UK P2P Fight Brewing 244
forunder writes "Zeropaid has been covering a very hot topic going on in the UK right now. The government, prodded by entertainment lobbyists, has gotten six UK ISPs to agree to help police piracy on their networks. A leaked government letter says they are looking to cut internet piracy by 80%. In the same week Microsoft released a study which found that some 54% of UK file sharers are between 11-16. The UK's Green Party has already spoken up, calling the new policies an 'Attack on Civil Liberties.'"
UK Citizens (Score:5, Insightful)
Why the hell are they so bent on MP3s? Why don't they get the fact that they stand to make a LOT more money if they embrace the technology and accept that their business environment has changed for the good? I am so sick of reading this, and seeing the everyday person either going buy without knowledge of what the BPI et al are doing, or not realising that it's breaching their civil liberties (and not even caring!).
Keep downloading. Bleed 'em dry - that's what I say.
Re:How to cut internet piracy by 80% (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately the alternative is a PR man, so you can guess how well that is likely to play out.
It would be kind of the US to vote in McCain and let us have Obama, thank you very much. Somebody who has at least spent years discussing civil liberties and civil rights with law students, even Chicago law students, has at least put in the groundwork to be allowed to have opinions on the subject, and politically he's probably on the moderate wing of our Conservative Party.
We do have one politician who has a clue about the subject, Jack Straw, but his current opinion seems to be "I'm far too clever to become Prime Minister and then lose an unwinnable election".
Currently Brown will do anything to try and keep the so-called service economy - entertainment, banking, supermarkets - onside. And the chance that a Government full of middle aged white men who single finger type, and only when they have to, will get a clue about the implications of almost free distribution of all kinds of data is extremely remote. Their idea of data sharing is leaving critical Government databases on unsecured laptops in taxis.
Pointless (Score:4, Insightful)
The UK government right now is in such a mess it's almost surreal. They have an unerring knack of seeking out absolutely dreadful headline grabbing initiatives which they seem to think will re-establish them as a party the public would like to vote for but which are in fact unbelievably stupid and ridiculed as such by the public at large. This is just yet another example and just highlights the fact the only people they are listening to are special interest groups and lobbyists.
The ISPs are only going to be sending out warning letters, they're not actually going terminate anyones contract or take any other sort of action except perhaps throttling P2P connections, which they probably do already and there is still a wide choice of alternative ISPs in the UK which have not signed up to this nonsense.
As I understand it the ISPs aren't doing any monitoring at all off their own bat, the arrangement seems to be that the media cartels do the monitoring, like they do anyway, and just tell the ISP a particular person might be doing something they don't like at which point the ISP simply sends the letter. A horrible arrangement for sure but not one which gives the ISP much grounds to go on when people start challenging their accusations of wrongdoing.
Hopefully at some point soon the ISPs will realise this is all much more trouble than it's worth and give up and the current government will call an election and get the boot.
Infringe till they pry it from my cold dead hands (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't pirate, I obviously infringe. In a world where we have less and less control and things seem to spiral away, we need a place where we can 'Stick it to the man', and the internet is it. I don't care about letters. The internet will adapt to meet the challenge. New protocols, new encryption. Hell, private groups who burn DVD's and mail them like the good old days. This genie isn't going back into any bottle anyday soon.
Here we go (Score:4, Insightful)
Its about distribution (Score:5, Insightful)
Why the hell are they so bent on MP3s?
Its not about MP3's at all, its about distributors holds over the distribution channels, which brings the majority of their revenue.
Digital music and the internet removes any artificial barrier the music/movie industry has traditionally held, and now they are having to resort to pressuring governments into making laws to secure their channels. P2P and file sharing is just the excuse they happen to use to get themselves more control.
Governments happily oblige because at the same time they get more control over the internet too.
Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling (Score:3, Insightful)
I trade my linux binaries via P2P (fine - then you should have no problem of rightsholders doing file-hash-based enforcement)
I still oppose to the filtering and thus monitoring of my downloads. Especially if I'm downloading legal stuff.
I learned about band X from P2p (fine - in which case if it makese economic sense for a company or band to release thusly, they will.. it's their decision to make)
Doesn't make it legal maybe, but can make it morally acceptable to me. Why would it be illegal if you are not hurting anyone?
Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling (Score:1, Insightful)
ISP's shouldn't be in the business of monitoring anyone's internet any more than BT should be in the business of listening into private telephone calls and reading private faxes. Neither should governments. So I feel perfectly justified in complaining about both.
How about neither the government nor ISPs spy on internet use? The people complaining about 'piracy' carry on starting civil suits against those they believe are committing copyright infringement. With evidence to back them up mind, not just wild shots in the dark like at the moment. They could also try asking for reasonably realistic compensation instead of the pie in the sky figures they currently come up with.
Amusingly, as of my post the, only jackass posting the 'golden oldies' you mention is you. Congratulations.
Re:Unfortunately (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmmmm, there is more than one article quoted here to give some background on this whole anti-piracy thing, so I'll give you the link here (actually given above):
http://www.zeropaid.com/news/9652/Leaked+British+Government+Letter+-+P2P+Will+be+Cut+by+80%25 [zeropaid.com]
Now, a leaked letter dated just two days before the major revelation has surfaced and shows that the British government is just as adamant over the idea of ISPs being copyright police as the major copyright industry - if not, more so......the British government has secretly set a goal of reducing file-sharing by 80% over the course of the next three years. The letter was signed by Baroness Vadera, the business minister.
Reading the whole article text usually helps. There you go. This is pretty much British government policy. You got modded insightful for not actually reading.
Fuck. You've been modded up to insightful because you believe that that comment was an anti-USA rant - which it wasn't in any way, because it describes the situation as-is from the point of view of someone who, presumably, actually, you know, lives in the UK? It certainly rings true with me and the article proves it.
The irony seems to go like this:
1. Attack a comment for something you believe it says, but actually doesn't.
2. Fail miserably to read the context around the article, or even the links, and say that it has nothing to do with something when in fact it does.
3. Add in a sarcastic comment about what passes as 'insightful' around here.
4. As a result of 3, get the mods second guessing themselves.
5. Get a stupid comment modded as insightful.
Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's agree something - burning a copy of a Coldplay CD isn't going to ruin anybody. It's a victimless crime and not at all like physical theft.
What this is about is the US Corporate Empire bearing down on weaker countries, trying to protect it's revenue at the expense of others. That is bad enough by itself, but not only that, the music industry in itself is horribly broken. Governments don't seem to care whether cheap trash is peddled at 95% markup, with dozens of companies all sticking their fingers in the pie. Music sales have been falling for years, because it's overpriced, overexposed and often of a poor quality.
Perhaps governments shouldn't care about that. But they should protect their own citizens from vicious attacks by immoral lawyers working for executives that care not for right and wrong, only for personal gain.
Re:How to cut internet piracy by 80% (Score:3, Insightful)
It's just the usual killer combination of low-brow material, high production values, and good old-fashioned fappability.
And Britney, bless her, hasn't had the latter for a long time now.
Re:UK Citizens (Score:1, Insightful)
Don't you racist trolls have anything better to do?
Re:UK Citizens (Score:3, Insightful)
The thing is, the internet IS "The Next Big Thing" [or rather, it was 5 years ago]. Both the major music labels and the major movie studios are risk-adverse to new ways of doing things. Even though EVERY SINGLE FORMAT CHANGE has earned both industries buckets and buckets cash.
Music went from LP to cassette/8 track to CD's and now to MP3's
Moves went from theaters to VHS/Beta cassettes to DVD's to BluRay/HD-DVD's [well, it's too early for the 'buckets of cash' for BluRay].
Both industries have millions of people literally begging to have a reasonable, easy, legal way to purchase both audio and video to use on their computers, TV's, portable devices, etc.. [particularly evidenced by the iTunes store, that even with it's crappy, arbitrary limitations required by both industries, has sold billions of songs and millions of movies, even though with only a minimal amount of additional effort, people could get the same thing WITHOUT the limitations for free].
Both industries are also facing rampant piracy on the internet.
What would any self-respecting industry do? Naturally, their first reaction is to keep throttling iTunes, both by refusing to permit it to sell DRM-free music [and DRM-free video], by forcing it to sell or rent a movie for the same price or more than the retail price of a DVD, but without any extra features included with the DVD. By arbitrarily requiring that a $3000 computer connected to a $3000 HD television is limited to 480P because the driver for your mouse is not signed by Microsoft [alternately, you can't view it at all on the Mac because Apple doesn't agree to the ridiculous demands that Microsoft caved to for viewing HD].
Re:Unfortunately (Score:3, Insightful)
The GP isn't accusing the Prime Minister of having a Ph.D., the accusation is of having a Ph.D.-in-the-history-of-the-Labour-Party.
Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling (Score:2, Insightful)
What a load of (pardon my French) cuillons.
Yes, copyright infringement is similar to riding a train with no ticket - the train is going to the destination anyway, and it's only a social contract that makes you think that you need to pay for a ticket.
That's your choice.
The music is available by virtue of being digitised - it's now as free as a train ride.
Me - I pay for my music, and my train rides, but I don't object to others sharing my ride (unless they play rap shit!).
Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling (Score:4, Insightful)
Let me ask you this: what should be the penalty for a shoplifter who shoplifts, say, candy?
A slap on the wrist, first time. Repeat offenders could be taken to task eventually but stealing small amounts of candy should never result in giant fines or prison sentences.
But please, don't let my reality intrude on your comic book view of the world.
I do not live in a comic book. I live in the UK, where virtually everyone agrees that we should not allow corporations to run roughshod over families.
Please tell me more about this theoretical person
Not theoretical! [wikipedia.org] Also, stumping up $20 a month for broadband does not make someone "fair game" for lawyers earning $300,000 per year.
You'll find software from the smallest of the small shareware companies being pirated regularly.
I agree that's bad. Where is the software industry body that's going after those guys? There isn't one. So if you steal software, you get away with it. If you steal music, you get financially crippled for life? Real nice.
Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling (Score:5, Insightful)
To me, tens of thousands of dollars does not seem unreasonable. It's not a crippling amount of money (but it will sting) to anybody who owns a computer[...]
Is it? Does it? Says who?
Fixed fines favor rich people. When you're rich, 100k USD is pocket change. That's the fine you threaten me with? Ok, send the bill when you catch me, but don't bother me 'til you do. That's one of the reasons why you can see a lot of rich people participate in illegal activities where it's even likely to get caught. I mean, who cares about being caught speeding in an illegal street race when the worst you have to fear is a few 1000 bucks fine when he makes more money by just sitting around?
OTOH, when you sue someone who is paying back a student loan or, worse, a teenager who is about to want one, a 100k fine ruins a life. Forever. Ever tried to get a student loan with a debt like that on your back?
If you want a fine to sting (and only that), make it income dependent.
Re:UK Citizens (Score:5, Insightful)
The racist troll has a point there. Every damn singer or band out there seems to think they ought to be entitled to tax my income just because they once recorded a few songs, even if I don't listen to them. I'm still trying to figure out exactly why I'm supposed to care so damn much about the artists and the music executives. They wouldn't give a crap about me even if they knew me, so to hell with them for my part.
Re:Pointless (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't diss the Lords. They have consistently stood in the way of every privacy breaking, ID introducing, DNA logging policy from the Commons for the past 5 years. Ironically, I find myself supporting their decisions far more than those of the party I voted in.
Re:How to cut internet piracy by 80% (Score:5, Insightful)
'You're not free to take a performance of Beethoven's 5th by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and stick it up on bittorrent.'
You are if it was made before 1958, here in the UK (where copyright expires on audio recordings after 50 years). And there are plenty of excellent recordings from the 'mono era' that are well worth listening to. You get into a bit of a grey area if you've ripped the tracks from a modern CD rather than the original record, since the digital re-mastering may itself be subject to copyright. It'll come as no surprise that the audio industry wants this law changed, and there's already a proposal from the EU Commission to greatly extend the copyright term throughout Europe. Can't let those Beatles albums go free from 2013...
Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling (Score:2, Insightful)
Nonsense. The UK government's plan is that the MAFIAA (in the guise of the BPI -- British Phonographic Industry) will get to institute a "3 strikes and you're out" system whereby if they say they've caught someone illegally filesharing 3 times, they will force their ISP to disconnect that person.
This is an infringement of civil liberties, because:
1. it's all to be done on the BPI's say-so. There will be no trial, no court case, so presumption of innocence. Note that even the government admits in their consultation document that the MAFIAA gets it wrong in 30% of their accusations.
2. it presumes collective guilt -- a principle alien to British justice; if one person in a household is making illegal downloads, then everyone in that household is punished.
3. it's grossly disproportionate. If someone commits a ctime while on a pavement -- for example beinbg drunk and disorderly, or causing a fight, or whatever -- they are not banned from using any pavement for the rest of their life.
Re:It's summer, and Slashdot is trolling (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, I stopped believing in the copyright laws when they turned from a tool to balance the interests between creators and users into a tool of creators to keep an outdated and obsolete business model afloat.
We're currently in a state similar to the one we were with hackneys a century ago. Trains began to make them useless for cross country transportation. Did you ever notice how train stations are outside of towns, or at least were until the towns grew around them? Say your thanks to the laws that should protect hackney business of taking passengers to the train station. Know the silly laws about men with flags running in front of automobiles that we enjoy to laugh about so much? Same lobby at work.
Did it work? Fortunately, it did not. We do have cars today, we may drive them at leisure and, while still in effect today in some areas, the pointless flag-laws have been in disuse for decades. People simply ignore laws that serve no purpose, you see.
Hackneys turned into cabs and they still exist. They probably don't make so much business anymore, a lot of their biz was also eaten up by public transport, but you may be surprised, they somehow survived, even without forcing the people to exist without alternatives. Because they're usually more comfortable than trains or busses, and cheaper than your own car if you only need them rarely.
The parallels are quite stunning. Except that using the content industry's idea of content is usually anything but comfortable.
Re:Infringe till they pry it from my cold dead han (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't pirate, I obviously infringe.
I do neither, but obviously I must infringe too. I don't buy the crap that is currently produced. I don't even download it (it's not even worth the bandwidth it takes). Yet still, the dwindling sales (what dwindling sales, btw, I hear year after year that the content industry makes a record plus?) are due to copy culture.
The dwindling sales are not due to people infringing. The dwindling sales are due to a lack of supply that meets the demand. I don't want movies that consist of SFX to hide the threadbare plot. I don't want music that sounds exactly the same as the other moronic American Idol crap you tried to cram down my throat last year. Meet my demand and I will buy your supply.
But no, that can't be it. When people don't buy, it has to mean they copy, because it can't be that they simply don't want the crap.
Re:How to cut internet piracy by 80% (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly. Not just advertising though, but marketing and media attention.
Everyone knows who Britney Spears is whether a fan of her music or not. She's been on TV countless times, has songs played daily on radio stations around the world etc. That's what the record publishers are all about (unsurprisingly, people don't tend to buy music they haven't heard from artists they don't know of). It's a very different job from actually making music.
Music piracy doesn't prevent music being made, it just stops people making large amounts of money directly from music sales. Those who are purely driven by financial reward through direct music sales might stop making music, but 'artists' will keep making music just as now. Through aspects such as concert sales, they still also have the opportunity to make healthy fortunes.
If the stranglehold on music of the record publishers can be removed we will start seeing music return to being based on talent rather than "prospective sales figures" record executives have assigned to new artists. At present, the quality of the music is only a small part of that "prospective sales figures" calculation; aspects such as: sex appeal, ease of publicity (heavy drug use seems to be good for this at the moment) and market positioning feature at least as high on the list as the actual quality of the music.
The less stranglehold a few select record company conglomerates have one the industry the wider selection of artists which will get chances to gain the publicity needed to get a band off the ground.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:UK Citizens (Score:3, Insightful)
The racist troll has a point there. Every damn singer or band out there seems to think they ought to be entitled to tax my income just because they once recorded a few songs, even if I don't listen to them. I'm still trying to figure out exactly why I'm supposed to care so damn much about the artists and the music executives. They wouldn't give a crap about me even if they knew me, so to hell with them for my part.
Not strictly true.
Every damn record label out there seems to think that because they've made money in the exact same way for many years, this state of affairs must continue - be it by making anything which threatens it illegal or by taxing it so they get a cut of the money.
AFAICT, most of the artists they've recruited to the cause fall into one of a relatively limited number of camps:
Note that there are plenty of very talented individuals and bands who are reasonably successful but for one reason or another don't fall into any of the above categories. They're the people who you hear saying "You know, I may be a musician but I don't think I'd miss large chunks of the music industry if it were to disappear tomorrow". Think Courtney Love [gerryhemingway.com].
Re:Pointless (Score:5, Insightful)
[1] And, by 'at the moment' I mean 'for the last decade or two, maybe longer.'