Digital Economy Act 2010 [Was "DE Bill Not Passed, BiS Consulting Already"]

[Ignitionnet]

Remembering that this is Mandelson's crew and he is merrily wanting to have unlimited power to censor the Internet and cut people off for copyright violation think they know something we don't?

http://www.bis.gov.uk/Consultations/...right?cat=open

Good to see democratic process isn't dead, evidently they couldn't even wait for the non-existent debate and vote to happen.

Democracy, overrated.


Mod Edit (Matt D) - For continued discussion of the Digital Economy Act 2010 during the General Election period, please see the current General Election sticky thread.

From the Executive Summary, 1.1

The Digital Economy Bill1 (the "Bill" or DEB) sets out two obligations which will apply to internet service providers as defined in the Bill (ISPs). ISPs will be required to send notifications to subscribers who have been identified in relation to alleged infringements of copyright. The second obligation is for ISPs to maintain (anonymised) records of the number of times an individual subscriber has been so identified and to maintain lists of those most frequently identified and provide copyright owners with lists on request. Both obligations would be underpinned by a code drawn up by industry and approved by Ofcom or imposed in the absence of a suitable stakeholder agreement.

And the indicative timescales, 7.4

30 March Consultation issued. 8 week consultation period
25 May Consultation closes
15 June Government response, final impact assessment and final Order published. Order introduced into Parliament

20 July Order comes into effect

[Ignitionnet]

Thanks for highlighting the point that though that the DEB isn't even law yet this is being done. It's extraordinarily presumptuous and contemptuous of the democratic process to quote a timescale like that. Nearly as contemptuous of process as the desire to ensure it isn't debated in the Commons.

[Horace]

That's a standard timetable for most bills, consultation periods are standard too with many bills, it allows concerned parties, ISP's, copyright holders, you and me to express opinions on the bill before it gets debated in Parliament. That's the time to write to your MP and start a petition, if you believe petitions are ever worth anything.

[Ignitionnet]

You misunderstand. This isn't a consultation on the bill, it's a consultation on how the costs of implementing one section of it will be shared between ISPs and the Government. The bill itself isn't going to be debated or voted on in the Commons at all.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...y-bill-commons

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...l-bpi-doctorow

[Mr Angry]

Correct.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

The bill itself isn't going to be debated or voted on in the Commons at all.

indeed

I can just imagine the nice backhanders from the recording industry to the Government for passing this with no fuss and it would not surprise me if there are nice little sweeteners for the isps so they can use the kit to make money if they don't complain about the setup costs.

Mark my words it will not be long before the recording industry will have direct access to isp's monitoring data so they can sue anyone they see infringing.

[Mr Angry]

Originally Posted by Sirius

indeed

I can just imagine the nice backhanders from the recording industry to the Government for passing this with no fuss and it would not surprise me if there are nice little sweeteners for the isps so they can use the kit to make money if they don't complain about the setup costs.

Mark my words it will not be long before the recording industry will have direct access to isp's monitoring data so they can sue anyone they see infringing.

In reality it's not just the recording industry that is affected by wanton piracy - there are ancilliary industries, ordinary people with real jobs, that suffer.

Illegal downloading with impunity was great while it lasted - sadly for those who have become accustomed to it / endorsed it those days are coming to an end.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Mr Angry

In reality it's not just the recording industry that is affected by wanton piracy - there are ancilliary industries, ordinary people with real jobs, that suffer.

Illegal downloading with impunity was great while it lasted - sadly for those who have become accustomed to it / endorsed it those days are coming to an end.

I have to agree. There are all too many people who simply don't buy content and instead download it. There are also far too many people downloading content in considerable amounts. It was much more reasonable in the early 2000s but is too OTT now and something does need to be done to tone it down a bit.

Getting it less mainstream along with kicking the backsides of those who download several hundreds of GB of content a month will be just fine.

The concern is it going too far and affecting those who very occasionally download things here and there to 'plug gaps' while also buying a lot of content.

Of course people will go underground to some extent, which is fine, just getting it out of mainstream and away from people who just go to a self-search news client or P2P client, do a search and leech on would be alright, along with kicking the backside of extremely heavy users - there is very simply no realistic legitimate way to consume 500GB a month.

[Chrysalis]

ignition the people you speak off will still download 100s of gig per month, the most serial downloaders dont use the well known torrents and will still happily download, so what will change?

legit sales might go up by a single digit number.

underground, pirated goods sold in pubs, in the workplace, on the market will grow again. These people were the real victims of internet piracy, it was their customers that went online and started downloading. People who can afford and are happy to buy media still do that anyway.

So it will be a comibination of people finding more discreet ways to download, hard pirated copies of media been sold on the streets, and a few perhaps resorting to buying media but I expect a lot more will simply choose to go without than buying it.

Lets not forget one thing, the #1 reason people dont buy media is a lack of availability. They either want content not available in their country yet or want old content the copyright holders dont want to make available.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

ignition the people you speak off will still download 100s of gig per month, the most serial downloaders dont use the well known torrents and will still happily download, so what will change?

Not hard to guess what people are doing when they are downloading a ton of data from ssl.giganews.com

ISPs can simply take a closer look into what people are doing when they are leeching these files, there are ways and means. People who are using heavily downloading massive amounts of content shaft both their ISP through messing up the average usage sums and those who provide content.

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

Lets not forget one thing, the #1 reason people dont buy media is a lack of availability. They either want content not available in their country yet or want old content the copyright holders dont want to make available.

That may be true in some parts of the world but here it isn't, we have good content release dates relative to a lot of the rest of the world. When that was the major issue it wasn't such an issue, now that a new movie is released to the cinema and has hundreds of thousands of people too cheap to buy a ticket to go see it so they download it or an album is released and is downloaded wholesale that becomes an issue.

For those relatively few things that other countries get significantly before us, well, before TPB we got by waiting for their release, not wanting to wait isn't an excuse to download the thing.

Many people download, and the very occasional bit of dubious downloading from some people is cool, we are however now in a stage where too many people do it occasionally, and those who do it a lot are really doing it a lot. Something's got to give, too many people think paying not very much per month for an internet connection entitles them to download content costing several times their monthly sub.

[Mr Angry]

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

ignition the people you speak off will still download 100s of gig per month, the most serial downloaders dont use the well known torrents and will still happily download, so what will change?

You are not looking at the "big picture". The DEB is not simply VM monitoring what goes across P2P - it encompasses the entire gamut of file transfer protocols - the internet and digital exchange mechanisms in their entirety.

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

legit sales might go up by a single digit number.

That is a good thing from a creative industries investment perspective, and certainly for artists, both new and established.

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

underground, pirated goods sold in pubs, in the workplace, on the market will grow again. These people were the real victims of internet piracy, it was their customers that went online and started downloading. People who can afford and are happy to buy media still do that anyway.

Proportionately those bodies with enforcement powers to deal with such activities will do so. You are correct in saying the "bloke down the pub" was a prime victim of internet theft however his "piracy" was commercially geared, most internet "pirates" are, themselvelves, not commercial enterprises however those that are profiting from facilitating the infringement of copyrighted works have seen / are seeing the writing on the wall - Rapidshare, Newsbinz etc.

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

So it will be a comibination of people finding more discreet ways to download, hard pirated copies of media been sold on the streets, and a few perhaps resorting to buying media but I expect a lot more will simply choose to go without than buying it.

Yes, but as the media industries adapt their delivery, pricing and distribution models the excuses for doing so will become more & more vaucous. In a few weeks / months time the very notion of a "more discreet" way to download (at least as far as using the internet to do so) will be a thing of the past. Culpability and accountability are two words which ISPs and "pirates" are very uncomfortable with. Unfortunately for both of them they form the backbone of the DEB.

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

Lets not forget one thing, the #1 reason people dont buy media is a lack of availability. They either want content not available in their country yet or want old content the copyright holders dont want to make available.

Simply not true. The #1 reason people don't buy media is because technology, the internet and ISPs enabled them to acquire stuff for free. The internet afforded everybody a global, non territorially bound, opportunity to avail of media simultaneously. The fact that the media companies didn't react to this opportunity immediately (due in no small part to contractual obligations already in place between themselves, artists, producers, studios, retailers and distributors of both music and movies) is not an excuse for people to wantonly infringe the copyright of those artists / holders.

Many of those aforementioned contracts (particularly those of a distribution nature) are coming to their term end and new arrangements / terms are / have been negotiated for global release days as opposed to the old territorial models. These changes, particularly in relation to "catalogue", will become evident in the coming months. I wonder what the "pirates" excuse will be then?

"Old content" has, by it's very nature, already been made available. The fact that you cannot get certain content in a certain format is a result of contractual obligations having been met by one or more parties to an agreement which has expired. If sufficient numbers of fans lobbied the licencees of the material they might, ordinarily, have been able to secure e a re-release in a new format (say cd). However, given the very nature of what you describe as a reason for demand (ie. illegal downloading / piracy) who, in their right mind, would risk such a venture?

Ebay will turn up almost anything of an "old content" nature. However, speaking as an avid collector of rare vinyl, one might reasonably be expected to pay not inconsiderable sums for certain pressings of "old content". The payment for anything on the part of most internet "pirates" is an alien concept to them. Hence their voracious appetite for "all you can eat for free" (at someone else's expense, obviously).

[Chrysalis]

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

That may be true in some parts of the world but here it isn't, we have good content release dates relative to a lot of the rest of the world. When that was the major issue it wasn't such an issue, now that a new movie is released to the cinema and has hundreds of thousands of people too cheap to buy a ticket to go see it so they download it or an album is released and is downloaded wholesale that becomes an issue.

release dates we have are slow enough, anything even 1 day behind america is slow. But to be honest cinema figures are good, there is no signs of piracy affecting cinema viewing, I hardly know anyone who downloads movies and never goes to the cinema. Most piracy seems to be tv shows and music. People still download movies of course but they still also go to the cinema. Let us not forget that these companies are making healthy profits in a recession, they not on the brink of going bust.

tv shows can be months behind.

some content never gets released at all and is america only.

An example I can give as well is I went on the f1 website expecting to be able to buy some previous season dvd's as well as onboard footage, it turns out only the previous season gets made available and the rest is gone. So if I either have to go without or find somewhere to download it.

---------- Post added at 13:18 ---------- Previous post was at 13:10 ----------

Originally Posted by Mr Angry

Simply not true. The #1 reason people don't buy media is because technology, the internet and ISPs enabled them to acquire stuff for free. The internet afforded everybody a global, non territorially bound, opportunity to avail of media simultaneously. The fact that the media companies didn't react to this opportunity immediately (due in no small part to contractual obligations already in place between themselves, artists, producers, studios, retailers and distributors of both music and movies) is not an excuse for people to wantonly infringe the copyright of those artists / holders.

As I said to ignition its my belief (I may be wrong) that the vast majority of people who 'only' download content and never buy would not buy it legit anyway, they would either go without or buy an illegal hard copy, or simply even copy offline via usb sticks etc.

Originally Posted by Mr Angry

Many of those aforementioned contracts (particularly those of a distribution nature) are coming to their term end and new arrangements / terms are / have been negotiated for global release days as opposed to the old territorial models. These changes, particularly in relation to "catalogue", will become evident in the coming months. I wonder what the "pirates" excuse will be then?

Lets wait and see if and when this happens the affect on the market, for sure the regional marketing is out dated and not helping matters, however piracy will never ever cease to exist, to expect it to do so is very unrealistic, its like thinking one day no one will ever take drugs etc.

Originally Posted by Mr Angry

"Old content" has, by it's very nature, already been made available. The fact that you cannot get certain content in a certain format is a result of contractual obligations having been met by one or more parties to an agreement which has expired. If sufficient numbers of fans lobbied the licencees of the material they might, ordinarily, have been able to secure e a re-release in a new format (say cd). However, given the very nature of what you describe as a reason for demand (ie. illegal downloading / piracy) who, in their right mind, would risk such a venture?

Ebay will turn up almost anything of an "old content" nature. However, speaking as an avid collector of rare vinyl, one might reasonably be expected to pay not inconsiderable sums for certain pressings of "old content". The payment for anything on the part of most internet "pirates" is an alien concept to them. Hence their voracious appetite for "all you can eat for free" (at someone else's expense, obviously).

I know some cases of where people sold old content on ebay and ebay were forced to remove the adverts by the copyright holders, even second hand copies were blocked. Examples are the old nightmare children tv show and prisoner cell block h an old australian drama.

I have no objection to people been dealt with fairly for copyright infringement, what I am against is special laws been given to copyright holders that dont apply to everyone else. Cutting people of without a court order and 'real' proof is not right. What is stopping these media companies using the courts like everyone else?

is it because?

(a) the 'REAL' financial losses are way lower than projected figures so as such the legal costs dont make sense.
(b) the evidence used is unreliable and probably would not be admissable in court in a lot of cases.

[Mr Angry]

Nobody is saying or anticipating that "piracy" will stop.

However, the reality is that those who infringe on copyrights now stand a far greater chance of being brought to account. That, even by your own admission, is a positive thing.

[Chrysalis]

incorrect, I dont believe in using methods that catch innocents in the net as a good thing.

the problem is these companies want to bypass normal legal procedures and have their own special law in place, this is very wrong. not to mention if you just download material without distributing it I am not sure if thats actually illegal.