A couple of months ago, Techdirt wrote about an EU politician's plan to build Internet surveillance into every operating system. As we pointed out then, this could easily be circumvented by using non-Net means for swapping files. It may not be driven by fears about spying, but it seems that communities in Western Africa are using Bluetooth connections between mobile phones to do exactly that:
In the 2005 "Grokster" decision, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that file sharing networks could be held liable for copyright infringement if they take "affirmative steps" to encourage infringement. Grokster closed down as a result, and the recording industry pretty much assumed it had won that battle
But as a fascinating analysis by Rebecca Giblin of what happened afterwards points out, against the industry's expectations, P2P filesharing flourished:
I have restrained myself from writing much about the ICC's "Building a Digital Economy" report, because I knew it would make me too cross. Fortunately, someone who is rather calmer me than me has done a better job than I would with some careful, rigorous analysis.
I urge you to read the whole thing, since it points out really well the huge holes in the report's logic and methodology. But there's one paragraph I'd like to pull out:
Most telling is the fact that the ICC report states that cinema ticket sales are also dropping, and seems to blame piracy for that. However, the MPAA has recently reported that global ticket sales are at an all-time high, with a global increase of 30% since 2005! More importantly, there is a lot of investment going into the industry, which indicates that it is very healthy. The MPAA reports that the number of digital 3D screens in Europe has grown from 0 in 2005, to 3,495 in 2009. That is hardly an industry affected by piracy.
I really think this is key: people are re-discovering both cinema and live music (something I've written about extensively on this blog). The fact that these are ignored is why the latest report is not just wrong, but completely wrong-headed. It perversely ignores the fundamental shifts in people's taste that the industry needs to understand and build upon.
And that's what really makes me sick: the fact that the media companies doesn't even want to acknowledge that it actually has a huge opportunity, but prefers instead to try to blame ordinary users for sharing and thus promoting their content.
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The trajectory of the Digital Economy Bill has been extraordinary, constantly experiencing will-he-won't-he moments as successive consultations and comments and rumours have contradicted each other over whether “three strikes and you're out” would be part of the plan. Today, the Bill is finally published, but that particular element now looks almost mild compared to what is apparently coming...
On Open Enterprise blog.
Another ill-informed opinion piece from a politician about file-sharing:
Platinum selling artists Radiohead and Pink Floyd have said they are happy to see their music used as a sort of digital loss leader to sell other products, but these groups are the exception rather than the rule. The average musician earns less than £15,000 a year and losing royalties makes the day-to-day struggle even harder for them.
Those average musicians - just like average authors - will tell you the biggest problem they face is getting known, not getting paid. What musicians, and authors like me, struggle with is to get the word out about our stuff amongst the million other offerings out there. Believe it or not, simply having a distributor does not solve that problem: in my experience they pretty much expect *you* to do the marketing.
Paradoxical as it may seem, giving your stuff away is one of the best ways to make money. Not necessarily from the content - although that is possible, too, for example by selling physical CDs/books to people who have digital versions - but from ancillary revenue. This is not to be sneezed at: *all* the top pop musicians make much more from their live appearances than they do from their CDs (which is why an artist like Prince *gives away* CDs to people who attend his concerts).
As the quotation above concedes, giving away stuff isn't a difficulty for the top artists, and as I've indicated, giving it away is precisely the best way for less well-known musicians to break out of their low-income ghetto.
So, really, the only people who lose out from the sharing of music online are the record companies, who find themselves without a role. But the idea that civil liberties should be curtailed simply to keep afloat a dying - and widely-hated, both by artists and consumers - industry, should be self-evidently absurd.
It's worrying that the author of this latest simplistic attack on file-sharing, apparently "a former member of Runrig", is unable to see this. He and other demagogues that attack sharing for whatever reason would do well to look at the facts, and not glibly regurgitate the propaganda of the industry and its lobbyists.
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Interesting:BT’s wifi network has reached half a million hotspots. Fon has made a major contribution toward its growth, since about 90% of the BT hotspots are BT Fon. The rate of growth is such that, together with BT, we are on the way to one million hotspots. This is the goal for February 2010.
Suppose, now, that people use some of those million hotspots to download copyright material: how easy is it going to be (a) establishing exactly who downloaded it and (b) cutting off that person?
Gives a new meaning to the term "hotspot"...
Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.
Words matter, which is why the RIAA has always framed copyright infringement in terms of "piracy". But it has a big problem: most people call it "sharing"; and as everyone was told by their mother, it's good to share. So the RIAA needs to redefine things, and it seems that it's started doing just that in the Joel Tanenbaum trial:
"We are here to ask you to hold the defendant responsible for his actions," said Reynolds, a partner in the Boulder, Colorado office of Holme, Robert & Owen. "Filesharing isn't like sharing that we teach our children. This isn't sharing with your friends."
Got that? P2P sharing isn't *real* sharing, because it's not sharing with your friends; this is *evil* sharing because it's bad to share with stranger. Apparently.
Watch out for more of this meme in the future.
Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter @glynmoody and identi.ca.
Richard Stallman has always regarded free software as about freedom, and hence inherently political. And so it's no surprise that many aspects of openness butt against highly-sensitive areas - secrecy, privacy, etc. But that transition from programming to politicals seems to be taking place beyond free software, too:a new poll conducted by Swedish newspaper DN.se predicts that the Pirate Party will get 5.1% of all votes in the upcoming EU elections this June - enough to guarantee a seat in the European Parliament. The poll further shows that the party is the second largest party among younger voters in the age group 18-30.
“This poll confirms our recent phenomenal growth in support, and says there will be pirates in Brussels after this election,” Pirate Party Leader Rick Falkvinge told TorrentFreak. “Scoring like this in a poll will further enhance support for the party. While there’s still much work to be done, we’re on the home stretch and have the goal in plain sight. June 7 is election day. On the morning of June 8, we’ll know.”
Clearly, the Pirate Party has been fortunate with the timing: had the trial taken place far from the European elections, the effect would have been muted. Nonetheless, I think it's significant that anger over the court's decision is spilling over into politics; I predict we'll see much more of this if - as is likely - we witness further unthinking rejections of today's digital culture and its norms.
There's a battle going on for the soul of ACTA, and Knowledge Ecology International has a leaked document that spells it out:Classified negotiating proposals for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) obtained by Knowledge Ecology International and examined by Inside U.S. Trade reveal wrangling between Japan, the United States, European Union, Australia and Canada over issues of civil and criminal enforcement and how to apply border measures against infringing products.
The post contains the full details of what is known, but the following sections are of particular interest for EU citizens:The section on empowering authorities to order infringers to provide information on other persons involved in their activities also appears in the Korea FTA and ACTA draft. In the document, the EU seeks to add language that would limit this provision so that it conforms with national laws such as those on personal data privacy.
...
In this section, the EU has sought a provision specifically designed to exclude non-commercial items in personal baggage, from the scope of the ACTA border measures. U.S. officials have said that the agreement would not lead to wholesale raids on laptops and iPods at airports, but the EU appears to be trying to make sure this is the case in this section.
If true, these are to the credit of the EU delegation, which is clearly trying to limit at least some of the most damaging aspects of ACTA. But other areas remain a concern:
The documents do not detail the subsection on Internet measures and these are known to be among the most controversial provisions.
Moreover:Criminal trafficking in labels is defined as occurring even in the absence of willful piracy.
Which would seem to capture P2P sharing.
Although much remains shrouded in secrecy, it's good news that at least a little light is being shed on what is clearly a hugely important treaty. The fact that participants are still trying to negotiate it in secrecy so as to present a fait accompli is nothing short of scandalous.
As I and many others have noted, the current negotiations over the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) are, on the one hand, shrouded in secrecy for the general public, while on the other, being conducted in close consultation with media industries. This leads to the doubly deplorable situation that an important treaty is being negotiated to favour a particular industry without allowing those most affected by it – the tax-paying public – to even offer comments on it.
One measure of the growing impossibility of sustaining this position was the release by the EU of its “fact sheet” on ACTA, last updated in January. This smooth-talking document attempts to assuage the concerns of the little people, assuring us:ACTA is about tackling large scale, criminal activity. It is not about limiting civil liberties or harassing consumers.
ACTA will not go further than the current EU regime for enforcement of IPRs – which fully respects fundamental rights and freedoms and civil liberties, such as the protection of personal data: This Community acquis on IPR enforcement is without prejudice to national or Community legal provisions in other areas, in particular in the area of personal data protection, as regulated by the Data Protection Directive and the Directive on privacy and electronic communications.
ACTA is not designed to negatively affect consumers: the EU legislation (2003 Customs Regulation) has a de minimis clause that exempts travellers from checks if the infringing goods are not part of large scale traffic. EU customs, frequently confronted with traffics of drugs, weapons or people, do neither have the time nor the legal basis to look for a couple of pirated songs on an i-Pod music player or laptop computer, and there is no intention to change this.
Of course, in the absence of any details about what the treaty contains, it's hard to tell whether this is just palliative spin or not.
Fortunately, the sunlight of openness is beginning to pierce even the sepulchral gloom of the ACTA negotiation process, and leaks of its current text are beginning to seep out. The news is not good, as Michael Geist explains:The Border Measures proposals are also still subject to considerable disagreement. Some countries are seeking de minimum rules, the removal of certain clauses, and a specific provision to put to rest fears of iPod searching customs officials by excluding personal baggage that contains goods of a non-commercial nature. The U.S. is pushing for broad provisions that cover import, export, and in-transit shipments.
The proposals call for provisions that would order authorities to suspend the release of infringing goods for at least one year, based only on a prima facie claim by the rights holder. Customs officers would be able to block shipments on their own initiative, supported by information supplied by rights holders. Those same officers would have the power to levy penalties if the goods are infringing. Moreover, the U.S. would apparently like a provision that absolves rights holders of any financial liability for storage or destruction of the infringing goods.
...
The Criminal Enforcement proposals make it clear that the U.S. would like ACTA to go well beyond cases of commercial counterfeiting. Indeed, their proposal would extend criminal enforcement to both (1) cases of a commercial nature; and (2) cases involving significant willful copyright and trademark infringement even where there is no direct or indirect motivation of financial gain. In other words, peer-to-peer file sharing would arguably be captured by the provision. The treaty would require each country to establish a laundry list of penalties - including imprisonment - sufficient to deter future acts of infringement. Moreover, trafficking in fake packaging for movies or music would become a criminal act as would unauthorized camcording.
Now, it may well be that the EU is fighting tooth and nail against the intrusive border control measure, and the criminalisation of P2P file sharing – both of which would certainly “limit civil liberties” and “harass” consumers. But the best way for the EU to demonstrate its bona fides would be to bring the negotiations out into the open.
It is clear that the scope of this treaty is far reaching: indeed, there is a clear attempt to use it to slip in very powerful clauses that would over-ride national and international legislation. This is simply unacceptable. Moreover, if it turns out that the EU is *not* fighting the above moves, it is nothing short of scandalous that it should be acting in such a duplicitous fashion over ACTA – in which case, those responsible for following this course should be called on to resign.
“Digital Britain” sounds like one of those embarrassingly feeble attempts to make dull things trendy, like “Cool Britannia” a few years ago. Alas, that impression is not dispelled by the contents of the interim report of the same name, released yesterday. It's got lots of the right words, but doesn't really seem to have grasped what they really mean to a digital native.
On Open Enterprise blog.
From The Reg:Following its failure to foster voluntary solution between ISPs and rights holders, the government will create a new agency and regulations to clamp down on copyright infringement via peer-to-peer networks, it's reported today.
A proposal for a body called the Rights Agency will be at the centre of anti-internet piracy measures, according to the Financial Times, which cited sources who had read a draft of Lord Carter's report on Digital Britain. The Rights Agency will be introduced alongside a new code of practice for ISPs and rights holders, to be overseen by Ofcom, according to the leaked draft. The final report is due out by the end of this month.
So, tell me, what about *our* rights - of fair dealing/fair use, of the ability to create mashups and remixes? Funny that the UK government is only interested in preserving the 18th century rights of business, rather than the 21st rights of its citizens. Every time they come up with daftness such as this, they show just how out of touch with the modern world they are.
“They order, said I, this matter better in France.” So wrote Laurence Sterne in his 1768 book A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy. Alas, things have changed much since then, at least as far as the Internet is concerned. In the light of recent events, now he would we have to say: they order this matter worse in France. Even more unfortunately, France's bad habits are spreading, and could have serious consequences for free software....
On Linux Journal.
Those e-petition replies just keep on coming.
In response to the following:
“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to not force internet service providers to act as legal representatives for the RIAA and be treated like a common courier.”
That nice Mr Brown says:The Government recently published a consultation document on unlawful Peer-to-Peer (P2P) filesharing, which intends to gather views on proposals for a co-operative approach between Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and rights holders to address the issue of P2P file-sharing technology, used for the illegal exchange of copyright material.
Unfortunately, much of the media reports around this issue have been incorrect. There are no proposals to make ISPs liable for the content that travels across their networks. Nor are there proposals for ISPs to monitor customer activity for illegal downloading, or to enforce a “3 strikes” policy.
Instead, we are focusing on an approach that:
· educates consumers and citizens about the importance of recognising and rewarding content and the dangers of unlawful downloading;
· encourages the content and telecoms industries to concentrate on ensuring that content is made available to consumers in a variety of attractive packages; and
· takes action to ensure that where file sharing still happens people are made aware of the unlawful nature of their actions and effective mechanisms for dealing with repeat offenders are identified.
The consultation closes on 30th October 2008 and anyone with an interest in these issues is welcome to respond. The consultation can be found at: http://www.berr.gov.uk/consultations/page47141.html
I'll be writing more about the consultation in due course.
Despite attempts to demonise P2P, the technology is thriving. And no wonder: it's such an efficient way of sharing bits. Good, then, to see some "official" development of the idea in the form of P2P-Next - funded in part by the EU - to apply P2P to live video streaming.
Now you can download the SwarmPlayer, too:
Peer-to-peer (P2P) technology has proven to be an effective way to distribute a video among many users. This can be done in three ways:
* Download the video, and watch it afterwards (typical BitTorrent behaviour)
* Watch the video while downloading it (Video-on-Demand, Vuze and Joost)
* Watch the video while it is being generated (web-cams, live TV broadcasts, etc)
Our research focusses on combining all these modes of video streaming into a single solution by merging them into the BitTorrent protocol. This allows a single player to download movies, watch video-on-demand, and watch live video streams using one technology, while taking advantage of the popularity and maturity of existing BitTorrent clients.
We have completed our SwarmPlayer software to support these streaming modes, but require an audience to test it on. After all, P2P technology is designed to support thousands of users, and to properly test this, many users have to watch the same video at the same time.
Amazing how things you put on your social networks can come back to bite you:
Police officer Jim Keyzer, the leader and key witness in the Pirate Bay investigation was recently employed by Warner Bros, one of the plaintiffs in the ongoing case against the Pirate Bay four. Undoubtedly, this will seriously hurt the credibility of the ongoing court case.
tpbKopit.se found out yesterday -through the police officer’s facebook profile- that Keyzer was recently employed by Warner Bros, one of the plaintiffs in the prosecution against The Pirate Bay. Keyzer has deleted his facebook profile, but confirmed that he indeed works for the company now.
I'm not sure that these e-petitions do any good, but since they exist, it seems churlish not to use them. Here's another one Brits may be interested in signing:We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to not force internet service providers to act as legal representatives for the RIAA and be treated like a common courier.
I think they meant "not to force" and "carrier", but I doubt Gordon's going to be paying that much attention....
So the music and film industries want to follow Sarko's daft plan:People who illegally download films and music will be cut off from the internet under new legislative proposals to be unveiled next week.
Internet service providers (ISPs) will be legally required to take action against users who access pirated material, The Times has learnt.
Users suspected of wrongly downloading films or music will receive a warning e-mail for the first offence, a suspension for the second infringement and the termination of their internet contract if caught a third time, under the most likely option to emerge from discussions about the new law.
Broadband companies who fail to enforce the “three-strikes” regime would be prosecuted and suspected customers’ details could be made available to the courts. The Government has yet to decide if information on offenders should be shared between ISPs.
Well, if they want three strikes and out, try these for size:
Strike One
The music and then film industries failed to recognise that digital downloads were the future. Instead of embracing this incredibly efficient way of distributing content, the industries have fought it tooth and nail. Since there was no legal way to download materials, users were forced to turn to alternative sources.
Strike Two
When it became blindingly obvious that users wanted digital files, the media industry eventually provided them - in the hideously hobbled form of DRM'd formats. Which meant, once more, that people who wanted content that they could use on all their computers and players were forced to turn to other sources.
Strike Three
The present move. Leaving aside the civil liberties angle - the fact that ISPs become the media industries' spies - and that the UK government proposes propping up a dying business model for no other reason than the said industries demand it, even when there is evidence that sharing music *increases* sales of media - it won't work. The instant this becomes law, the number of sites offering encrypted downloads, which are impossible to check in transit, will mushroom, just as decentralised P2P systems sprang up once Napster was nobbled.
The upside is that average user will probably start using encrypting routinely, thus putting the kibosh on Echelon's easy access to everyone's Internet traffic.
Update: Moreover:UK government proposals to make ISPs take action against the estimated six million users who access pirated online material every year could prompt an explosion in Wi-Fi hijacking, experts warned today.
I've always assumed the Swedish Pirate Party were a bunch of anarchists who wanted to cock a snook at authority by disrupting one of its precious intellectual monopolies, and have some fun along the way.
I was wrong.
It turns out that there is some pretty deep thinking behind what they are doing, as evidence by this fascinating interview with Rick Falkvinge, founder and the leader of the party:What was remarkable was that this was the point where the enemy - forces that want to lock down culture and knowledge at the cost of total surveillance - realized they were under a serious attack, and mounted every piece of defense they could muster. For the first time, we saw everything they could bring to the battle.
And it was... nothing. Not even a fizzle. All they can say is "thief, we have our rights, we want our rights, nothing must change, we want more money, thief, thief, thief". And shove some poor artists in front of them to deliver the message. Whereas we are talking about scarcity vs. abundance, monopolies, the nature of property, 500-year historical perspectives on culture and knowledge, incentive structures, economic theory, disruptive technologies, etc. The difference in intellectual levels between the sides is astounding.
So now we know what the enemy has, and that they have absolutely nothing in terms of intellectual capital to bring to the battle. They do, however, have their bedside connections with the current establishment. That's the major threat to us at this point.
Intellectual capital? Hm....
And then he goes on to make this important point:The people who have been led to believe that file sharing can be stopped with minimal intrusion are basically smoking crack.
Early on in the debate, we dropped the economic arguments altogether and focused entirely on civil liberties and the right to privacy. This has proven to be a winning strategy, with my keynote "Copyright Regime vs. Civil Liberties" being praised as groundbreaking.
The economic arguments are strong, but debatable. There are as many reports as there are interests in copyright, and every report arrives at a new conclusion. If you just shout and throw reports over the volleyball net at the other team, it becomes a matter of credibility of the reports. When you switch to arguing civil liberties, you dropkick that entire discussion.
Obviously I need to pay more attention to these people.
The music industry has finally found an online music model it can live with:Imeem, a social networking site that was in the recording industry's crosshairs earlier this year for allowing file-sharing on its network, has pulled off an impressive feat. This summer it settled its lawsuit with Warner Music by promising to give Warner a cut of advertising revenues from the site. Now the Wall Street Journal is reporting that it's signed similar deals with all four major labels, meaning that Imeem is now the first website whose users have the music industry's blessing to share music for free.
But wait, even though it's a streaming site, it's not actually much different from all the download sites the music industry professes to hate:it's quite easy to download music files from Imeem using third-party tools. And because Imeem's site doesn't use DRM, Imeem downloading tools are probably legal under the DMCA. So what we have here is the de facto legalization of Napster-like sites, as long as the record labels get a cut of the advertising revenue. It's an exciting development, albeit one that should have happened seven years ago.
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