Hey, BPI, Meet the New Rule: Show Evidence

After the UK Government unveiled its pretty reasonable response to the Hargreaves Report (analysed by me yesterday), the lobbying begins:

Leading trade bodies for the film and music industries have warned the government that it must move quickly to implement an effective system to crack down on pirate websites, after Vince Cable announced that plans to block illegal file-sharing websites have been scrapped.

Geoff Taylor, chief executive of music industry body the BPI, said the government must urgently broker a deal between internet companies and rights holders to implement a fast-track procedure to crackdown on piracy or "a failure to do so will see some of this country's world-leading industries irreparably damaged on this government's watch".

"Every day blatantly illegal foreign sites flout our laws, rip off consumers and musicians and wreak huge damage on our creative sector," he said. "Government must now act urgently to put in place effective means to protect consumers, creators and UK jobs from the impact of illegal foreign sites".

Geoff, I think you missed this bit in the Government's response:

the Government will in future give limited weight in IP policy-making to evidence that is not sufficiently open and transparent in its approach and methodology, and we will make it clear where we are taking this view. IPO will set out guidance in Autumn 2011 on what constitutes open and transparent evidence, in line with professional practice.

So, you say "illegal foreign sites...damage our creative sector": let's see your evidence, including full data and details of its methodology. So far, I've not found a single, independent report that shows this - indeed, the Hargreaves team specifically lamented the lack of this kind of objective research into the effects of file sharing in their report.

You see, the interesting thing is that there is an increasing number of studies - some anecdotal, some more rigorous - that show exactly the opposite: that piracy actually drives more sales (I include links to a few of them in my submission to the Hargreaves enquiry.)

So before you start calling for piracy to be curbed, it might be a good idea to sort out the evidence you will be submitting in support of that: rhetoric on its own is no longer enough. After all, if you find the studies I cite are confirmed by others conducted elsewhere, perhaps on a larger scale, you should actually be calling for *more* piracy, not less....

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter and identi.ca, or on Google+

Down the EU Piracy Rabbit-hole

Last week I wrote about a report from the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) that examined the reliability of recorded music industry research papers seeking to estimate the loss from “piracy” in the digital field, and found all of them seriously wanting. As far as I know, no similar analysis has been carried out for European reports. So I thought it might be interesting to look at one particular European report on the subject - not least because I've heard that its findings influenced some of the MPs voting on the Digital Economy Act.

On Open Enterprise blog.

File-sharing and the War on the Internet

Yesterday I attended the Counter Conference:

The COUNTER Project (www.counter2010.org), funded under Framework 7 of the EU SSHRC Programme, is a two year multidisciplinary project exploring the economic, legal, consumer and cultural dynamics of counterfeiting, piracy and filesharing. It aims to generate new knowledge which will contribute towards the development of evidence-based policy making at the European, national and international level. The project emphasises that effectively addressing this complex area requires a variety of strategic multistakeholder actions which recognise the importance of understanding and engaging with the psychological, social and cultural dynamics of consumer behaviour.

On Open Enterprise blog.

One Strike and They Miss the Point

On Open Enterprise blog.

The BPI Makes the BBC Broadcast its Stupidity

When I read this riposte by British Phonographic Industry's chief executive, Geoff Taylor, to an eminently reasonable column by Bill Thompson, who had noted the futility and counterproductive nature of attempts to stop filesharing, one passage immediately struck me:

Let's look at the figures. More than six and a half million people in the UK illegally access and distribute music, and it is plain wrong to say that this is good for music.

Independent research has shown time after time that people who download illegally generally spend less on music than people that don't, which undermines investment in new music.

Hang on a minute, I says to mesself: isn't it exactly the opposite - that there are oodles of studies that show that people who download music actually spend *more*? Alas, I was feeling lazy, and I couldn't be bothered hunting out the verse and chapter to show that Mr Taylor was talking a load of nonsense.

But then, the wonder that is the blogospher kicked in. Techdirt's Mike Masnick picked up the rather insubstantial gauntlet flung down by Graham, and answered thusly:

The real kicker, though, is his claim that independent studies say that those who use file sharing spend less on music. That's simply untrue. Study after study after study after study after study after study has shown the exact opposite -- noting that people who file share tend to be bigger music fans, and are more likely to spend on music.

If that's not a refutation, I don't know what is.

But what's really pathetic about this is that somebody in a nominally responsible position - one capable of making the BBC print "his side of the story" - should so barefacedly misrepresent the facts in order to cast slurs on an journalist's reputation.

Wouldn't it be rather better to face up to reality, admit that things in the digital world have "moved on" in Tony Blair's oft-repeated phrase, and come up with a better business model? Not least because it's pretty damn obvious to even the spottiest teenager else what that might be.

British Music Industry See the Light - A Bit

I've written often enough about the rapacious, egotistical, and totally unreasonable demands of the recorded music industry when it comes to copyright, so it behoves me to record when part of it seems to be doing the right thing - at least, to a certain extent.

Apparently, the guardians of the British music industry, the BPI, have actually recommended to the on-going Gowers Review of "intellectual property" that you and I be allowed to copy our own CDs and records for personal use.

Now, you might have thought you could do that anyway, but in the UK the current legislation doesn't really allow it (but that's not surprising, since it was probably drafted when music technology meant men in tights playing lutes). So, two cheers for the BPI.

Well, maybe one: its Web site is still a pretty unedifying spectacle, full of the usual veiled threats to parents over their children's use of P2P software, and plenty of fanciful avast-there-me-hearties pirate stuff. But credit where credit's due: the Gowers submission is a step in the right direction. (Via TechDirt.)