UK Proposes Broadband Expansion, Plus a Music and Film Tax 262
Wowsers writes "First the tech illiterates in the UK government want to extend broadband internet connections to every home, whether it makes sense or not, then at the same time they propose a £20 per year (approx $29US) broadband tax which they claim will pay the record and film industries for their failed business models. Coincidence the two proposals are linked? And why should people be forced to pay for the failed film and music industries?"
Not a bad thing (Score:2, Insightful)
If the tax REALLY meant that we were free to download whatever we wanted, and the RIAA / MPAA extortion tax had already been paid, we could do away with all the ISP torrent throttling / shaping, and all the frivolous lawsuits (which lets face it, we pay for anyway in terms of other taxes).
Failed? (Score:5, Insightful)
The industries are hardly failed. Perhaps 'failing', but even failing might be too strong a word.
The 'failed' status is propaganda spread by those industries so that they don't have to change with the times. We shouldn't be reinforcing their marketing.
Questions and suggestion (Score:5, Insightful)
How would that money be distributed? Worldwide? Europe? UK only?
I would finally prefer ISP to fine labels for poor content protection which causes network congestion and degradation!
So how can real artists collect our share? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know if I'm more angry at the fact that I'm paying for the chancer who downloads movies and mp3s he wouldn't pay for anyway or for the fact only that certain oligopoly insiders will get their cut. The remainder who create content are ignored. (I'm not just talking about music and film, digital art has many forms including everything from fiction to high quality blogs, graphic arts, photography and source code)
Shame on the British Government for U.S. style pandering to the whiners in the MPAA and RIAA cartels.
Re:Not a bad thing (Score:5, Insightful)
If the tax REALLY meant that we were free to download whatever we wanted, and the RIAA / MPAA extortion tax had already been paid, we could do away with all the ISP torrent throttling / shaping, and all the frivolous lawsuits (which lets face it, we pay for anyway in terms of other taxes).
Read TFA - its nothing as "fair" as directly compensating the industry for "lost" revenue: the proposed tax would fund a new agency which would (muffled buzzing and mumbling) between the entertainment industry and ISPs.
Pay the bands, not the music industry (Score:4, Insightful)
Music industry is not very useful in the age of internet. They have no added value. Why do a music-industry "Bail-out"???
Music industry, car industry (for cars with internal combustion) - it's all a bit obsolete.
To me this feels like doing a bailout for steam engine locomotives.
Old stuff just disappears. Accept it.
But that isn't the case. (Score:5, Insightful)
The tax is to pay for a new government department that will aid lawsuits file sharers and hold anonymised information that can be used to identify repeat infringers.
And yes, I know anonymised information to identify people makes no fucking sense, but that's how the report phrased it. I'm still trying to figure out how it can be both anonymous and used to identify too.
I've not only read TFA but I've read the actual interim report too and the whole thing was simply non-sensical. If you read the section on copyrights etc. the first few pages are really quite good- they make comments along the lines of "We realise file sharing is something that's widely done and widely accepted and that people have come to accept. It is clear therefore that in this case it is perhaps the laws and business models that need to change". But then after the first few pages the mood changes completely and they outright contradict statements such as the above by mentioning they intend to introduce a new department and so on to protect failing business models and not change the laws.
I find this particularly interesting because they've clearly put it into the report to make it sound like they care about the other side of the argument, but more importantly- it shows they understand the problem in it's entirety. If they understand it but are contradicting their understanding of it anyway then frankly there's only one possible explanation I can come up with for this obscure situation- corruption. I can simply see no other reason why they'd accept they're fighting the unfightable but going to do it and appease the music and movie industry anyway.
Some of snippets that were interesting were statements that the UK is the world's biggest exporter of culture. That seems rather unlikely to me, certainly compared to the US' McDonalds, Hollywood, RIAA affiliated companies etc. I can't see that we come close.
The only upside of the report I can see is that they have at least done away with the idea of three strikes and intend to follow the lawsuits based approach. This is good because unless the UK courts are equally corrupt as Lord Carter clearly is then this should be shown up to be a massive waste of money. The RIAA's evidence doesn't stand up in court at the end of the day because there is still no way to attach file sharing to a particular person (only to a particular IP) other than literally sitting looking over their shoulder and watching them do it.
The irony of the proposed tax is that it's actually worse for everyone than if it were a tax to legalise P2P. If it were for that then more people would be happier, the music industry would be netting in a small fortune, file sharers would be paying a not unreasonable amount. The people who would lose out are those who don't file share but still have to pay the tax. As it stands though the proposed solution only gives the music industry a load more unwinnable cases, the tax payer is funding another ultimately useless government department and ISPs have to bear the cost of dealing with the situation.
The final report is still to come, and hopefully MPs will realise the idiocy behind all this. Certainly the Conservatives seem to realise the idiocy of a tax-based approach, even if they as a party support prevention of file sharing through equally unworkable methods. The problem is of course, Labour can do what they want, and if they crack the whip it doesn't matter what the other parties want, it doesn't matter what the MPs themselves want, all that matters is what the Labour niche- Brown, Burnham, Carter and probably Smith want.
It Will Encourage Piracy (Score:5, Insightful)
As typical of "our" "Government" this policy is ill-thought-out, completely out-of-touch with voter's opinions and as usual the "Government" listen to the wrong people.
1)A legal right to broadband in every home is *up to* 2Mb only. I know people who "technically" have broadband and *at best* up to 512Mb.
2) If a £20 "tax" were introduced, the piracy rate would increase because people will want to justify the increased cost - "If I have to pay the music publishers a levy even if I do not pirate thier music - I must as well start doing it then"
3) The "Government" & Music industry want to monitor our connections for illegal material (thankfully but idiotically only over P2P traffic). The early stages of monitoring ("because of crime and terrorism") our connections is already under way.
I know that many ISPs and other telecommunication companies have criticized the report this announcement was based on.
Intrestingly the European Human Rights act guarantees an individual's right to privacy - as far as I know the U.K. have not officailly signed-up to it yet.
Confused summary (Score:5, Insightful)
The BBC is funded by a direct tax on households with television. It carries no (overt) advertising and therefore is able to provide programmes without reference to the Rupert Murdoch world-view, unlike Sky. Sky should definitely not receive any taxpayer subvention as it exists to promote the views of an Australian/American billionaire, like its US counterpart Fox News.
I am afraid that this latest proposal is nothing to do with the BBC model, it is all about keeping foreign recording companies in the country and onside. Which is about continuing to try to keep the City of London at a level of importance disproportionate to the country as a whole. Just about every plan we hear nowadays is about taxing the rest of us to, ultimately, keep bankers in bonuses.
Uhm.. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Is this surprising? (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally I think there's a huge difference between handing out money to corporations responsible to their shareholders and an the BBC who's responsibility is to fulfill a charter [bbccharterreview.org.uk] established by the people who are stumping up the cash (albeit via government).
Oh and before I forget. (Score:5, Insightful)
The report also kills off any hope of seeing net neutrality laws in the UK under a labour government. Not only have they said they don't want laws for net neutrality, they've outright said they believe it's the wrong thing to do and that ISPs should be able to pick and choose what to transfer, for who and at what cost.
This was supposed to be a report for the UK's digital future but coupled with this, my above post and the fact they're referring to things like DRM that even the music industry now accepts is a failure as solutions to piracy then it sounds more like a report for a draconian broadband dark age.
Nothing in this report bar the idea of universal broadband access can help the UK's technology sector. Despite accepting that it's worth £50bn they've put what they also accepted was only worth about £3bn - the creative industries above it. This report is out and out going to destroy any chance of the UK ever catching up to the world technology leaders if the actions included are carried out. Again, the fact Carter can put a £3bn industry above a £50bn industry suggests Carter is corrupt to the core and is putting his personal agenda above the health of the country's economy. Just as Labour gutted the UK's science research, they're now gutting the rest of the technology futures in the UK.
I am quite offended by this (Score:4, Insightful)
The UK government is getting daft with corporate welfare. Banks get billions of pounds, the recording industry is going to get hundreds of millions under this proposal, and BT is also likely to get a big wad of taxpayer money running broadband out to the most remote areas.
And yet, the government and media still come down hardest on the 'scroungers' receiving state benefit for unemployment. The News Of The World carried a front page story about 'the biggest scroungers in Britain' the same week Brown bailed out the banks for the first time. The government has maintained its advertising campaign trying to convince people on benefits can go to prison if they lie about their status (whereas in reality most of the people 'caught' doing this haven't done anything wrong and are let go).
The message seems clear: if you are a giant corporation and a bank that has got used to making ridiculous profits and can't anymore, the government will throw huge amounts of taxpayer money at you. But if you dare to try and diddle the government out of £40 a week they are going to FUCK you SO hard...
Re:Not a bad thing (Score:4, Insightful)
This money would enable the industry to be able to afford to hire investigators and lawyers, so they can sue the downloaders.
Currently, there is an argument over who pays for the investigation/notification of the 3 strikes agreement between some ISP's and big media. This will nicely solve that "problem", by making everybody pay for it.
There's no downside.
I'm glad I'm living in Canada.
Re:Is this surprising? (Score:3, Insightful)
That isn't a belief personal to you, its one shared by the UK public at large. Having had the BBC running alongside commercial stations for so long means that I doubt the UK public would be easily fooled by a government trying to blur the line and hand out taxpayer money to commercial media companies.
TV Shows (Score:4, Insightful)
That is quite unfair on TV shows, I download tv shows much more than I download movies and I hardly even download any music.
shouldn't they give some of that tax to tv producers too?
Re:Uhm.. (Score:3, Insightful)
I am sorry to say, that I just stole your copyrighted material. You see, as the above post was (I assume) entirely your creation, and I have just made a copy of it on my computer using my web browser, I am a dirty thief who may as well be jacking cars.
As for your idea that their business model is fine, its just the consumers who are wrong - that to me seems like the classic last words of a failing industry right there.
Free Downloads For Life (Score:5, Insightful)
So they charge everyone with broadband 20 quid to effectively allow them to legally download everything for free.
So no one will buy music/video again - they've already paid for it.
How will the money raised by this tax get distributed to the artists ?
Of course the answer is it won't. It will shore up the record companies, who will still bleat about people stealing music and use that as the excuse for the artists to get even further shafted.
Welcome to 21st Century Government - where the government's only purpose is to take your money from you and give it to whoever currently has their ear (and wallet).
More corrupt government? (Score:1, Insightful)
Universal broadband availability should certainly be mandated in any modern industrial economy, but the corrupt handout for the record industry is just shameful, unless it is a yearly payment that gives everyone the right to download and share anything they want.
Somehow, I can't imaging that from the current British government, which has granted unprecedented rights to large corporate interests at the (massive) expense of the general population.
Lets just hope we don't end up with a Tory government soon, as they were even worse, last time they were in power.
Re:The UK Government is... (Score:2, Insightful)
Its a good job we have a strong left-wing party to oppose all this corporate welfare.
Oh, wait...
But at least there is a media that will take the government to task over issues that affect our daily lives, rather than running scare stories about immigrants and peadophiles, right?
Hang on a moment...
In that case we had better exercise our right to freely assemble and protest!
Oh dear...
There is nothing for it then, lacking democratic recourse, any means of protest or public debate, we should rise up and replace our government with one more favourbly disposed towards freedom. At least we still have our guns...
Shit.
NuLabour? New Tax! (Score:3, Insightful)
Hrmm. To put it another way... (Score:3, Insightful)
The "Industry" wants taxpayers to pay for an official entity to essentially enforce DRM on the entire population.
Didn't we start dumping tea over the gunwales because of something like this?
Granted, times have changed, but c'mon folks.
I'd be happy to.. (Score:2, Insightful)
I'd be happy to pay a couple dollars more per month to my provider having a chance to legally download and own some unrestricted movies and music I like for that. Everybody pays that, the media industry is saved.
But times are long still before the digital revolution comes, and all (data, voice, video and audio) can come at once and without zillions different standards in the same network pipe, so to say: press a button, watch that movie. Press another: listen to that song: noone would even need having much storage home anymore, the media industry could, as top node provider, getting the royalties from the lower network providers who give pure bandwidth to final users. Too hard?
Oh, and: Yes, of course should broadband get to everywhere, even who "don't need" it. Like phone lines did a century ago, it's called "progress".
Re:But that isn't the case. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not a bad thing (Score:4, Insightful)
So let me get this straight.
1. You tax the people.
2. You give the tax to the record companies.
3. The record companies use this tax to sue the very people who were taxed.
Isn't that just a roundabout way of forcing the defendant to pay all the legal bills regardless of the outcome?
Re:But that isn't the case. (Score:4, Insightful)
Well here's the relevant section of the report in full:
"We also intend to require ISPs to collect anonymised information on serious repeat infringers (derived from their notification activities), to be made available to rights-holders together with personal details on receipt of a court order."
A court order is required, but that's meaningless here in the UK, the courts just order it handed over without the defendant getting chance to point out how useless their evidence is. They literally ask the court "Can we have this data?" and the court says yes without question. Effectively, so far the courts might as well be removed from the process anyway as they have absolutely no positive effect in ensuring a valid claim for personal information because the orders the courts have given so far have been based on evidence that doesn't prove in any way whatsoever the actual person whose details they're asking for has done anything wrong, only the IP address attached to the internet connection that person pays for.
Are you suggesting the personal data will be anonymised and passed to the music industry as a hash then it's up to them to decide if they want the linked personal information? Or is the anonymised data simply data on what has been shared? If it's anonymised then I don't see how it's admissable in court at least. The text doesn't seem clear on that, it sounds like some anonymised data and personal information is passed over only after receipt of a court order. Quite what the anonymised data is if personal information is handed over anyway I'm still not sure.
I watched the industry shill on BBC News (Score:5, Insightful)
I saw the shill from the music industry playing the "oh my god we are so poor and billions of pounds are being lost from file sharing" card. I was amazed he was able to say it with a straight face (although I guess he could believe his own shit).
He went on to say that this report (an interim report!) "didn't go far enough" to deal with the crippling online piracy that is causing music execs to have to bum for change on the streets.
And while he did mention "changing and adapting the business plan" to take advantage of the online era, the iTunes store was conspicuously absent (he did mention other services specifically by name, including Nokia's subscription service with their phones). So it's clear that the industry doesn't want to see iTunes succeed, even with their new tiered pricing deal. It seems that a runaway success download music store, with thousands of people buying tracks that "they could easily get for free" isn't worth mentioning in an interview about how the music industry is dealing with online downloading... How very.... selectively forgetful of them.
So, if any British music producer/record company/BMI researcher is reading, and I'm sure there must be some. Send another "-1 full of shit" moderation up the chain of command to the PR/management. Also, let them know that they'll never be able to stop online downloading, but it's not the end of days. Some simple reasons from the music buying public:
Sales of CDs are falling because:
1. Music just isn't as good as it used to be. Hours and hours of manufactured rubbish, heavily processed and canned and then carefully timed for release to score a number 1 is not music.
2. Even if some people like that type of music, and some must do, CDs and CD singles are *far* more expensive than they should be.
3. You prosecute grannies who don't own computers, and assign arbitrarily silly values of "lost revenue" to "stolen" songs. Hint: if people who wouldn't buy it if it cost money obtain it for free, you're not losing money.
4. 99.999999999999% of the profits of music sales do not go to the artists in question that we love. At least in the public perception. I'm sure it;s something like 3% of the price of a CD goes to the artist. Now, I understand basic economics, that everyone in the chain needs to be paid, from artist, vendor, distributor, manufacturer etc, but the labels are snarfing deep at the trough and fucking everyone else over. I'd rather download the music and just send the price of the CD to the band in the post, but that would be unfair to the company that pressed the CD and the shop that sold it.
5. I have bought from iTunes, quite a lot in fact. I wanted to show you guys that it was a viable business model, but you just won't let the subject go. Ignoring the success of the store and instead moaning that people still share music (well, duh!)
6. I seem to remember the movie industry proclaim that the sky was falling when the video cassette recorder hit the shops. That "home taping will kill movies! We'll lose BILLIONS! The World Is Over!!!!", but then they started selling their movies on VHS tape and made money hand over fist. Funny that. Oh, and just in case you were wondering, home taping *didn't* kill movies. They're still going strong. The really good movies that were released after VHS recorders were around made more money than the cocaine industry in the 80s.
7. You are never going to stop online music sharing. You just can not. Even getting it classified as a felony in the US (alongside rape, murder, grand larceny, grand theft auto, online music sharing is clearly as bad as those crimes) you will not stop it. Look to the software industry - Microsoft has almost more illegal copies of Windows out there than legit installs, yet they are still making hay while the sun shines. Would they prefer if everyone bought legit copies? Of course. Can then enforce this? No. Should they? Not really - people are always going to go outside the rules. Sell your product. Make it attractive to buy so th
Re:But that isn't the case. (Score:4, Insightful)
"What is more, going around calling government minsters corrupt really doesn't engage with the process, now does it..."
Why? It's not as if it's far fetched:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7849594.stm [bbc.co.uk]
If these politicians are corrupt, and their actions and comments suggest very strongly that they are (either that or they're immensly stupid and ignorant but I'd at least like to give them the benefit of being intelligent and not simply call them that) then they need to be called out on it. Just like the Bush administration, Labour in the UK has had too much power for too long and they're drunk on it, they feel they can do whatever they wish regardless of how morally, ethically, and sometimes legally wrong this is.
Do you really believe it's better to allow corruption to go ignored and unquestioned? The very fact Carter has contradicted himself in his own report again means one of two things, he has a personal agenda, which again means corruption or he's immensly stupid. Certainly there is no reason whereby you can give benefit of the doubt because the contradictions simply do not make sense. Unfortunately the only explanations are rather negative in their form so it really is a case of either ignore them or call them out on it and show that it's not acceptable.
Re:tv license != tax (Score:2, Insightful)
Treat us like criminals? (Score:5, Insightful)
I acquire all my music/films/software legally.
If I'm going to be taxed on the assumption that I'm illegally downloading stuff, then I guess I might as well go ahead and start getting pirated versions instead.
If you punish people for things they haven't actually done, expect them to go off and start doing it.
Re:Not a bad thing (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not a cure.
That's "stop them stealing, funding criminal networks and needlessly killing themselves by injecting god-knows-what they just bought".
Big difference.
Re:Not a bad thing (Score:5, Insightful)
I just gave myself a great idea!
Much like heroin, we give them this tax money and in return they make their entire catalogue available to us in high quality from a reputable source (i.e. them).
That's what we're proposing right? Right?
Oh, no, wait, we're proposing that they get their money and we get... fuck all.
The worst bit (Score:2, Insightful)
is that the government also wants to give everyone 2Mb broadband, which means those who can't afford broadband get it anyway, AND they don't have to pay this crappy fee.
Licence to download! (Score:4, Insightful)
Compensate the Post Office (Score:5, Insightful)
There should be an additional tariff on visitors to wikipedia, encyclopedia publishers are seeing a drop in sales.
I could go on.
Re:Questions and suggestion (Score:3, Insightful)
The same way it applies to people in the UK who have a TV but do not watch the boring BBC channels... or those who have Cable or SKY and similarly, do not watch the BBC.
Or the people who pay tax for the fire service, and never use it, or the people that pay tax for military use, and don't agree with it, or the people....
PS. BBC boring? You're off your head.
Re:Not a bad thing (Score:3, Insightful)
I guess that's pretty much what is happening with the financial crisis going on:
1. You tax the people.
2. You give the tax to the (almost bankrupt) banks.
3. The banks lend money with high interest to the people who were taxed.
All in all, it's just another day and the world is still spinning.
Re:Uhm.. (Score:2, Insightful)
And similarly, if the music industry wants to take money off of people, it should wait until they buy it, rather than stealing the money from them.
That's the point that is referred to as a failed business model - not the fact that some people might copy the music.
Re:Not a bad thing (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess that's pretty much what is happening with the financial crisis going on:
1. You tax the people.
2. You give the tax to the (almost bankrupt) banks.
3. The banks use the money to pay each other huge bonuses, whilst still refusing to make any loans.
Fixed that for ya.
Re:Uhm.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Why should I pay for some deadbeats who should be punished instead of being rewarded for their actions.
Exactly, after the abuses the RIAA and company have made with the world's copyright laws, *specially* that of the US and UK (aren't we due for the next "we have to get in line with international standards" copyright extension?), *they* should be the ones paying very large fines to the government, and very large settlements for the poor shmucks who were once their customers. Further, I'd call any business model that requires special legislation passed for them as "failed".
No, I don't infringe their copyrights, not because I have any respect left for them though, their products just suck.
Why should people be forced to pay for the failed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not a bad thing (Score:2, Insightful)