How To Solve The Piracy Problem: Give Everyone A Basic Income For Doing Nothing

Here on Techdirt we often discuss economics in the absence of scarcity -- how the ability to make any number of digital copies for vanishingly small cost creates new business opportunities for creators. But could a kind of abundance exist in the physical world too? That's the question raised in a fascinating post on Salon about a vote that will take place in Switzerland: 

On Techdirt.

Royalty Collection Agency SABAM Sued By Belgian Government Over 'Piracy License' Plans

Back in May, we wrote about how the Belgian music royalty collection agency SABAM was taking ISPs there to court over its demand for 3.4% of Internet subscriber fees as "compensation" for online piracy in Belgium. In yet another slapdown for SABAM -- it had previously failed in its attempt to turn ISPs into copyright cops -- the Belgian regulator says SABAM's plan falls foul of the EU's e-commerce directive, as IT World reports: 

On Techdirt.

Survey: Most Italian Internet Users Think Ignoring Copyright Harms Publishers, But Not Society As A Whole

One of the heartening recent developments in the world of digital copyright is that we have moved on from manifestly biased surveys about the evils of piracy and how the solution to everything is harsher punishment for infringement and longer copyright terms, to independent analyses that seek to understand rather than judge and lecture. There's also been a new focus on learning what the public thinks might be an appropriate balance for modern copyright -- something that nobody cared about in the past. 

On Techdirt.

Two New Reports Confirm: Best Way To Reduce Piracy Dramatically Is To Offer Good Legal Alternatives

At the beginning of last year we reported on a Swedish study that showed that streaming services had halved the number of people who were downloading music illegally in Scandinavia. That's a pretty stunning figure, but of course is only one data point, which means that people can always argue that it's not possible to generalize. So it's good that not just one but two new reports confirm and broaden that finding. 

On Techdirt.

BSA Study Demonstrates Open Source's Economic Advantage

I love the spring. Not, of course, because of the glorious weather, since we don't have any. But because it's time for the annual BSA report on piracy, which is guaranteed to provide me with hours of innocent fun as I go through finding its methodological errors and dodgy data.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Royalty Collection Agency SABAM Sues Belgian ISPs In Pursuit Of Its Fantasy 'Piracy License'

Back in November 2011, we wrote about the Belgian music royalty collection agency SABAM's demand for 3.4% of Internet subscriber fees as "compensation" for online piracy in Belgium. As Tim Cushing explained back then, this was ridiculous on just about every level. But SABAM doesn't let little things like that get in the way of its desperate attempt to avoid moving with the times and coming up with new business models. So after failing dismally to convince Europe's highest court that it could force ISPs to spy on their customers, SABAM has now moved on to suing ISPs instead, as TorrentFreak reports: 

On Techdirt.

McAfee Patents System To 'Detect And Prevent Illegal Consumption Of Content On The Internet'

As a post on the French site Numerama reminds us (original in French), the department responsible for implementing the three-strikes plan known as HADOPI was also supposed to provide Internet users with information about technical solutions to reduce infringement. That never happened -- instead, the body has preferred to send out warning messages on a massive scale and to seek convictions, even of those who are innocent. But in the meantime, the US company McAfee seems to have obtained a patent on just the kind of thing the French law originally had in mind: 

On Techdirt.

Apple's Patent For Creating A Leak-Proof Data Pipe, And Why It's Doomed To Fail

In 2001, I published a history of free software, called "Rebel Code: Inside Linux and the Open Source Revolution." One of the people I interviewed for the book was Eben Moglen, for many years the General Counsel for the Free Software Foundation, and one of the main architects of the later versions of the GNU General Public License. He had the following interesting thoughts on the delivery of digital media: 

On Techdirt.

California Attorney General Claims Foreign Companies Using 'Pirated' Software Represent Unfair Competition

Two years ago, Techdirt wrote about the major report "Media Piracy in Emerging Economies", which explored how media and software piracy in emerging countries is largely a question of economics: people and companies there simply cannot afford Western-style pricing, and resort to alternative sourcing. That hasn't stopped media and computer companies from demanding that governments around the world should inflict ever-more harsh punishments on their own people. 

On Techdirt.

Spain Considers Making Digital Copyright Law Worse: Pleasing The US Again?

We wrote a couple of weeks ago how some were arguing that Spain ought to go back on the "naughty" Special 301 list for failing to show any "positive developments" on the copyright front recently. By an interesting coincidence, the Spanish Internet Association has just published a leaked draft of proposals to make digital copyright law in Spain even harsher. Here's how the Web site ADSL Zone describes them (original in Spanish): 

On Techdirt.

HADOPI May Be Succeeding -- In Driving French Customers To Dotcom's Mega

Last week, Techdirt reported on the news that falling numbers of P2P users are being trumpeted as a victory for HADOPI's "three strikes" approach in France, but that it is a hollow victory, since sales of recorded music are still dropping in that country. The French site Numerama points out something else interesting happening there (in French), as revealed by the following tweet from Kim Dotcom: 

On Techdirt.

Pirated Buildings In China And The Rise Of Architectural Mashups

Although China is often glibly dismissed as little more than an imitator of others, yet another story about copying paradoxically shows it leading the way. That's because what's being cloned is an entire building complex that's still under construction: 

On Techdirt.

UK Recording Industry Doesn't Want Google To Reduce Piracy Until It Reduces Piracy

Techdirt has written before about the self-destructive vindictiveness of the copyright industries, which would rather die in a futile attempt to stamp out piracy than embrace new ways of making money that will help to reduce piracy anyway. Here's another example of this blinkered approach from the UK, pointed out to us by Techdirt user Zakida: 

On Techdirt.

Making The Most Of File Sharing: Free Market Research & A Captive Target Audience

The demonization of file sharing by copyright maximalists blinds many companies to the fact that it is marketing in its purest form. That's because people naturally only share stuff they think is good, and thus everything on file sharing networks comes with an implicit recommendation from someone. Not only that, but those works that appear on file sharing networks the most are, again by definition, those that are regarded mostly highly by the filesharing public as a whole, many of whom are young people, a key target demographic for most media companies. 

On Techdirt.

Costa Rican Students Fight For The Right To Photocopy Textbooks

One of the most important pieces of research to emerge last year was "Media Piracy in Emerging Economies". A central theme was that much unauthorized copying around the world is driven by attempts to impose Western-level prices everywhere, resulting in media goods that are simply beyond the reach of most people in countries whose economies are still developing. 

On Techdirt.

Digital Economy Act Consultation Response

Last week I wrote about the extremely short consultation period for aspects of implementing the Digital Economy Act. Time is running out - the consultation closes tomorrow at 5pm, so I urge you to submit something soon. It doesn't have to be very long. Here, for example, is what I am sending - short, but maybe not so sweet....

On Open Enterprise blog.

Are Books Printed With Disappearing Ink Really The Best Way To Make People Read Them?

As Techdirt has noted, the main threat to artists is not piracy, but obscurity -- the fact that few know they are creating interesting stuff. As passive consumers increasingly become creators themselves, and the competition increases, that's even more of an issue. For writers, there's a double problem: not only do people need to hear about a work, they also have to find the time to explore it once acquired, and that's often a challenge in our over-filled, stressed-out lives -- unless we're talking about haiku. Here's an unusual approach to encouraging people to find that time to read books: 

On Techdirt.

UK's 3-Strikes Plan Continues To Grind Through The System; Still Not In Force, Still Awful

As Techdirt reported in 2010, the passage of the Digital Economy Act was one of the most disgraceful travesties of the UK parliamentary process in recent times; it was badly drafted, hardly revised and then pushed through with almost no debate in the dying moments of the previous government. Since then, two UK ISPs -- BT and TalkTalk -- have challenged the Act in the courts, but lost earlier this year. 

On Techdirt.

Student Fined For Providing Free Film And TV Subtitles; Yet Another Business Opportunity Thrown Away By Copyright Industries

Mike recently reminded us that for some people, bizarrely, stopping "piracy" is more important than making money. Here's another example, this time from Norway: 

On Techdirt.

EU Politicians Snub European Commission: Do Not See IP Protection As Key To Internal Security Strategy

One of the most dishonest aspects of ACTA was its attempt to equate genuinely dangerous products like fake medicines with totally harmless ones like unauthorized digital copies. Fortunately, that's such an absurd equivalence that more and more people have voiced their concerns over it -- including the Liberals and Democrats in the European Parliament, who cited it as one reason why they would be voting against ACTA: 

On Techdirt.