The heavily lobbied Digital Economy Bill, part of Gordon Brown’s Digital Britain strategy, has been powered through Parliament in the annual wash up. Perhaps it has been intentionally kept below the radar due to the immense opposition to it, although one could ask whether MPs even knew about it given the disgracefully low turnout.
The bill was approved with 189 “yes” votes to 47 “no”, however there were stipulations that some contentious clauses would be reviewed in the next Parliament before they became law.
These clauses relate to cutting alleged – yes, that’s alleged - “pirates” off from the internet, and the “three strikes and you’re out” policy which was added to Lord Carter’s original Digital Britain white paper by Peter Mandelson after champagne lunches with prominent media moguls. On this bill, Mandy has used his considerable influence to benefit third parties: the same sort of lobbying as Steven Byers, Patricia Hewitt and Geoff Hoon have been exposed for, except he’s not charging £5,000 per day (depending on how much his lunch was).
It has been claimed, in fact, that Peter Mandelson’s involvement has “completely distorted” the original white paper composed by Lord Carter.
I’ve been on about this bill since the early rumblings of it in 2008, when the first errings of madness came out of Whitehall. Things such as a broadband tax to subsidise the music industry were mused by then Culture Secretary Andy Burnham. I ranted and raved that lobbyists such as the British Phonographic Industry had no right to dictate law to the Government, and that it was little more than a private organisation trying to increase its profits (5% of music sales from BPI member artists goes to the BPI).
I’d like to digress a little here and give a brief history of what I perceive piracy to be.
Back in the 80′s, when I was little, everything was on cassette or vinyl. It was common for people to copy cassettes on those old style twin tape deck hi-fi systems with big shiny metal knobs and proper switches. Similarly, if someone had a record that you liked, you taped it. It was common to record music from the radio onto cassette, too.
Recording music from the radio, copying tapes or recording a vinyl all fall under the umbrella of piracy. At that time, though, it was not possible to enforce laws to circumvent this social distribution of music, and it would have been incredibly unpopular if they had tried.
These days cassettes are a thing of the past and we no longer need an intermediate physical medium to store multimedia because it can be stored on the player itself (think iPod). The copying of music is no longer commonly facilitated by passing a CD between two people: because we’re lazy we do it in other ways now such as via the internet.
If you consider your computer as a cassette recorder, you can get a music CD, put it into the computer and rip the audio from it in full quality. This process takes about 2 minutes. You could then, if you wanted, compress these files and send them to friends on the internet via email, instant messaging or a multitude of other ways.
It’s piracy, pure and simple, but no different to copying cassettes or vinyls in yesteryear. The Digital Economy Bill does not address this type of traditional piracy. But lets say I ran a CD copying facility, selling 500 CD’s a week at car boot sales, taking legitimate sales away from the copyright holders. Would the Digital Economy Bill prevent this? No, it wouldn’t.
On the other hand, lets say instead of selling 500 CD’s a week I close down my CD duplication plant and make the content of the CD available on the internet. This way I make no money out of it. Does the Digital Economy Bill prevent this? It tries.
During yesterday’s debate, Conservative MP for Stone, William Cash, suggested that it would be better to tackle those that are profiting from piracy rather than those seeking to explore new music without a financial commitment;
I object to the speed at which the Bill is being progressed, but leaving that aside for the moment, if the Bill was more focused on that £400 million, or whatever figure the Minister quoted for the loss to legitimate complainants whose copyright was being infringed, so that only those who were organised and engaged in such activity for commercial advantage were affected, those complainants would get the benefit of a piece of legislation that was directed at something that can actually be tackled. The problem is that we are trying to engage in a surveillance society-like attack on young people, who will not take any notice and in respect of whom there will be no reasonable way of enforcing the Bill.
The underlying falsehood that has driven this bill from conception to legislative realisation is that every download is a lost sale. No. If someone downloads something, it does not mean they would have bought it.
When you’re in KFC how many serviettes do you take? How many salt sachets? Do you use them all? Probably not. But because they are there and they don’t cost anything, you don’t think twice about taking as many as you wanted. Downloading is no different. Computing losses based on number of downloads is one of the most lightweight baseless arguments I have heard, yet the non-technical android Stephen Timms MP classes it as a major problem – as do many other MPs.
You might be inclined to think that downloaders would therefore be targeted by the Digital Economy Bill. Oh no. If you download, you’re absolutely fine. Uploading is where the sledgehammer comes in. And only passive uploading using peer to peer protocols such as BitTorrent. Seems a bit short sighted and unfair given that a lot of kids that use BitTorrent don’t realise that they’re making everything they download available for upload too. But this is one source of copyrighted material that can be monitored by third parties. You see, it’s not the Government that will be policing the internet under these new laws. No, it is to be media companies and copyright lobby groups such as the BPI and the Federation Against Software Theft.
The way it works is quite simple. They just download the file from you. In fact, they are doing it already.
It’s a shame they don’t realise that exploring new media via illegal or legal free sites would actually encourage spending within the industry if the means of obtaining what you want for a fair price were there. Let me give you an example.
There is a site called Youporn that tries to mimic Youtube. Suffice to say, it has lots of free porn on it and no doubt lots of people obliterate their manhood in pursuit of silicone enhanced excitement. It’s free, instant and nobody knows you have been on it: there’s never any need to go to a shop and buy a porn DVD.
However, they say that pornography in America is a $10billion industry, so how can this be if there’s so much available for free? Pornographers have realised that if they want people to join their pay-per-view websites, they need to entice people, and what better than to give away some adult material to these Youporn type sites? If people like the material, they might visit the website and become a subscriber.
Relating this to the music or even film industry, it is like the multinational companies providing some free, downloadable, high quality content from a whole spectrum of genres, and if people like it they have the option to, for instance, subscribe to their site and get unlimited content of that genre. Giving away music is the best way for a record company to promote a new band.
Don Foster, Liberal Democrat MP for Bath, agrees. He asked;
Will the Minister make it clear to the House that the ambition to reduce the number of illegal file sharing activities will be met not though letter-writing alone, but by placing requirements on the industry to develop new models that make it easier for people to legally access their material at an affordable price?
If you have followed all my posts about this you will know that the Digital Economy Bill grants unprecedented powers to the Business Secretary such that he can even create his own secondary legislation without needing a vote. These powers have been branded as “utterly shameless” by the Liberal Democrats.
In fact John Henning, MP for the Liberal Democrats and BPI member, went on to suggest that this bill would be used by the government to block access to websites it did not like, such as the whistleblowers’ paradise at wikileaks.org (have a look at this as well).
The Bill is little more than an attempt – albeit a failed one – to allow media companies to police the internet and profit from doing so.
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Excellent article Phil, this is Orwell’s nightmare in the form of the creeping fascism of Nulabours Ingsoc party.
We have one shot to get these bastards out in the next 4 weeks,when talking to PPCs, this issue should be addressed, what are their views on this bill?
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The political elite will use this bill to remove ‘troublesome bloggers’ from expressing their opinions……
You heard it here first!!!!!!!!!
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Firstly I’m all for digital copyright protection as a concept – no-one shouldn’t be paid for their work. You have to accept that recording cassettes decades ago meant you got the DJ at the beginning or the end of the song quite a few times and a lot of sellotape and messing around was involved so you had to be quite dedicated to record your music. Now it’s so much cheaper and easier to get the real thing and pay the royalties in the process.
However I oppose this Bill too – because it rests on the concept that if one member of a household steals the whole household loses out. And to me the concept of punishing the innocent to make sure you catch the guilty too is one that should not under any circumstances be enshrined in law. The sooner these liars and criminal cheats are out of office (because they aren’t prosecuted for their crimes) the better. It’s a simple case of one rule for their superior selves and one for the rest of us.
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This bill doesn’t really do anything for digital copyright protection though.
As I detailed, it doesn’t stop me borrowing a CD and copying it. It doesn’t stop me sending music to people online. It doesn’t stop me downloading. It doesn’t stop me mass producing CDs and selling at a car boot sale.
It legislates for one simple thing, and I find it frankly bizarre to legislate for this one thing (traditional p2p) which will probably have evolved in a couple of years into something quite different.
I also find the drive and agenda behind this bill to be quite unpleasant. There is too much big business and too much lobbying power given to the likes of the BPI.
This bill includes what is basically a carte blanche for Peter Mandelson to create his own custom legislation.
Now, I always thought phone privacy was supposed to be sacrosanct and phone tapping was only permitted in the context of extremely serious crime (and tabloid newspaper reporting). But this bill allows Ofcom to tap your internet connection which arguably discloses even more personal information and activity than phone tapping.
Yet they have rushed the bill through having discussed only one clause in it!
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Phil are you saying that if you SEED a file thats, when they can have you for piracy?
What that means is,as long as I dont seed a complete file I am ok?
All I have to do is download a file and when I get it, remove it ie dont seed it and them I am ok?
This law is strange.
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Pretty much correct.
They get the torrent file, get the list of seeders and try to download the entire file from the UK based IPs.
If they can, then they start sending nasty letters which under current data protection law they have to send via your ISP, because your ISP cannot disclose your personal details without a court order.
This Bill changes that, too, allowing third parties such as media groups to bypass court altogether and get your personal details from the outset. This makes it a lot easier for them to start legal action against you.
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when will it actually become law Phil?
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In all fairness phil there are law already in place stopping making 500 copies and selling them at a car boot sale. The fact that they aren’t that enforced is an interesting issue but the law is there. To compare file sharing on the internet to taping records is a bit like comparing the abacus to a laptop. I feel there could be a issue over file sharing and I do understand why music industry wants to stop this. But having said all this does this bill do the job and no more? Now that is the question.
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The law is already in place that says you can’t share files, too.
I wasn’t comparing file sharing with taping records. I was comparing the activity of making a duplicate. Sending a file to someone over the internet is no different to taping a record. The end result is still just a copy.
Having files passively available for people to download is a different issue, but this is the only issue that the bill seeks to address. All other forms of piracy have escaped its attention.
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I mean, if it’s so important, why not tackle the aspects that actually are costing the industry money rather than picking on the easy target that in reality probably isn’t?
Would those teenagers amassing a huge album collection actually have bought most of them? Probably not.
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Don’t get me wrong i agree this Bill is not needed. What you can argue needs to be done is to pay people for thier jobs. Which is what the music industry is after all. I do take your point over huge music collections and the Gov are using incorrect data to bring in a bill which isn’t needed for what they say it is for.
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I dont see musicians and record companies signing on the dole, do you?
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Record companies are making less money therefore they are investing less in new talent. Therefore there is less chance of becoming a professional musician so sorry Harold there are (more then likely) musicians not being musicians because of this.
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John do you have proof of this, given that we have the x factor culture.
As phil says copying stuff has gone on for years.
A number of musicians are happy for theit stuff to go online.
Just how exactly will they stop people swapping tunes???
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I don’t know how they will stop file sharing and you could argue they shouldn’t but they probably should. As for copying going on for years well yes it has I tape records (mostly singles onto one tape) but even if you past them on to your friends you only had a limited number of people that it would encompass. Modern tech has come a long way since then now all you had to do is up load it and every one on the WWW can get it.
As for the X-factor most musicians don’t come out of these shows Lil Boots, Scouting for girls, Cold Play ect.
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John I cant envisage them stopping file sharing.
The x factor has taken over as a means to get to the top quickly,instead of the “old” way of doing clubs etc.
For example, I remember when a new copy code came out on DVDS,within a day, there was software available for free to crack it; DVD ripper.
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Harold I think you are right about the X-Factor thing but we had shows like this all the time.
I am not saying tech is a bad thing but surly you can see from the point of view of the recording artists.
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Yes I can see their views mate BUT how this will be resolved to any measure of satisfaction seems far away,I feel the genie is out of the lamp on this one and it isnt gonna go back in, lol.
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That’s a bit of a straw man.
Which record companies are losing money? For sure, there will be some – but then I would bet that for every one that is losing money, there’s another one (or two) that is making money.
One of the red herrings used by some industry PRs is that making less money is caused by piracy. It doesn’t occur to the journalists that recycle their press releases that some of the reasons businesses see profits reduced is because of i) economic conditions and/ or ii) the product they’re producing is shit (hello, Ndubz!).
The idea that record companies are “investing less in new talent” can be turned on its head simply by poking your head above the parapet and looking around. Musicians existed long before record companies (which are simply a means to produce and publish music). Have a look at iTunes and compare that catalogue to what you could have found in HMV ten years ago. Look at the listings for radio stations on digital TV and radio and compare it to fifteen years ago. Overall, are we really producing, listening to and buying less music?
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I agree Phil, I cant see how they will stop file sharing period, nailing those that bootleg and sell on counterfeit goods, fine.
How can uninvent the technology to do this?
I dont think this is feasable.
what about people setting up VPNs etc?
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Clearly VPNs are the way forward if you want to continue to use P2P. The Government can’t stop you and the supposed illegal activity just takes place in another country.
It’s a completely mad bill. Everything in it about file sharing can be circumvented already.
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Proxies could be an alternative but with P2P they monitor the active dedicated port used and can see the traffic passing over it.
Much easier solution is to use Usenet, this is where all the stuff comes from before it is shared out on P2P anyway.
Usenet has been in existence as long as the internet has and it much harder to police. For example the port numbers are different and file names are harder to decipher (they know not what you are downloading).
There is a stepper learning curve though and peeps will need to learn about NZB files, rar compression and how newsreaders work.
Just think of all the things this Government could have legislated on to really make peoples lives better but instead they cosy up to big business entertainment industry..
Brown envelopes? Of course there were….. This bill has all the marks of Mandleslime upon it…
I shall continue to download from usenet as I have for the last 15 or so years, I will do so happy in the knowledge I am rubbing the noses of both this Government and its corrupt entertainment industry in the dirt…
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Already doing Usenet but indexers are not immune from the power of big business, the wrath of the ancient business model and the blinkered judiciary.
http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2010/608.html&query=newzbin&method=boolean
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I am currently and have been a member of newzbin for the last 5 or so years…. At 30p a week it’s silly not to.
I read that judgement with intense interest last week after it was handed down and didn’t realise there were like minded peeps locally that used newzbin.
The mods at Newzbin are currently considering an appeal and indeed there news page seems to suggest the injunction levied (they have to filter out out copyrighted material to do with the big 5 Hollywood producers) is temporary.
http://v3.newzbin.com/news/view/?nw_id=253
I have my doubts though, the industries lawyers seemed to have convinced the judge Newzbin were hosting copyrighted material where clearly this is not the case (newzbin simply point to where the material is hosted on usenet) at the same time newzbin’s lawyers were about as much use as a one legged man in an arse kicking contest and failed to get this important point over to the judge.
All that said Newzbin still point the way to any piece of software or music practically ever made.
Even if this ban is permanent there is still the raw search facility on the site which simply means an additional learning curve to access the material.
It is probably people like me this bill is aimed at but as I don’t use p2p and am very internet savvy I would always be able to stay 2 steps ahead of the feds anyway.
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“didn’t realise there were like minded peeps locally that used newzbin.”
We’re not all cavemen up here you know
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bring it on Geezer!
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They will never stop it, no way.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/feb/24/google-video-italy-privacy-convictions
If you take this sort of thing to its logical conclusion, ISP executives end up terrified that they will end up being prosecuted, and that is the end of the internet.
Technically there are many things you can do to disguise yourself online, but technical mitigation will not be all that it required.
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what technical measures are those, geezer? lol
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All hail the wise and all-knowing Stephen Timms MP, Minister for the Digital Economy and knower of technological acronyms!
http://meeb.org/post/505849844/i-wrote-to-my-mp-two-weeks-ago-regarding-my-shock
Tit.
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I didn’t get that at first, lol.
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The hypocrites are at it again!
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/technology/shanerichmond/100004884/labour-and-conservative-parties-accused-of-copyright-infringement/
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This is what happens when important bills get swallowed up in the “wash up”
Of those MP’s that could be bothered to turn up, I’ll bet most had no real conception of what they were actually voting for!
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nothing new there, lol.
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I was after this information yesterday when I wrote this article.
http://www.theyworkforthebpi.com/
Joan Humble voted in favour of this bill, and Gordon Marsden did not even turn up.
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Marsden would have voted for the bill. He does as his political masters tell him like a nice little Labour drone….
I suspect he paired off with a Tory so he could get on with his vital constituency business in Brighton..
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Fucking scum-bitch-whore!
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Here you go Phil!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11724760
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A thread resurrected….
Just like a popular NZB file site…
http://www.newzbin.com/
At the moment and IMHO Dexter and Six Feet under (both US TV series) are unmissable both are available on the site above.
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