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Business piracy Regs

BPI thinks MI5 could scupper bits of Digital Economy Bill

The music industry thinks its prospects within the Digital Economy Bill are still good to middling with concerns over website blocking voiced by MI5 seen as a potential scupper.

A weekly newsletter sent by Music Industry representatives BPI to stakeholders such as Sony Music, Warner Brothers and EMI Music also discusses the results of a TalkTalk sponsored survey that finds that “71% of 18 – 34 year olds would continue to infringe copyright, in spite of the Bill provisions, and would use “undetectable methods” to do so”.

There is also the suggestion that MI5 might have helped pay for the survey!

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Business internet piracy Regs

3 weeks to go to an election announcement is bad news for ISPs and democracy #DigitalBritain

It might be my naivety but I was surprised nay shocked at the ISPA Council meeting today. You must read all this post.

The informed betting is that the General Election is going to be on May 6th. The betting for the dissolution of Parliament is either the 1st or 8th April. Normally notice given is 6 weeks but I’m told that because the Labour Party is (allegedly) short of funds they only want a 4 week election campaign – eat yer heart out US of A. My bet is the 8th because they will all want a nice Easter break before the pitched battle to come.

The Government has confirmed that the Budget will be on 24th March (at 12.30pm for the detail minded – warm the TV up soon). Normally we might expect a week to be given for the media to digest and comment about what will presumably be a budget pitched to give us all as much of a feelgood factor as possible after the last year or two of financial hell/instability/crisis/disaster/nightmare/worry/prosperity (delete as appropriate).

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Business internet piracy Regs

Industry unites against 120A #DigitalBritain

News is distributed so quickly these days (thanks to us ISPs) that by the time us ISPs finish doing the day job and get around to writing up the blog it almost seems like old news already. However in the interest of completeness (ish) of content on trefor.net on the subject of the Digital Economy Bill I’m going to post it anyway.

Following on from my comments last week regarding the outrage amongst ISPs over clause 120A the industry has united and written a letter published in the FT this morning.  The signatories are a roll call of the heaviest hitters in the internet in the UK and include ISPA – drafts were circulated to us for comment on Monday.

It will be simply scandalous if 120A proceeds after this. Coincidentally and as a bit of an aside one of the consequences of 120A would be potentially to slow down the aforementioned lightening distribution of said news.  Half the websites concerned could be blocked!

To the letter

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broadband Engineer internet media piracy Regs video

Cisco Drives Nail in Music Industry Coffin with CRS-3?

Most people won’t have given much thought as to how their email gets from A to B or how that video arrives from YouTube.  It just comes down the broadband connection which is plugged into the router next to the phone (or somewhere like that). Right?

Well today the worlds biggest router manufacturer, Cisco, announced their latest and greatest product.  It isn’t something that you will want to plug into your phone line though because it would take up most of the living room and there wouldn’t be enough room left for the sofa.

It would also be a bit of an overkill because this router, the CRS-3, is powerful enough to handle up to 322 Terabits1 per second, which  is roughly a hundred million times faster than the average UK broadband connection speed!

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Business piracy Regs

Is Pre-Release killing the music business? #Digital Britain

In the context of the debate going on over copyright protection in the Digital Economy Bill there is an interesting event happening tomorrow night at the Performing Rights Society in London.

Entitled  “Is Pre-Release Killing Our Business?” tomorrow’s discussion is centred around the fact that in order to raise awareness the music industry conducts promotional campaigns for up to three months before a CD is released.  This stimulates demand for a product that is not yet available and it only takes one promo copy of a CD to be pirated and loaded onto a P2P network for that CD to be freely available which of course eats into sales at launch.

Because of this industry bodies including ERA and the MMF are calling for abolition of pre-release windows in their entirety. Tomorrow night’s speakers including the BBC’s Head of Music for Radio 1 George Ergatoudis, Martin Talbot, MD of the Official Charts Company, Ben Drury of 7 Digital and Emily MacKay of the NME.

It just goes to show that the whole fight against music piracy is something that has to be conducted across many fronts.

More details on the Music Tank website here.

It strikes me that there are so many discussion points/arguments surrounding the Copyright aspects of the Digital Economy Bill that it will be worth collating them all in an easy to access format – watch this space.

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Business internet piracy Regs

Houston we have a problem – Digital Economy Bill amendment 120A #Digital Britain

The ISP industry is up in arms today as the House of Lords yesterday rushed through ill considered amendment 120A to the Digital Economy Bill proposing to allow rights holders to serve notice on ISPs to block access to sites considered by them (rightsholders) to have illegal content – music, movies, software etc.

This is a huge issue.  Rightsholders would be able to ask ISPs to block sites without a court order. If an ISP refuses and the rightsholder subsequently succeeds in getting a court injunction then the ISP will have to pay costs.

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Business internet piracy Regs

Digital Economy Bill, hotels and Andrew Dismore MP on human rights

The Digital Economy Debate has generated a flurry of responses today – no doubt people getting messages out of the way before the rugby this weekend!

Firstly the UK hotel industry, via its mouthpiece the British Hospitality Association, has issued a press release expressing grave concern that their members could have their internet access cut off because of the illegal activities of naughty guests.

The miscreants will of course have long checked out by the time the long arm of the law reached out to behind the reception desk.

From personal experience (of having hundreds of hotels as customers and not of Torrenting whilst staying at them) hotels are particularly prone to guests taking advantage of the internet in the room to download material via P2P.

A long long time ago, way before Timico, I worked for Mitel who had at that time something like 80% of the UK hotels using their phone systems. Research in those days suggested that 90% of all internet surfing out of hotels was to pornographic websites. It was more unusual for people to have broadband at home and access from the office was strictly filtered.

So the BHA now joins the Educational system in wanting immunity from prosecution under the Digital Economy Bill. McDonalds will be next. At this rate a large part of the UK broadband estate will be seeking immunity from the Bill.

Also speaking out today is Parliament’s own Joint Select Committee on Human Rights which says the Government’s response to the problem of illegal file-sharing in the Digital Economy Bill may have created over-broad powers.

Andrew Dismore MP, Chair of the Committee, said: “Illegal file sharing is itself a breach of important rights, but the concern we have with this Bill is that it lacks detail. It has been difficult, even in the narrow area we have focussed on, to get a clear picture of the scope and impact of the provisions. The internet is constantly creating new challenges for policy-makers but that cannot justify ill-defined or sweeping legislative responses, especially when there is the possibility of restricting freedom of expression or the privacy of individual users.”

At least people are starting to shout louder. Andrew Dismore MP seems to have his head screwed on.

If you want to keep up to speed on the debate in the Lords go here.

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broadband End User internet piracy Regs

Digital Economy Bill: I Don’t Need Broadband – I Use My Neighbour’s WiFi

Opposition to the Digital Economy Bill is building, but it has some way to go.

I was talking to some people today about what type of broadband they had.  One of them surprisingly said she didn’t have broadband. I found this astonishing.  However the truth came out when she told me she just used next door’s which was unsecured.

Whatever you think of the morals of this it is a real life pointer as to the problems of proof when it comes to accusing a broadband owner of illegal downloading.

I present here, for your delectation, the winner of the “dontdisconnectus” “Sing our Petition” competition.  The opposition to the Digital Economy Bill is building but it has some way to go yet I feel.

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broadband End User internet piracy Regs

I don't need broadband – I use my neighbour's WiFi – problems with Digital Economy Bill

I was talking to some people today about what type of broadband they had.  One of them surprisingly said she didn’t have broadband. I found this astonishing.  However the truth came out when she told me she just used next door’s which was unsecured.

Whatever you think of the morals of this it is a real life pointer as to the problems of proof when it comes to accusing a broadband owner of illegal downloading. 

I present here, for your delectation, the winner of the “dontdisconnectus” “Sing our Petition” competition.  The opposition to the Digital Economy Bill is building but it has some way to go yet I feel.

Categories
Business internet piracy

You’re nicked son – Big Brother aka Digital Economy Bill

Not plagiarism, just admiration. A guide to illegal music downloading for the non technical.

Thanks to boggits for the lead.

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Business engineering internet ofcom piracy Regs

Digital Economy Bill – printer accused of illegal downloads

The cogs of Government continue to grind. I know many of you yawn at some of these regulatory posts but man cannot live on network diagrams alone. The 5th day of the Digital Economy Bill House of Lords Committee stage was held yesterday.

No non-Government amendments made it through but a number of important concessions were made.

Clause 11 in particular concerns “Obligations to limit internet access”. The brakes are being put on this in that no order to cut off someone’s internet access could be made until 12 months after Ofcom has looked at this issue and come up with a Code of Practice.

It is now also proposed that it becomes a requirement, as opposed to an option, for the Secretary of State to request a report from Ofcom on the “suitability of a technical obligation”, ie whether a consumer gets cut off in a particular instance (I assume).

There will also be full appeals process which could be heard by a tribunal before any technical measure is imposed. It will still lead to a pretty messy situation downstream even if it delays the day of reckoning.

Note this is still not backed up by any sign of copyright licensing reform that will make it easier to download music in a legal manner.

There is a lot more to read about but you can do that yourselves here – if you have a few hours to spare and don’t mind finishing up with a headache. Despite all the glamour and the luxury expense fuelled living  🙂 a lot of what MPs do is deadly boring and is reported in such technical legalese as to make it often undecipherable to the “man on the street”.

It is worth noting something else. ISPs regularly receive “abuse” reports from Rights Holders. These letters informing an ISP of supposed illegal downloading activity from one of their customers’ IP Addresses

At last week’s UKNetwork Operators Forum (UKNOF) meeting a representative of Janet, the UK Education network, said that of the ‘abuse’ reports they received last year, 10% turned out to be for the IP addresses of printers, 15% were address space that wasn’t actually being used and 50% only had a 0 second interval for the time that material was being offered for download.

By this token, and I admit only in this anecdotal case, 75% of the supposed illegal activity would never pass scrutiny. This suggests that it is going to be very difficult for anyone to determine the validity of such an assertion by a Rights Holder, be they a judge, ISP or anyone else. There is no way an ISP would want to get involved with this without someone picking up the costs and being fully indemnified.

Categories
End User internet piracy Regs

The difficulties of licensing music for legal download

In the middle, as we are, of the birthing process of the Digital Economy Bill it is interesting to see how laborious this can be (and I have 4 kids!).

One of the gripes the ISP industry has (regular visitors to trefor.net will have become familiar with a few of them) is the fact that when it comes to copyright protection and the move to kill off illegal downloads there is too much stick and not enough carrot.

The big concern is that the Bill as proposed helps to compensate the music industry for losses incurred to an outdated business model and therefore removes the incentive for rights owners to embrace new business models.

ISPs are extremely frustrated by the difficulties in securing the licensing that is needed to offer consumers legal alternatives to illegal downloading. It has always been our view that a voluntary or legislative commitment to enforcement should only be introduced on the condition that rights-holders also commit to significant licensing reform.

Moreover there is a particular concern that some rights-holders are purposefully resisting reform of the licensing framework because they view legal models of online content distribution as a threat to their own existing revenue.

Lets take a look at some of the difficulties. These are some examples compiled by the Internet Services Provider Association as part of an as yet unpublished paper. There is some brain work involved here though I have tried to simplify it, largely so that I can understand the problems myself.

Existing problems
Taking a fully licensed music service to market is lengthy and onerous. Even if all the rights owners offered easy ways to access their catalogues, the complex contractual obligations wrapped around Intellectual Property rights in the reproduction, performance, and ‘making available’ of both musical works and sound recordings means that there is no guarantee of ending up with a fully licensed service.

Consumer expectations for online music are sky high. Given that many of them share a significant volume of unlawful music over P2P networks consumers are used to being able to download any track. Gaps in the available legal alternatives caused by licensing problems are not well looked upon and legal music services that attempt to offer incomplete catalogues are viewed as uncompetitive when compared with unlawful file-sharing.

Direct licensing or withholding
There are also additional obstacles to efficient music licensing which add cost and risk to the emerging digital entertainment industry.

Rather than using collective or wholesale clearing houses most music rights owning parties insist on licensing the use of their catalogues directly.

This means that direct licensing multiplies cost and difficulty for the licensee and allows each licensor the ability to set terms and rates that could critically damage the viability of a service. Licensors can also choose to withhold the catalogue required to offer a compelling customer proposition.

Ensuring that licensors negotiate through a collective or wholesale clearing house would assist licensees in securing the licenses that are required to offer a service that is attractive to consumers.

Territoriality
Rights-holders are currently able to limit the operations of music services to specific countries which enables them to introduce price discrimination from country to country. Also a single piece of music may well have different owners in different countries which adds cost and complexity to the initial rights negotiations and to the ongoing payment systems.

Advances
The larger rights owners usually demand advance payments and deal and delivery fees. These can be many times the expected royalty payments for the use of the music during the term of the agreement. This introduces a financing risk as well as adding a start-up cost to launching a new service. Often these will be staged as quarterly payments, with the threat of catalogue withdrawal or even insolvency proceedings should they not be met.

These advances are likely to be prohibitive to a provider launching a service. Advances also reduce transparency to other music stakeholders as they break the relationship between sales and royalty payments.

Short-term deals
Many deals have a one-year term with no obligation on the rights holder to renew. This will in almost all cases be considerably shorter than the planning horizon for a large operator and makes a business case more of an act of faith rather than a serious basis to roll out services. It also makes it difficult for a service provider to guarantee that it will be able to fulfil contracts with its own customers.

For example if half way through a one year contract with a consumer a service provider has a certain catalogue withdrawn from its own deal with the rights-holder then that SP is going to be unable to fulfil its own obligations. It could also turn a profitable service into a loss making entity completely outside the control of the service provider if the rights holder decides to jack up the cost.

Minima
Rights owners use contractual minimum payments in order to inflate their revenues over and above the value of the music that is actually sold by a service. In some cases this is relatively benign, such as setting a minimum wholesale price per track and taking the greater of that or a percentage of retail price.

It can, however, be used to set a price per subscriber that is higher than the licensor’s pro-rata revenue share or it can be set across an entire service so that the rights-holder receives a fixed percentage even when their pro-rata share drops. The effect of this is to compel the licensee to pay out over 100% of the royalty pool, eating into margins or operating costs.

Customer proposition approval
Rather than set wholesale pricing and allow operators to develop compelling services, music rights owners seek control over most aspects of the consumer offering and look to insert conditions in contracts that require any changes to be agreed in advance. This would seem to be an anti-competitive measure and detrimental to the creation of alternative models of distribution.

Arbitrary conditions
Rights holders can sometimes put pressure on music services to accept arbitrary conditions, such as using a preferred provider for some aspect of the service, or committing to a guaranteed placement for priority releases. Some other arbitrary conditions might include action against piracy either as a pre-condition of licensing or a commitment included in a contract. It might also include access to a large amount of consumer behaviour data including data that does not relate to the music included in the contract.

All this, and I’m sure the experts can probably dig out more examples, adds up to an extremely difficult environment for the creation of legal music download services.

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Business internet piracy Regs

Lady Gaga and the Digital Economy Bill goo goo.

The Digital Economy Bill will have its third reading in the Lords next week. Thus far each clause has been debated at each reading. It isn’t possible to forecast when it will finish in the Lords – a Bill can have up to 8 readings.

So we don’t have a proper handle on the schedule yet. What is highly likely is that it will be rushed through the Commons with a firm Government Whip. Under normal conditions this would be expected to be a shoe in but it will be interesting to see how many of Labour MPs leaving the House after this election break ranks.

At yesterday’s ISPA Legal Forum the subject of copyright law and the Digital Economy Bill was discussed. The Music Industry claims that legal methods of downloading music are being promoted. It is worth noting that at the event music site 7digital stated that in order to be able to sell some music online (eg Lady Gaga was quoted) they had to negotiate 40 different licensing contracts. Talk about getting bogged down in the goo. This is not consistent with “making it easier”.

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Business piracy Regs

European Commission wants single regulatory framework for music copyright

As part of the whole Digital Economy Bill/Digital Britain debate one of the complaints being levelled at the music industry is that it makes it too expensive and difficult to make music legally available online at an economic price. 

Part of this is the fact that every country has different copyright licensing laws and channels such as Yahoo, AOL et al find it difficult to negotiate a satisfactory arrangement that would allow them to operate on their international cross border scale. 

The EU has now come off the fence and decided it needsto do something about it and if the Commission gets its way, national collecting societies that manage the rights of online content will have to integrate their systems. Hooray and about time.

You can check out theEurActiv.com piece on the subject here and a more detailed discussion document dating from October 09 here. What I can’t see is any timescale around this so I suspect I might be getting excited a bit prematurely but lets see how it goes.

Categories
Business internet ofcom piracy

Bono sums don’t add up.

The BBC reports today that singer Bono is claiming that the revenues lost by the music industry due to illegal downloading mirrors the growth in profits of the Internet industry.

This didn’t sound quite right to me but I doubt that anyone has any real data. It did prompt me to see if I could have a stab at sizing both industries myself from my limited sources of information.

Firstly in last year’s Ofcom communications market report the total number of ADSL tails is quoted as being 17.3 million connections at an average cost of £10.71 a month.  This works out at just over £2.2Bn revenues in 2008.  I realise that there will be other revenues that add to the total ISP take but ADSL will be the biggest portion of the whole. Also I have no doubt that the music industry would quote the total communications market size as the number to compare.

Now look at the available data on the music industry in the UK posted recently in the Times which suggests that turnover in 2008 was, wait for it, just over £2.2Bn.

Whatever the right numbers it clearly suggests that Bono’s claim is just the hype that most people will hopefully see through, or at least MPS about to decide on the Digital Economy Bill.  We are at an important juncture in process of the DEB and it is important that the ISP industry gets its own message across as clearly and successfully as the music industry seems to be doing.  I haven’t been monitoring the relative amounts of press coverage each side has been getting.

ofcom1Finally the chart, taken from last year’s Ofcom market report shows how the media and telecoms industries have been performing relative to the stock market. It suggests to me that the media industry, again assuming the metric is the right one, is not doing so badly, relatively speaking.

I’m quite happy to be corrected with any of the numbers here but we do need to try and get a correct persective on the whole situation.

Categories
Business internet ofcom piracy

Bono sums don't add up.

The BBC reports today that singer Bono is claiming that the revenues lost by the music industry due to illegal downloading mirrors the growth in profits of the Internet industry.

This didn’t sound quite right to me but I doubt that anyone has any real data. It did prompt me to see if I could have a stab at sizing both industries myself from my limited sources of information.

Firstly in last year’s Ofcom communications market report the total number of ADSL tails is quoted as being 17.3 million connections at an average cost of £10.71 a month.  This works out at just over £2.2Bn revenues in 2008.  I realise that there will be other revenues that add to the total ISP take but ADSL will be the biggest portion of the whole. Also I have no doubt that the music industry would quote the total communications market size as the number to compare.

Now look at the available data on the music industry in the UK posted recently in the Times which suggests that turnover in 2008 was, wait for it, just over £2.2Bn.

Whatever the right numbers it clearly suggests that Bono’s claim is just the hype that most people will hopefully see through, or at least MPS about to decide on the Digital Economy Bill.  We are at an important juncture in process of the DEB and it is important that the ISP industry gets its own message across as clearly and successfully as the music industry seems to be doing.  I haven’t been monitoring the relative amounts of press coverage each side has been getting.

ofcom1Finally the chart, taken from last year’s Ofcom market report shows how the media and telecoms industries have been performing relative to the stock market. It suggests to me that the media industry, again assuming the metric is the right one, is not doing so badly, relatively speaking.

I’m quite happy to be corrected with any of the numbers here but we do need to try and get a correct persective on the whole situation.

Categories
Business piracy Regs

Canadian Recording Industry sued for $6Bn in musician class-action lawsuit for copyright infringement

In Canada the recording industry has allegedly been witholding payments to musicians for use of copyrighted material and is the subject of a class action (BakerSOC ) that could cost them up to $6Bn.

The problem goes back decades and appears to be the result of a longstanding practice of the recording industry in Canada, described in the lawsuit as “exploit now, pay later if at all.”

It involves the use of works that are often included in compilation CDs (ie. the top dance tracks of 2009) or live recordings. The record labels create, press, distribute, and sell the CDs, but do not obtain the necessary copyright licences.

The defendants in the case are Warner Music Canada, Sony BMG Music Canada, EMI Music Canada, and Universal Music Canada, the four primary members of the Canadian Recording Industry Association.

The CRIA members were hit with the lawsuit in October 2008, after artists decided to turn to the courts following decades of frustration with the rampant infringement.

It would be interesting to see if the same practice was going on in the UK. If it was it would make a mockery of the attempts of the Music Industry here to drive through the Digital Economy Bill which seeks to cut off the internet connections of people involved in copyright infringement (or “illegal music downloading”).

There’s a lot more detail on the Canadian case in Michael Geist’s blog here.

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Business piracy Regs

Digital Economy Bill Second Reading

The Second Reading of the Digital Economy Bill was held yesterday in the House of Lords. All sections of the Bill were considered, although the main focus was on clauses 4-17 that address copyright infringement. A brief summary is provided below:

  • Lord Mandelson presented the Bill, outlining the two initial obligations on ISPs and explaining the rationale behind the reserve power to impose technical sanctions. He described the clauses as proportionate. Former Cabinet Minister Lord Fowler, responding on behalf of the Conservatives, described the step-by-step process outlined in the Bill as ‘correct’, subject to RHs taking action to make their products legally accessible.
  • On behalf of the Lib Dems, Lord Razzall welcomed the Bill. He did, however, cite a number of sections that the Lib Dems were unhappy with. He requested that clause 6.5(b), which provides for retrospective penalties, be removed. He also questioned the lack of details on the apportioning of costs and the inclusion of clause 17.  He further underlined the need to honour the principles of natural justice.
  • Support for the Bill was voiced by Lord Birt, Lord Puttnam, Baroness Morris (all of whom declared rightsholder interests in this area) and Baroness Howe.
  • Baroness Miller voiced strong opposition to a number of clauses in the Bill. She suggested that the Bill would protect the old model of content distribution rather than encourage new models. She also criticised the decision to make one industry pay for the protection of another and questioned clause 15, which outlines the role of the Secretary of State in defining the level of cost recovery. The Baroness further asked the Government about the effect that increased encryption, which the Bill could cause, would have on the work of law enforcement and cited the threat that the Bill posed to open wif-fi connections.
  • Conservative peer Lord Lucas voiced a number of strong arguments against the Bill. He first questioned the motivation for legislation, explaining that this was protecting music companies rather than artists, and lamented the inability of music companies to offer legal alternatives. He also suggested that it should be compulsory for rightsholders to pursue legal action through the notification system, called for due process for consumers and requested that the Conservative front bench vote against clause 17.
  • Lord Whitty also outlined his opposition to the proposals, questioning the suggested cost to the rightsholder industry, the potential of the user to breach users’ human rights and the lack of focus on education and alternative models of content distribution.
  • Lib Dem Culture Media and Sport Spokesperson Lord Clement-Jones expressed concerns around the power that the Bill granted to the Secretary of State. Conservative Shadow Culture Media and Sport Minister Lord Howard agreed that there would have to be close scrutiny of clause 11 to understand the power being given to the Secretary of State.

At this stage of the game it is difficult to tell how this Digital Economy Bill will pan out because it seems to be getting some degree of qualifed support from all parties at the Second Reading stage.

The debate in full is available here. I understand that the Committee Stage of the Bill will begin on January 6th.  Also I am indebted to the ISPA Secretariat for this input which is mostly a plagiarism of their report.  It is a full time job keeping an eye on this stuff.

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Business piracy

Timesonline market research shows music artists revenues on the up.

Timesonline Labs blog published some interesting market research in November suggesting that revenues that musicians receive from non record label sources is on the rise.  The increases seem to more than compensate for the decrease in their incomes from record label contracts.

Record label revenues though are shown to be hugely in decline which says a lot about why they are making such a fuss over Music Piracy. I don’t think anyone should criticise the labels for their efforts.  However in considering the Digital Economy Bill Government should take a 60,000 foot view and recognise that business models are changing and the old record label way might well have to change with the times.

Bob Dylan foresaw this in “The Times They Are A Changing” -you better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone, for the times they are a-changing.  I think the labels are just swimming in the wrong direction.

Link to the Timesonline article here.

Thanks to boggits for the link.

Categories
Business piracy

Dan Bull – Dear Mandy [an open letter to Lord Mandelson]

Sometimes music is intended to be pirated. Check out the YouTube video by Dan Bull.

The people speak out.

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Business internet piracy

Alliance Against IP Theft meets MPs

The Alliance Against IP Theft held a meeting yesterday at Westminster Hall in The House of Commons.  Present were 5 speakers from the creative industries – from Fulham FC, Universal Music, a freelance writer and journalist, a publisher from Random House and a construction manager at a film studio – and a panel of MPs including Tom Watson, John Whittingdale, Kerry McCarthy, Lord Corbett and Steven Pound. The meeting was chaired by Janet Anderson who leads the All Party IP Group.

Each speaker gave a talk on how piracy was having a negative impact on things like investing in new talent.  The MPs then asked a series of questions.

Most vocal was Tom Watson who argued that to give the Secretary of State unrestricted power to make rulings on copyright in the future was actually a potential problem for rights holders – MPs would be concerned that a Bill was trying to give powers to the Secretary of State without parliamentary oversight.

Mr Watson also questioned the figures that rights holders produced that suggested that every unlawful download was a lost sale. The panel agreed with him when he said that the creative industries had never been in a healthier state in terms of popularity, despite filesharing.

Lord Corbett gave an indication of how the Bill will progress through the Lords – it will receive its Second Reading next Wednesday December 2nd and is likely to leave the Lords and enter the Commons by the end of January. With a two week half term break in February, it was suggested that as Parliament is rumoured to be dissolved at the end of March for the general election, there was a good chance that the Bill will run out of time.

This is clearly an important phase where lobbying for and against this Bill is going on.  It is the first time I have been involved at such close quarters in something so important – one that is generating high emotion from both sides. The strange reality is that I doubt that there is a single person who is against the proposed regulation on P2P filesharing who actually supports the illegal activity.  It is just that they don’t think this regulation is the right way to go about it.

Also I’m not a particularly political person but it does strike me that we should now just get on with a General Election because we are now entering a silly season where there is a danger that Laws will be rushed in without properly being thought through. Of course I know politics doesn’t work like that…

Categories
Business internet piracy Regs

P2P regulation in Digital Economy Bill ain't going to work

Now that the Digital Economy Bill has been published we can comment on its specifics. and in particular on the aspects relating to what the Government describes as “Online infringement of copyright” or illegal filesharing/Music Piracy in every day language.  It doesn’t just pertain to music, it includes movies and software as well – many of the abuse notices received by Timico in respect of naughty customers are concerned with the latter.

First of all the proposed Bill grants Lord Mandelson far too much control.  The Secretary of State will have the power to make specific recommendations on costs and impose an obligations on ISPs to use technical sanctions. The uninitiated should read this as “telling ISPs how much they will be allowed to charge rights holders for the implementation of the requirements of the Bill.  Technical sanctions = cutting off broadband connections.

In the first instance the industry thinks these responsibilites should be given to an independant body.  Also the idea that ISPs should share some of the cost burden is contrary to the Government’s own legislation – the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000) (RIPA) – which considers it appropriate for ISPs to be reimbursed for costs incurred when assisting in serious criminal investigations,  such as terrorism or kidnap.

What the Government is saying here that it believes that it is ok to recover costs for assistance with the pursuit of serious criminals but not for costs incurred pursuing an alleged civil infringement on behalf of a commercial interest. A scenario that normally burdens the party with the commercial interest with the cost.

ISPs are happy to help and indeed are not in favour of copyright infringement but think it is grossly unfair that they have to pay to police it.

Secondly the suspension of users’ accounts as a potential sanction is wholly disproportionate and is in direct opposition to the objectives outlined in Digital Britain to increase online participation. It seems that this will enable the suspension of users’ accounts without a ruling from a judge. This is potentially in defiance of the forthcoming EU Telecoms Package that guarantees users’ rights to a presumption of innocence until proved guilty.

The Government seems to be blind to the fact that serious copyright infringers can easily evade detection by employing encrypted P2P (for example).

Instead of wielding a big stick Government should be asking rightsholders to reform the licensing framework so that legal content can be distributed online to consumers in a way that they are clearly demanding. Currently the online copyright law is a mess spread across many countries and legislatures and the costs to industry of getting it sorted are huge. 

The Government is trying to push this Bill through quickly but it isn’t going to stop the problem. Lift up your heads and raise your voices all!

Categories
Business internet piracy Regs

P2P regulation in Digital Economy Bill ain’t going to work

Now that the Digital Economy Bill has been published we can comment on its specifics. and in particular on the aspects relating to what the Government describes as “Online infringement of copyright” or illegal filesharing/Music Piracy in every day language.  It doesn’t just pertain to music, it includes movies and software as well – many of the abuse notices received by Timico in respect of naughty customers are concerned with the latter.

First of all the proposed Bill grants Lord Mandelson far too much control.  The Secretary of State will have the power to make specific recommendations on costs and impose an obligations on ISPs to use technical sanctions. The uninitiated should read this as “telling ISPs how much they will be allowed to charge rights holders for the implementation of the requirements of the Bill.  Technical sanctions = cutting off broadband connections.

In the first instance the industry thinks these responsibilites should be given to an independant body.  Also the idea that ISPs should share some of the cost burden is contrary to the Government’s own legislation – the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000) (RIPA) – which considers it appropriate for ISPs to be reimbursed for costs incurred when assisting in serious criminal investigations,  such as terrorism or kidnap.

What the Government is saying here that it believes that it is ok to recover costs for assistance with the pursuit of serious criminals but not for costs incurred pursuing an alleged civil infringement on behalf of a commercial interest. A scenario that normally burdens the party with the commercial interest with the cost.

ISPs are happy to help and indeed are not in favour of copyright infringement but think it is grossly unfair that they have to pay to police it.

Secondly the suspension of users’ accounts as a potential sanction is wholly disproportionate and is in direct opposition to the objectives outlined in Digital Britain to increase online participation. It seems that this will enable the suspension of users’ accounts without a ruling from a judge. This is potentially in defiance of the forthcoming EU Telecoms Package that guarantees users’ rights to a presumption of innocence until proved guilty.

The Government seems to be blind to the fact that serious copyright infringers can easily evade detection by employing encrypted P2P (for example).

Instead of wielding a big stick Government should be asking rightsholders to reform the licensing framework so that legal content can be distributed online to consumers in a way that they are clearly demanding. Currently the online copyright law is a mess spread across many countries and legislatures and the costs to industry of getting it sorted are huge. 

The Government is trying to push this Bill through quickly but it isn’t going to stop the problem. Lift up your heads and raise your voices all!

Categories
broadband Business internet piracy

Digital Economy Bill is a Lesson in Politics

It’s out, after the first reading in the Lords yesterday!  The Digital Britain bill that is, now known as the Digital Economy Bill.

After months of debate, lobbying and speculation the proposed detail has been published and at first sight it appears to have bits missing. Of interest to ISPs is that there is a lot of content pertaining to Copyright of online digital content – ie illegal P2P filesharing but nothing regarding the Universal Service Obligation for broadband.

There is clearly some political manouvering going on here.  The 50pence tax is already supposedly going to be in the Finance Bill.  Word is that the Government doesn’t think that the USO specifically needs to be in any legislation as it will either be covered by the Finance Bill or the money is already there from the Digital Surplus – the fund set aside to help with Digital TV switchover.

By doing this the Government is trying to increase the likelihood of some of  the Digital Britain Review becoming law by splitting it up into smaller bits. It is also quite possibly using this to brush under the table that they are going to struggle with the implementation of an USO.  They just can’t get their brains round the problem. It is very unfortunate for the millions of Digitally Excluded unfortunates around the UK in suburbs and rural communities alike.  I might be wrong about this but I don’t think so.

Also of interest are proposed powers that will allow the Goverment to take over management of Domain Name Registry Nominet if it doesn’t like how it is being run. Nominet has seen some board room action this year with a couple of Directors making a lot of noise over governance.   The issue is fairly compicated but I believe that one of the issues was the amount of surplus cash being generated by the not for profit organisation.

Details of the Bill can be found here.  Separate post on copyright comes next.

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Business piracy

Peer 2 Peer Piracy – good lord no!

Had a meeting with BIS this morning as the final opportunity to influence the forthcoming Digital Britain bill. Nothing was said really that hasn’t already been published somewhere. We will know the precise content in a couple of weeks.

There is an awful lot of detail that will have to be worked out and with only around 5 months or so until the notional date of the General Election there is, apart from the increasingly vociferous opposition from the ISP industry,  a concern that the time available is not enough to properly consider the bill.

Notwithstanding all that ISPs will have to start working very hard to make sure that all MPs fully understand the issues being debated/proposed here.

This includes Members of the House of Lords which of course introduces a whole new set of issues. What will their Lordships think of a Bill with a major tenet being Peer to Peer Piracy? It is just not the done thing old chap. The Upper House works on a strong basis of trust 🙂 . Seriously though the bill will have to go through the Lords and their Lordships are likely to be closely examining the privacy / consumer rights aspects of the legislation

Notwithstanding that bit of fun I thought it worth adding a few educational points to the debate at this late stage.

Firstly serious P2P illegal downloaders will just move to on to private encrypted networks/Newsgroups that hide your underlying network address and so make it hard to track you down. These do charge which might make it unattractive for Music Pirates wanting freebies. These sites are also unfortunately apparently often attract child pornographers and other lowlife.

If you don’t know anything about them check out the links below:

wikipedia NewsRazor UseNeXT

There is also a continued stream of information suggesting that those that do indulge in Music Piracy also spend more money than those that don’t. Check out the latest market research here.

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Business piracy

TalkTalk pr campaign against Mandelson Digital Britain stance

Carphone Warehouse’s consumer ISP TalkTalk seems to have stolen a march on its rivals with a PR campaign against the Government’s stance on Music Piracy.  This is where Lord Mandelson wants to disconnect persistent illegal downloaders from the internet.

TalkTalk has done a great job with the campaign website, also available via the domain name dontdisconnect.us.

It must be said that this is a sterling effort on their part to even up the balance on the huge lobbying campaign conducted by the music industry on this subject.

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Business internet piracy

ISPs meet with Lord Mandelson to discuss P2P

Representatives of the big five consumer ISPs together with Nicholas Lansman of the Internet Services Providers Association met with Lord Mandelson on Wednesday to discuss P2P legislation.  I will have more details of the meeting next week.

There is quite a bit going on here and this week speaking before the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee under persistent questioning from former Minister Tom Watson MP, Secretary of State Ben Bradshaw confirmed that rightsholders would have to seek a court order before restricting or suspending users’ connections and also explained that users would have the right to appeal before any sanction was enforced. The evidence session in full is available on video here (relevant section starts at 20:35). This appears to be  a postive move from the ISP industry’s perspective.

Also an Early Day Motion tabled by Tom Watson last week has now been signed by 36 MPs, including representatives from all three main political parties. The EDM and signatories can be viewed here.

I would like to thank ISPA for this input. This level of Parliament watching requires some diligence and in the ISPA trade association the industry has a faithful servant.

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Business internet piracy

Stephen Timms Digital Britain Minister

I met with Stephen Timms, Communications Minister today. His official title is Minister for Digital Britain.

I have met Government Ministers before in a long career spent lobbying Parliamentarians on behalf of various trade associations. This was my first meeting in what might be termed a formal environment. I was there with some of the ISP Association Council members to discuss topical issues pertinent to the ISP industry.

I was quite impressed with the process. We assembled in reception at 1 Victoria Street in plenty of time. At some stage an aide met us, whizzed us up to the top floor of the Department of Business Innovation and Skills. It was a round elevator – very impressive – funny what sort of things you notice.

Arriving at the 8th floor we were ushered into a holding room before moving in to see Steve himself. At the appointed time a different aide moved us into ST’s office where we said our hellos and got down to the business of the day.

I was quite impressed with Stephen Timms. Being in the Dept of BIS his remit is to look after industry and he seemed genuinely interested in doing so.

In 45 minutes there is only a limited amount we could cover. We discussed the P2P aspects of the Digital Britain report. I’ve written plenty about this. Key points put across today were that in considering the legislation the Government should ensure that a fair way of apportioning the costs was implemented and that a review of the licensing framework should be conducted.

The current proposals hinge more around sticks than carrots. If illegal music downloaders are to be pursued then a legal alternative should be offered. This is not easy at the moment because of the complexities of licensing the Intellectual Properties of the various rights holders. I’ll detail this in a separate blog post.

We also discussed “prospective effect” and, briefly, more of the Digital Britain report. I doubt many of you have heard of prospective effect – again I will need to write a separate post on this. If I said “mere conduit” perhaps that gives you a clue.

I have to apologise to those of you who wanted me to bring up the subject of broadband 2Meg Universal Service Obligation. We ran out of time on this occasion but now contact has been established there will be other opportunities. 45 minutes, though it seems short, is quite a lot of time to be given by a Government Minister. His diary is chock a block and the next lot were already waiting in the holding room as we were leaving.

As a footnote the clock in his office had stopped – funny what you notice!…

Categories
End User piracy Regs

Government P2P plans could cost broadband users £365 million a year

In its response to the Government’s consultation on Music Piracy BT has stated that the three strikes approach may cost each broadband user £24 a year (up to £1million a day in total). This represents what BT thinks may be the cost of implementing the legislation and which it might find itself having to pass on to its customers. It would likely be the same (if not more) for all ISPs. It makes the proposed 50p tax on phone lines pale into insignificance. There should be no doubt that it is a tax.

Actually I’m not in principle against raising taxes to spend on the roll out of a national fibre network. It’s just that 50 pence is inadequate. We would all better spend this money on the fibre roll out.

There is clearly a lot of politicking going on in what is the run up to the next general election. The Government is looking for quick PR wins. If it is not careful this is one that is going to come back to bite.

I read the BT position in the Daily Mirror. I obviously have a wide range in tastes when it comes to literature 🙂

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Business internet piracy

Technology Strategy Board Digital Britain workshop

The Technology Strategy Board promotes the development and adoption of new technology, ideas  and applications in the UK. It has been given a pot of money to seed the development of technology that will underwrite the aims and objectives of the Digital Britain report.

The briefing was in London on Friday, the aim being to bring network providers and rights holders together to finalise the specification for the Technology Strategy Board’s Digital TestBed. About £30m is apparently available to spend and I understand that in excess of 400 application forms have been downloaded from their with a likely 80 projects to be chosen to go forward to the “feasibility study” stage.  Some applicants will clearly be disappointed.

Whilst I think that his activity is to be applauded I did hear of one interesting bit of feedback from the day.  The representative from Sony, who presumably was there to discuss ways of making music more easily available online in a legal manner, suggested that if it was licensing models that were up for discussion, he would need to get the lawyers on the case. 

The whole issue of legal online access to music is indeeed all about licensing models. The cost of the licenses basically. I get the feeling that the rights holders aren’t really interested in making this easy or lowering the costs. Once you get lawyers involved things take forever. You can’t talk about licensing without lawyers. ergo it will never happen.