
That doesn't mean much. In the United States a directive (such as "medical marijuana is illegal") forces all the states to fall into line, but in the EU the concept of "States Rights" is still alive and well. Individual member states may ignore EU directives if they desire.
That's why the French Legislature pushed for a three-strike law in direct defiance of the central EU government, and now it appears the UK is heading down the same path. What's the EU going to do? Send a strongly-worded letter? ;-)
The British have a history of doing this (Score:5, Insightful)
In the 19th century the invention of the automobile was delayed by restrictive legislation [wikipedia.org] in Britain. File sharing may well be the future if the internet, I agree with you in that, but a legislation that tries to freeze the past could delay considerably the progress.
Re:112 bn lost? (Score:4, Insightful)
To suggest that filesharers are causing an 8% drop in GDP is idiotic, as well as the 50% of all traffic is illegal. And they want to ban illegal filesharers? Ok, lets ban half the population of the UK from surfing the net, or more!
Their argument is self-defeating. If 50% of people are really file-sharing, and they want all those people banned from using the Internet... well, just imagine what would happen to the economy if 50% of Internet-users were forced to stop using the Internet. These are people who are supporting numerous businesses with their web browsing (e.g. ads), purchasing products online, running their own businesses using the Internet, etc. Imagine the number of lost sales, the number of jobs lost, the number of small-business bankruptcies... (Not to mention other economic disruptions: e.g. people less productive at work because they can't web-browse at home; the creation of a black-market for net access.)
The UK GDP would take a far greater hit from 50% of their net-using population being forced off the net than it does from the same 50% illegally sharing some content.
Re:In other suprising news... (Score:1, Insightful)
They don't care about money being spent elsewhere. They just want money to be spent on their product, payable directly to them.
Fsck the economy, they want a huge dividend.
Re:£112 bn lost? (Score:5, Insightful)
The multiplier effect would still occur in the alternative products and services people purchase with the money they don't spend on music / movies.
Really, this is more of a Broken window fallacy [wikipedia.org]. The idea that people not spending money on the music industry is costing society is flawed, because people are free to spend that money in other markets which thereby benefit.
The 'broken window' in this case is the music industry - they claim that breaking the window (forcing people to buy CDs) is good for society because it keeps a window repairsman (music executive) in a job.
In fact, society is less efficient because it has incurred a cost in a non-productive asset that could have otherwise been spent on something else, possibly something that adds to society's productive capacity thereby increasing maximum GDP.
A music executive in no way contributes to society's productive capacity, so money spent on the music executive is a purely consumption expenditure and is not beneficial to society in terms of GDP at large at all.
In summary, if these idiots truly cared about the productive capacity of society (which is what GDP measures), then they should fire themselves and all the media / music executives, because they divert resources away from spending which would increase productive capacity. Until such time as they do that, they should feel free to eat a bag of hell.
Re:£112 bn lost? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're going to convince me you need a better explanation than "multiplier effect". The grandparent poster's argument makes a lot of sense to me. If I'm not spending $1000 a year on CDs, then I'm spending that $1000 on something else like a new computer or new bigscreen TV or buying stock for my IRA. So it's basically a displacement of jobs from one group (music suits) to another group. There's no loss overall.
Using the classic whipmaker example, yes they lost their jobs when cars took-over from horses, but a bunch of other unemployed guys got jobs making steering wheels. There was no net loss overall. It was just a shift.
The problem is that the music suits at MCA, RCA, et cetera don't want the shift to happen. They don't want me to transfer my $1000 a year expenditure on CDs to some other article like videogames. They are Luddites trying to sabotage a technology shift.
It just doesn't make sense (Score:2, Insightful)
They are artists, creative people. They should be in the forefront of the development of human culture. Then they base their business model on certain technological limitations. That is bad in the first place, but then, when the limitations are overcome, they try to force the limitations back, just so they won't have to adapt to a new reality. That's not very artistic. With that kind of attitude, I'm not sure I want their stuff, for free or not. Then again, I hope very few actual artists think in this way. I guess it is the industry people, who are very rich and conservative, and want to stay rich and conservative.
One Path: I2P & Similar (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobles, Romans, Geeks, lend me your ears. This is not going away. They will not stop, no matter how many times they are proven wrong. No matter how many times they are slapped down by the courts. They will keep coming at us, and they will never stop. They have a lot of money, and they think they have it all to lose. The only solution is to disappear.
Start working on your darknet, today. The only way out is to become invisible.
There are others, and I think this one shows promise:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I2P [wikipedia.org]
I am not advocating copyright infringement. I don't think you should use a darknet to break the law. But you absolutely should do what you can to make your Internet behavior inscrutable. It is none of their business, but they will keep monitoring you, and finding new things you are doing to outlaw, until they own you, or you disappear.
This, copyright infringement, is only one tiny piece. It is not the only field in which you are being watched, and it is far from the most dangerous one. The only way to protect free speech and free association is to make your speech and association impossible to observe.
Now go, and actively engage in the hard work of being free.
Re:£112 bn lost? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:If everybody breaks the law ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Conspiracy theory? Conspiracy implies secrecy, and I implied no such thing.
The difference with the current situation is that you are wrong - they honestly have no clue as to how shitty the situation is. Most politicians (especially in the UK) live in a completely different universe from us. They've been training to be politicians all their lives, and know nothing else - not work, not wider society, not technology - nothing but politics. Their entire worldview is formed by focus groups, comprising largely of the middle-aged and middle class. See the works of Adam Curtis and Peter Oborne for more on that.
Gordon Brown, for instance, has such a pitifully unpolished public persona that if he were insincere about his beliefs it would be obvious to everybody. The current financial crisis caught them flat footed for this very reason - until it happened he and the rest of the Labour leadership were loudly parroting the neoliberal line as if it were handed to them on stone tablets by God himself (well, Margaret Thatcher, which is much the same as far as New Labour are concerned sadly).
There is a very deep philosophical belief in the perfection, and more terribly the finality, of the western, neoliberal system of government. Its failure in the one area it claims total expertise - the economy - hasn't even dislodged it completely. After a brief, nostalgic flirtation with Keynesianism they will blink and return to their established 'utopia', using all their power to ensure its continuation regardless of results.
They are oblivious, fanatical, and ruthless. A bizarre and dangerous combination.
Enabling Act? (Score:3, Insightful)
Any time there is a call for:
enabling legislation,
it always seems to turn out like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_Act_of_1933 [wikipedia.org]
My Anecdote Can Beat Your Anecdote (Score:5, Insightful)
I know lots of people that pirate, and when they find something they like, they buy it.
And I know plenty of people, and many sub-people, who pirate with no intention of ever buying it. They collect digital files of music they don't like, books they can't read, even pictures they don't understand, all for purposes of uploading them to thousands of strangers for the odd reason that it makes their dick grow to be such a big "contributor" to the "community"
Re:Um (Score:2, Insightful)
What's the EU going to do? Send a strongly-worded letter? ;-)
Overturn [eurocare.org] the [guardian.co.uk] ruling [huliq.com]
Re:The Wild West is already here (Score:3, Insightful)
These are huge companies. They could offer better speeds and better quality than torrent sites and still maintain a low enough price to be enticing. They can afford mainstream advertising to bring in lots of customers. They can offer more features and better ease of use than a torrent site.
They could use the BT protocol to save on bandwidth costs. Offer both one-off-payment single movie downloads and subscriptions to all movies. Have an optional embedded player for the technologically retarded but allow downloads of individual files. Lay off the DRM, offer the service worldwide and lose the geographical restrictions. The competition doesn't have those limitations.
Where is all this stuff? They've had the means for years and they still haven't done it. My dad actually askes me where he can go online and buy a movie to watch when he feels like it; where can he? It's just not there.
Re:£112 bn lost? (Score:3, Insightful)
OTOH, if I pay for services and content that I can get for free then *I* am losing money. Guess who is more important for me, myself or some anonymous person?
By stimulating other parts of the economy I'm contributing to get the creative artists free of the worst kind of parasites that are leeching them off: media industry executives.
Re:My Anecdote Can Beat Your Anecdote (Score:3, Insightful)
>They collect digital files of music they don't like, books they can't read, even pictures they don't understand, all for purposes of uploading them to thousands of strangers for the odd reason that it makes their dick grow to be such a big "contributor" to the "community"
There's nothing some people won't stoop to. Even, according to you - altruism!
Bah ... humanity.
Re:Um (Score:4, Insightful)
IMHO it should *all* be legal, so long as you limit its use to your own house. If I'm sitting here watching Simpsons, what does it matter if I shoot-up? I'm not harming anyone but myself, therefore it is NONE of the government's business.
Now if I leave my home, then yes, I should be arrested. If I'm behind the wheel of a car, then it's DUI.
Re:My Anecdote Can Beat Your Anecdote (Score:3, Insightful)
So basically they're using their internet connection to improve the availability of public domain material, for the benefit of the their fellow man? That sounds very laudable, and greatly in line with the intent of the public domain, freely shared for all to use.
OK, so it's not material back in the public domain yet. But since the copyright industry has decided they're going to unilaterally rewrite the length of their copyright term after the works were created (and get legislators to go along with it by bribery), I have no moral problem whatsoever with rewriting it to be much shorter instead.
Re:The Wild West is already here (Score:3, Insightful)
I, for one, would love to see a music text from 100 years from now to see what they say about what we have produced. I feel like the content industry has so sucked the life out of our works of art both by their influence on the artists and by their fiddling with copyright laws that we just won't exist in the history of art. As much technical prowess as we would be able to boast in history, it is a sad, sad thing that we have let and are letting the companies erase our culture.
Re:The only "creativity" here is legal... (Score:3, Insightful)
Prick.
Maybe when you're old enough, you'll realise that they are all as bad as each other. The only alternative is "none of the above" except we don't have that option, so just don't vote. Under a certain percentage, they don't have a mandate.