Filesharing: some accusations and some answers
With typical Whitehall understatement, I think we can say there has been a lively reaction to the announcement on Tuesday about further proposals to tackle unlawful peer-to-peer filesharing. We thought it was worth countering a few of the more strident accusations against the Government over the past couple of days, and have picked out some below. We’re sure this won’t end the argument, but here are six popular arguments against the policy, with a short reply each time.
1. You’ve abandoned Digital Britain
It would be nice if the policies we set out in the Digital Britain Report were so widely accepted that people considered them immutable, but this certainly isn’t true.
We were consulting on the package set out in Digital Britain and have added further proposals as the result of further consideration. The core proposals – notification of those who seem to be breaching copyright, with a sanction of technical measures if that is not working, remain in place.
2. This is all about David Geffen and the music industry influencing the debate.
No discussion took place with David Geffen about Digital Britain. Peter Mandelson has said he doesn’t even think the issue is on Geffen’s radar.
As for other industry bodies, of course the Business Secretary meets and listens to businesses all the time. But these proposals come after a great deal of discussion and analysis – as we listened to people’s views and considered the consultation responses that we’ve already received, it simply became clear to us that we needed to add more ideas to the discussion for people to consider. That is what we did on Tuesday.
3. You’re criminalising a generation of people
4. People like filesharing and we should not be trying to turn back the clock.
The Government agrees with this. Enforcement is not enough. Legitimate online music products need to become available – and many are – but if unlawful sharing is widespread it is difficult to see how they can really take hold. It’s not about going back to the days of expensive CDs.
5. It’s all illegal under European law
We believe what we are doing complies with national and EU law but obviously if the law in Europe changes, then we will need to make sure what we do is compliant. Amendment 138 has been mentioned a lot, but in fact it has not been adopted (by the EC); although it is set for conciliation in the autumn.
6. The law can’t be enforced
The identification process will need to be as robust as possible and we expect the lessons from the MOU to help develop this. However we realise that it is possible for mistakes to occur or for people to have their wireless connection hi-jacked. We will set up an appeals mechanism so that the consumer has an easy appeals route at each stage.
For technical measures (including possible account suspension), it is even more important to have an independent quick and easy route of appeal given the impact imposing such measures might have. We will be paying close attention to developments in Brussels but at the moment we envisage a tribunal system to which a consumer would have recourse before imposition of any technical measure.
*Updated to correct earlier error – thanks to Crosbie Fitch for the comment.
well gee, now I’m convinced.
What evidence will be needed to prove that a customer has illegally downloaded something?
Bearing in mind the widely documented flaws in all evidence that has ever been used.
Also, how will you stop malicious use of this system?
“No discussion took place with David Geffen about Digital Britain.” is not the question I’ve heard on people’s lips, it’s whether a discussion about ways to discourage filesharing took place.
I don’t believe in stealing people’s property, but the record industries on both sides of the Atlantic have refused to accept the changes that have occured in the digital landscape instead of running around threatening overly-harsh legal penalties and looking for govts to join them as bully boys.
I can’t help but feel you are living on another planet. You can’t stop pirates. Your efforts will be for naught. You will spend millions backing up an obsolete copyright law which protects the fatcats who don’t deserve it. It is time they sorted out a decent method of payment for their artists’ goods. The majority of the customers hard earned money goes to the hangers on, not to the artists. If the artists sold their work at a reasonable price online then pirates would be out of a job. But. It isn’t your problem. Government can deal with copyright. Digitalbritain needs to concentrate on delivering the infrastructure needed for the UK to compete with the rest of the world. If Mandy wants to do it then hand it all over to him and forget all the work you did on that aspect of the report. Please do something about the lack of broadband for rural people, that will stimulate the telcos into sorting out next gen for the towns. Forget the pirates. The only way to beat them is to employ them. This is a battle you can never win, all you can do is catch the suckers downloading, the clever ones will run rings round you…
It is a good thing that you are engaging in some discussion on these issues; the more openness the better.
But this post misses many of the main points of the recent debate. I’ve posted my response to your response here: http://is.gd/2CnC4.
on whom will the burden of proof fall? The enforcer of the ’suspension’ – to prove it was ‘you’ who did the illegal act or on the consumer to prove they did not? What happened to due process?
Do the people of Britain want these new rules?
Have they even been consulted?
What is the government doing implementing this new strategy without asking the people who voted them into power?
I liked the sound of the new file-sharing penalties until you started stating that people will be “cut-off”. Do you know that around 60% of job applications are on the web?
So if a person gets cut off how are they supposed to apply for a job?
I am sorry but Internet access is a Human Right in 2009!
wasn’t aware mandy had been voted into power in the first place… thought we had thrown him out twice actually but i could be wrong.
“Be ENTHUSIASTIC as a leader. You can’t light a fire with a wet match!”
You can’t light the fibre with one either. Forget the pirates, cmon digitalbritain light the fibre, and lets get this show on the road.
With regard to 1 & 3, am I incorrect in thinking that the Digital Britain report was with the purpose of improving internet speed and access, and offering services to those marginalised?
Enforcing of rights appears to be the sole issue added, this appears to be at the expense of any good this report, and the proposals within, may have done.
Oh, and good luck finding anyone in Britain who”ll believe 2. Quick tip – voters don’t like being a) lied to, or b) treated like idiots. Your answer to 2 ticks both these boxes.
Regardless of the spin we will no doubt be subjected to from here on in, its a case of big business and the government needing to find viable alternatives to lawsuits and moving forwards hand in hand with technology rather than dragging us backwards towards a draconian system.
Filesharing in one form or another is here to stay now, like it or not.
For every torrent site pulled down another springs up, for every lawsuit filled a million more tracks are shared.
WE ARE IN THIS MESS BECAUSE WE DIDN’T MOVE WITH THE TIMES – WHEN WILL THE CORPERATIONS RECOGNISE THIS????
hi Steve. well it isn’t for want of telling them. They just don’t listen. And then you get someone like Mandy trying to protect his interests and not doing the research first and everything gets twisted about and more reports called for. and so it goes one. what a waste of time and resources. You are right, they will never stop the pirates. Time to move on, and sort out copyright and let the media clean up their own act. Just seen this:
Thought For the Day
The thought manifests as the word;
The word manifests as the deed;
The deed develops into habit;
And habit hardens into character;
So watch those thoughts with care. (Buddha)
Digitalbritain please open your eyes and see the truth. Think out of the box. Listen to your people not to the media and its hangers on. Write the word. Implement it. deliver next gen access to your country and stop messing about.
How will you differentiate illegal peer-to-peer filesharing from legal peer-to-peer filesharing?
“Getting copyrighted material without permission or payment is already unlawful (it is a civil offence). Recognising that fact and enforcing existing rights is not criminalisation.”
It is not an unlawful act for someone to receive copyrighted material – with or without permission. The unlawful act is in making copies without authorisation. Given a recipient is highly likely not to have made the unauthorised copy (or authorised it), it is not an unlawful act on the part of the recipient to receive an unauthorised copy (made by someone else).
So, “Getting copyrighted material without permission or payment” is NOT an unlawful act on the part of the recipient.
Copyright infringement occurs when people make unauthorised copies, not when copies are received.
So, if you were to make the act of receiving unauthorised copies an unlawful act on the part of the recipient you would be changing copyright law.
“Peter Mandelson has said he doesn’t even think the issue is on Geffen’s radar”
That’s simply untrue, David Geffen is very outspoken regarding this issue (file sharing).
How is this going to work is everybody’s internet traffic going to be monitored?
Hello Dan and ‘Ted Danson’
You both have expressed some incredulity at the idea that David Geffen and the SoS did not discuss file sharing. In fact Dan you assert that lies are being told.
I wasn’t at the meeting of course, so can only refer you to the account of someone who was. I think this also clears up one of Richard’s points which suggested that file sharing may have been discussed even if Digital Britain wasn’t (NB supporting an environment for investment in content is absolutely part of the DB strategy).
‘was not the result of any single conversation but followed engagement with a wide range of stakeholders, including Lucian Grainge’ Mandy says… so he admits he is influenced by the media, as we have all been saying!
He should be influenced by the people of this country, not by a small group of greedy bs.
Exactly who is running the country remind me?
Exactly what is the digital britain team trying to do? The whole point is being missed. We need universal, affordable, futureproof connectivity for everyone. We don’t need time and resources wasted on this file sharing debate. The media got itself into this mess with their greed. let them get themselves out.
Hi Cyberdoyle
As I said, Peter Mandelson is the Secretary of State for Business. There is nothing surprising or sinister about the fact he talks to businesses.
The Digital Britain team is here to implement the Digital Britain strategy. As you know, that includes support for next generation broadband and for universal provision. We are continuing to work on delivering them. It also includes support for investment in digital content, which we are also looking to deliver. These are not mutually exclusive.
Thank you for you reply, and link to
With regard to Mandy’s note in the Times I’d refer you to my previous comment. Voters do not like being fed lies and then being told to swallow it (see expenses ‘within the rules’ for details)!
Politicians have been known to lie, misrepresent the truth, and serve their own intentions! Even the non-elected ones! However this is not a debate on the integrity of politicians, this is about the integrity of Digital Britain moving forward.
I’d be interested to hear the views of the Digital Champion regarding the suspension of a family’s access for the actions of a child, or the increased hardship associated with this. I suspect this would be closer to the elected Tom Watson’s views.
I’d also be interested to here the views of Mr Geffen, though I suspect they may be broadly similiar to those which Digital Britain ultimately recommend.
I thought that the government wanted every home in the UK to have a high speed broadband access? Surely this is conceding to the fact that internet access is seen as a fundamental right in the 21st century?
This proposal will not work. Instead they should propose to LIMIT the bandwith of those of those accused of filesharing. Slowing down their access to the internet is the optimal balance between rights holders and individuals.
This would still allow them access to the internet, albeit less then modem standard (those were the days!), but it prevents them from downloading large amounts of content, IF they are. Therefore any mistakes made will not have any major negative impacts. The accused will still have access to email etc to appeal the decision.
If they have been downloading illicit content then the slow access will deter them because whilst they still can download, it would be pretty pointless due to the speed they are operating at. Furthermore it is very annoying to have slow internet access, and the casual downloader is used to using sites such as youtube.com and other legitimate sites that require large amounts of bandwith. This will act as a detterrent and educate them. As to the period of time the limit is in place, it is up for debate, but I would suggest an initial 1 month period followed by repeat offenders facing 3 months, 6 months, 12 months etc.
This approach deters the casual users, the downloaders. The other two categories of file sharers are the groups who are associated by common aims such as competing with each other to upload newly available content first, offering the most amount of content and who are the most technically advanced. Examples of groups include DV8. The other category of file sharer is the individual uploaders. These can be downloaders who are currently downloading content (as its downloaded, it is uploaded), or people who just wish to share content.
The p2p networks are an egalitarian social networking which encourages users to participate. There needs to be uploaders for the networks to work. To maximise cost efficiency, the low number of individuals in the groups to the size of the content make them a prime target. Tough enforcement against these individuals would be beneficial, with criminal sanctions under s.107 (1)(e) CDPA (has this ever been used), or conspiracy to defraud (which should be used under extreme discretion).
However the ideology that p2p networks causes, suggests a very careful approach with the other categories. This is because you could end up doing more damage as people turn against copyright. Copyright and intellectual property rights as a whole are a difficult to grasp for many individuals because they are an abstract notion. Copyright is also non-rivalrous so people do not believe that they are causing any damage. Unfortunately they do not recognise that copyright encourages innovation and creativity by rewarding authors. Instead the argument put forward by the ‘freetards’ (a term I wish I had coined), is in line with their egalitarian ideology, an argument against capitalism in that the industry makes enough money as it is.
Please feel free to criticise my comment.
#last para 5th line#
Should read;
The use of copyright is non-rivalrous…
Hi Cyberdoyle
“As I said, Peter Mandelson is the Secretary of State for Business. There is nothing surprising or sinister about the fact he talks to businesses.”
—-
So who is talking to consumers??
Where are they at this particular table?
Adam, I’ve never heard any freetards refer to those who would reinforce publishers’ monopolies as moronopolists, but there’s always a first time.
What you have to imagine is the movie that will be made of this struggle in a few year’s time when copyright has either been made perpetual or has been abolished. Who will be depicted as the good guys, and who depicted as the bad?
“2. This is all about David Geffen and the music industry influencing the debate.”
It’s not only Geffen, but the whole copyright lobby who seem to dictate law in this country. Remind me which big labels reside in this country? Oh yes, one, EMI, the rest are foreign cartels run by the MAFIAA. So you the government would rather persecute millions of british citizens than suffer the ire of these cartels based abroad? This government needs to get its priorities straight and remember who pays your salaries and elects you! Oh wait, we didn’t elect corrupt mandelson did we? Yet he’s making all the decisions; what is this – despotism?
“3. You’re criminalising a generation of people”
Civil copyright offences should play out in a courtroom where citizens have a right to due process and all legal protections, not on the say so of the MAFIAA, where we’re all guilty until proven innocent.
The real reason why the cartels don’t want to go through the courts is because of the cost and bad publicity. Just look at the RIAA in the US. Why suffer this when they can shift the responsibility onto the government and ISP’s, just as they do with raids and seizures, using copyright cops against the very citizens who pay for them. It’s all a huge scam!
“5. It’s all illegal under European law”
It’s truly a sad day when we have to look to europe to protect our rights against a tyrannical big business pandering government isn’t it?
If you some how manage to get this oppressive legislation through parliament, it’s guaranteed that europe will force you to repeal it. In the same way europe is suing you over phorm, because once again, you choose big business and their interests over the citizens of this country. Shameful!
“The law can’t be enforced”
Guilty until proven innocent! Because it’s so much easier than going through the legal system no? At least for the copyright cartels it is.
You probably didn’t read about the printer that connected to a big torrent swarm, then received a settle letter from the MAFIAA did you? That’s how good their detection methods are. Good luck proving that someone distributed a complete copy of a copyrighted work, because that’s what’s necessary for guilt to be established.
And while you’re at it, why not raid peoples homes, and arrest them for making compilation CD’s, lending movies to friends, and god forbid, ripping music onto their mp3 players, because technically those are also acts of copyright infringement.
Mandelson’s pushing the bilderberg agenda again. Hell, he’ll do anything for bribe. Not surprising though after the expenses fiasco. Vote for the uk pirate party to get rid of these corrupt self-serving politicians.
I wouldn’t bother trying to differentiate legal from illegal P2P, it’s clear to all that the primary purpose of P2P is piracy (perhaps it really stands for Pirate to Pirate) and therefore like the sawn-off shotgun one can assume that its use is unlikely to be lawful.
BBC and C4 both abandoned P2P for catch-up TV distribution as it wasn’t competitive with direct downloads from a server farm / content distribution network.
Throttle or block it and be done. Educate the masses or their parents about the issue and the tools used and let personal / social responsibility do its bit.
what about skype? millions use it. It is P2P. gonna cut that off too? its one of the main apps that have got people digitally engaged. Make much more fuss about pirates and you will put even more people off joining the digital revolution…
… think Phil has a good point about education, if you got a storyline going in the soaps it would help educate a lot of parents who are unaware what their kids are up to…
But.
the main argument has to be that industry (media) has to get its act together, it is not worth trying to stop pirates, you can’t. The resources you would need would be phenomenal. The energy from the digitalbritain team has to go into getting connections to everyone. 3 million are waiting for your help.
FYI.
We run a network in our village. We were notified by our ISP last year that one person had started to download a game from a pirate site. This person hadn’t completed the download, just got a few minutes of it before he realised what he had done. In that time period the torrent had already started to ’seed’ the game out to others, so that made him a ‘pirate’. The owners of the game were also on torrent, trying to download their own game. Whenever they picked up a feed they then notified the ISP concerned and asked them to sort it out. The ISP sends a notification letter. The person desists. These rules already apply and work ok. Most of the people caught will be innocent. You can’t catch the real pirates. Whenever you cut off a torrent another will grow in its place. The internet is beyond your control. Face up to it. The industry has to sort itself out, and it will. It isn’t up to the digitalbritain team to do it.
http://bit.ly/17FJwz – mandelson on piracy. he reckons he’s listening, so if you all put your comments there he might hear? wonder if he wrote the times online piece himself. Is there hope?
“We are currently experiencing a technical fault with displaying comments from Times Online readers. We are working to correct the issue. In the meantime, our moderation team are able to receive comments so readers may continue to post submissions. We apologise for the temporary inconvenience”. http://bit.ly/17FJwz to comment on the Mandelson article.
Even the Times gets technical problems… and its weekend, so should be working tomorrow. (unless Mandy is mates with the Times boses too?)
[...] online file sharing community has promptly responded with varying levels of scorn and contempt for the proposals, particularly surrounding the ethics of criminalising large segments of the [...]
Where is the democracy in this?
Would it be an interesting result if we, as a nation, were given an opportunity; such as a referendum, to decide for ourselves that file sharing is/isn’t an offense?
That would certainly remove any possible signs of influence from companies, and would mean that the people have decided and spoken for themselves.
I disagree with the notion of blocking p2p networks on a whole. Overall they benefit society and encourage creativity (I do not wish to start a philosophical debate on the positive aspects of p2p networks), and considering we are moving towards an economy heavily focused on intellectual property (whether it is sustainable or not – not to be discussed here), then access to p2p networks are fundamental.
The only blocking that should be done is to block access to sites such as piratebay.org, and mininova.com, therefore making it harder for the individuals to get hold of the file component they need to download the content.
Furthermore, there needs to be regulation on the civil aspect of issuing claims. 1) David vs Goliath, private litigation is for the rich. 2) Underhand tactics, look for the actions of Davenport Lyons, see here; http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/19/davenport_lyons_filesharing_/ and http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/13/davenport_lyons_apology/
Similar approaches in Europe has resulted in lawyers being struck off. But apparently its ok to do so in this country?
The way modern government completely ignores the legitimate interests of consumers in favour of big vested interests really causes me to despair about the future of democracy! If only you could announce a balanced package of measures which advanced the agendas of both groups together you could avoid a lot of this cynicism and negativity. Here are some things you could include for consumers which would help make firmer copyright enforcement more palatable:
1. A proper “fair use” clause in British/EU copyright law similar to that available in other countries. The present law criminalises just about everyone who consumes media and gives the companies the power to select who they want to prosecute.
2. An EU law against territorial price discrimination. A company offering paid for downloads should have to offer them at the same price to all EU residents.
3. Formal and legal net neutrality. It should be illegal to look inside network packets or to release personally identifiable routing or transport records without court order. The existing telephone model is the right one for the internet: there needs to be firewalls between on the one hand suppliers and consumers of media and on the other network transport and ISP providers.
4. Onus on persons asserting copyright to do so in an open, accountable and discoverable way, to publish a reasonable scale of charges for all reasonable uses, and to ensure the material itself remains readily available. If rights and rights-holders do not make a reasonable effort to maintain their property, their rights should automatically lapse. It should be in both sides interests to use the power of networks to radically reduce the transaction costs of the market in intellectual rights.
Just for once do something for consumers and you will encounter a lot less opposition and suspicion!
The consequence of threatening file sharers with drastic action as disconnection from the Internet is that they will take the necessary steps to protect themselves and hide their identity online. I have signed up to test a new Bit Torrent client “BitBlinder” along with about 40,000 other people that will use TOR ( The Onion Router) protocols to relay all web browsing and file sharing traffic through a series of other peoples computers as proxy’s in an encrypted data stream. It will be impossible to track the path of the data packets beyond the next link in the proxy chain which could be anywhere on the internet. This client should be fully operational by the end of the year.
There are two significant side effects that Digital Britain needs to urgently consider as a result of this:
1. This will generate about a 500% increase in file sharing traffic, with data being sent though at least 3 proxy’s together with the data packets to control the protocol. For the Internet to remain functional with this additional traffic load their will need to be a substantial increase in internet band width within the UK and in the international links with North America and Mainland Europe.
2. Terrorists and Organised Criminals will be able to use this technology that encrypts their communications and keeps them anonymous to protect themselves from being identified or their plans being discovered by the security services that could lead to a National or International security threat. ( It will be like hiding in a crowd of tens of millions of people when this client becomes operational.)
hi Sam.
I hope you read that last comment. Don’t say you haven’t been told repeatedly this past 6 months. You can’t beat the pirates.
The government has put Mandelson on this. Not only is he a known crook who has been dismissed from the government several times for his conduct, but the man has NEVER EVEN SENT AN EMAIL.
Prepare for the death of the Internet. The corporates are circling and it’s only a matter of time.
Adam,
Surely that’s an urban myth about Mandelson never having sent an email?
http://torrentfreak.com/uk-anti-piracy-plans-cost-more-than-music-industry-losses-090922/ If what Mandleson wants comes to pass… “Noting that ISP profit margins are already small, Petter said he fears that the process could cost ISPs a staggering £365m a year.”
the above site is well worth a read for either side of this debate. to quote “Indeed, by spending a measly £3.00 per month on a cheapo VPN service from the likes of SwissVPN, it’s possible for any user to tunnel right out of the UK and no-one in the country will have a clue what they are doing on their connection. Not the BPI, not ISPs, not the government.
That’s around 10p per day to defeat a £1m a day system that isn’t even in place yet. Something doesn’t add up.”
The something that doesn’t add up is the fact that Mandy and mates simply Don’t Get IT.
[...] with the Digital Britain Forum blog’s discussion of the file-sharing issue, I think this makes an interesting and little-heard case for a policy, through digital media. I [...]
I do not think the proposed action in option 2 will lead to a significant reduction in illegal file sharing, we need a third option .
The means of identification of file sharers by the rights holders will target only the inexperienced computer users or those with slow connections, not the users that are the desired target of this action. The experienced file sharer will be using “private trackers” not public trackers like “The Pirate Bay”. A private tracker is a club/society for members only and membership by invitation only. Only members can participate in files shared on the tracker and to maintain your membership you must use the tracker regularly and upload to other members at least as much file content as you download. The rights holders or their agents will only be able to identify people sharing their content by sharing it themselves thus giving implicit agreement for it to be shared. The best known private tracker was “Oink” that was taken down 2 years ago, it specialised in music. Most private trackers are for general entertainment like the popular public trackers. A web site that lists the major bit torrent tracker sites claims there are over ten thousand public and private trackers. The private tracker that I sometimes use announced that one member had reached the milestone of uploading 100 Terabytes of data. There is an implicit directive not to talk about the names of private tracker in public or do anything that publicises them so as to keep their anonymity.
To identify the persistent file sharers that share the most data you would have to ask the ISP for details of their customers on the largest broadband packages that are regularly using more than 50% of their available upload capacity, then seize their machines and forensically inspect them to see if they were illegally sharing files ( It took the police 9 months to inspect my computers after I was raided two years ago before dropping the investigation without any charges because my neighbour accused me of running a porn web site and the volume of Bit Torrent file sharing internet traffic reported my ISP.) This level of intrusive investigate would be impractical and socially unacceptable !.
The sanctions proposed of sending identified file sharers warning letters to modify their behaviour will not have the desired consequences in the long run. Initially it will probably have the desired effect with most people stopping illegal file for a short period. After a while they will find out about using private trackers or by using client software that routes traffic through proxy servers, at which point they will restart illegally downloading once they are confident they are unlikely to be identified.
The action proposed by option 2 will in my opinion only slightly reduce illegal file sharing by those already doing it, it is unlikely to reduce the growth in the number of new people starting to use file sharing, so expect to see a continued growth overall in the numbers of people involved in file sharing and the amount to data that each person is sharing. ( I can remember reading a news report last year that 50% of teenagers in Britton participate in shoplifting at some time in their lives, so this sort of behaviour has become socially acceptable within the younger generation.)
Option 3:
Take action to promote the legitimate use of P2P file sharing networks and create a new market in doing so.
There are two areas the government should be involved in:
1. Assist in enabling the creation of the infrastructure to enable a micro payment market to exist worldwide.(Micro Banking!)
2. Encourage digital content providers to embrace the full benefits and options the “Made for Internet” can give.
Any reasonable person would agree that artists ( I mean that to include any person involved in the production of a digital work ) should expect some form of adequate remuneration for their work that is shared on P2P networks.
The P2P network is a huge community and growing rapidly, that has developed the ability to distribute digital media rapidly at negligible cost. What is needed is to turn this community into a market.
The market can generate revenue in 3 basic ways:
1. The network provider or web service enabling the content can pay on behalf of the consumer.
2. The digital content can have embedded advertising.
3. The customer consuming the digital content can pay directly.
The first option is what seems to be currently perused with the web service provider paying the media producers and the recovering the cost by subscription or from advertising. (eg.YouTube,Spotify) The advantage being a small number of high valued financial transactions.
The digital content having embedded advertising would be the preferred way where applicable. Since the mid sixties we have all been used to commercial television and radio being funded by advertising without the need to pay for content. The equivalent of a television drama produced for the internet provides a lot of additional opportunities for advertising due to the interactive nature of the medium.
A hypothetical example !
Take a television drama like “Hollyoaks” from C4/E4, Have a company like “Arcadia” sponsor the show a high street fashion retailer who’s brands include :- TOPSHOP, BURTON, DOROTHY PERKINS, Miss Selfridge
Have every member of the cast wearing clothes from the sponsor. When the show is watched on a computer screen, a mouse click on any garment being worn would pause the show and bring up a pop up window of the actor/actress describing the garment that had been clicked extorting it features with a clickable button to purchase the item directly from the online store.
Other areas of the screen could bring up other advertising , competitions, Context clips (flash backs to previous episodes to put the current drama into context) , Production interviews or Out-takes and other extras.
The advantage being the content producers directly collect the advertising revenues this would be a big boost for television production houses in that they would be commissioning their own production with the backing of advertisers and sponsors. The television networks are likely to be major losers with it being much more difficult to commission television drama funded by television advertising, they may be reduced to showing re-runs of drama produced originally for the internet.
The final option presented here is the customer to directly pay for the content by using a micro payment system.
The payment system will need to be inclusive of young teenagers who do not have access to debit or credit cards or other adult banking facilities. I would recommend an account system topped up in a similar fashion to pay as you go mobile phone accounts through “pay point” counters in retail shops. The system will need to be able to handle a very large number of very small penny sized transactions in a very cost effective way, the design of this will be very challenging and require a lot of novel inspiration.
You cannot expect people to pay for download content without first providing the infrastructure to enable them to pay.
The next question is how much is digital content downloaded worth?
The main reason for downloading mp3 music tracks is to be able to play music on a portable mp3 music player though headphone while travelling. The player I have has a 512MB memory enough for about 100 tracks. A track once on the MP3 player will we listened to about half a dozen times before being replaced by another track. A few tracks will be kept on the player an accessed more often. I would estimate on average a track would be listened to less than a dozen times before being discarded. This is a very different pattern of use from that the record labels portray for digital music, they try to equate a downloaded track as similar to a track purchased on physical media in a shop. The pattern of use is actually similar to the offline streaming service offered or talked about by “Spotify” on top of the range phones and devices that can implement advanced programming implemented rights protection for music tracks. I would suggest that a micro payment of 1p per track (being 12 x 0.085p per track streaming charge) to be reasonable.
The sound reproduction on cheap mp3 will not be as good as the high end devices so lower quality smaller sized mp3 192 kbps data file would be appropriate rather than the high quality 250/320 kbps offered by current music download sites.
The music labels have no incentive to offer downloadable music at a reasonable rate while more than 2% of the potential market are willing to pay an over inflated price of $1 a track or more. Their best option to recover more revenue is to identify people illegally downloading music and threaten to sue them for potential damages, and receive substantial out of court settlements. The only way to move forward to finding a resolution to illegal downloading of music would be to refer the pricing of online music by the major record label to the European Commission for anti-competitive practices.
The cost of downloading or streaming to view a DVD move I think should be no more than 10p.
In America, I understand that Paramount offers DVD rental from an automated machine at $1 a night for as many DVD’s you want to borrow. I therefore guess they won’t be making more than 10c per DVD after distribution expenses.
I have read reports that YouTube intent to offer a move streaming service to the UK, I will wait to see their business model but I doubt they will be paying the movie studios more than 10p a customer view.
Last thoughts is that P2P file sharing is international with its boundaries set by language and culture not by national borders or artificial regions set by movie studios. It is common to have people in a dozen different countries sharing in a single torrent file so any solution to legalise P2P file sharing has to involve multi-national support.
When I saw “Star Wars” in the cinema I went to the Dominion on Tottenham Court Road as back then(1977) films were released in London weeks before they were available in the rest of the country, this practice has now ceased and seems ridicules but still films are normally released in the states weeks before their release in the UK, this is just as ridicules as all potential customers will want access to the latest DVD movies and music tracks as soon as possible once they are available. This will mean movie studios and record labels will have to adjust their marketing and promotion strategies.
Great comment Sean! kudos. It makes a lot of sense. Hope mandy reads it.
How are the losses for the record industry and so on actually calculated? Do they assume that every single person who downloads an album or film would go to a shop and buy it if the download option was not available? I think the majority of downloads take place precisely because they cost nothing.
If you saw a car that you liked and could click a button and create a perfect copy of that car, with a full tank of petrol and the keys in the ignition, I think most people would do so. But people do not see a car that they like, and then run to the Maserati showroom with a bundle of cash. Granted, there is inevitably some loss for the record companies, but it won’t be anything like as much as they claim.
Does occur to me that if artists had to rely on performing their work to earn money (and thereby probably making the career less lucrative) then the only people who would make music and film would be the people who really do it for love and the joy of creating something – thereby making the music industry smaller, but generally creating a better product. Perhaps abolishing copyright would mean no manufactured bands, less crappy Hollywood blockbusters with overblown budgets to compensate for lack of plot, and the resurgence of live entertainment, like the theatre. I think everyone could enjoy that.
Well said Craig. I agree with you. Music is for enjoying, and live shows are fantastic. Not nec on the scale of the U2 tour, just simple gigs would be great – bring em on.