Last week’s announcement that Eircom has conceded to a plan to stop illegal downloading in the face of court proceedings will come as no surprise to those who are familiar with the music industry’s attempts to save profits from music piracy. Under the plan, Ireland’s largest ISP (Internet Service Provider), Eircom agrees to work with the four major labels in Ireland (SonyBMG, Universal, Warners and EMI) in implementing a “three strikes and you’re out” rule. This means that Eircom customers will be disconnected if the record companies claim a user has repeatedly downloaded music illegally using P2P (peer to peer) networks through Eircom’s service. Eircom’s case wasn’t helped by the fact that the company’s ads appeared on The Pirate Bay, a popular torrent site which is being targeted in Sweden for large scale illegal music and movie piracy.
Under this Irish system, the first of its kind in the world, the Irish customer could be disconnected without getting a chance to defend themselves in court. How will this “three strikes” rule affect businesses, colleges and public wi-fi spaces? If a user’s broadband service is terminated, surely they can turn to one of the alternative ISPs on which the plan is not enforceable?
For years we’ve heard stories of court cases in the U.S. where the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) attempted to sue copyright infringers for damages only to find out those people had died or ended up being seven and twelve year old girls so why does the music industry still tread down the path of punishment? Why doesn’t it foster a pragmatic approach to the digital music problem? Imagine if Napster had been welcomed rather than attacked? There are alternatives suggested which need to be looked at. Examples include a plan to make file-sharing legal but charge for the volume of data transferred. Another involves the user paying for an add-on subscription to their broadband to download music with the revenue dished out amongst the copyright holders i.e. - the record companies. Legal services like Spotify which allows access to an unlimited streaming music library with occasional adverts between songs are pointing the way forward also.
The industry needs to recognise that people will always want to share music, whether it is by cassette tape or an MP3. That proponent means this cat and mouse filesharing game will continue unless an agreeable solution for both the industry and the customer is reached.
February 6th, 2009 at 11:59 am
The only problem with the solutions suggested above (levies on ISP subscriptions or data volume) is, well, that they’re problematic. One question mark over the ISP levy, for example, is how the funds will be divvied up between record companies and artists, and who’ll do the divvying. The Isle of Man announced that it was considering a levy at source last month - every internet subscriber on the island will be charged £1 a month to allow for unlimited free downloading. But there’s only 80,000 people there: imagine the outcry if a similar compulsory levy was mooted here, or in the US. You’re right that other solutions need to be considered, and that pursuing individual downloaders has a history of being futile at best, and a PR nightmare at worst, but, first, I can’t see Ireland leading the world with a new system (we’ll copy whatever the Americans are doing, as per); and second, there’s a lot of work to be done yet before someone comes up with a viable system to get people to pay for music again.
Two slightly ranty arguments against levies:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/27/the-music-industrys-new-extortion-scheme/
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081209/0144083060.shtml
February 6th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Therein lies the problem: none of the suggested systems are really fair to the industry and the customer but at the very least they are steps in the right way of thinking.
Having said that, I don’t think a levy is impossible. Look at the likes of IMRO and other bodies who collect money on behalf of artists for radio and live play. It’s not impossible though it is, I admit, unsuitable.