Following the news this morning that BIS have announced the costs for the
Copyright Infringement Notice process are to be shared 75% to 25% between
copyright holders and ISPs respectively, ISPs have spoken out against this
charging.
“We think this is absolutely outrageous.
In effect, ISPs and their customers will be forced to pay for the costs of
the music and film industries to enforce their own copyright. To us this is
manifestly unfair. It is the rightsholders’ material; if they think it is being
accessed illegally, it is only right that they should be the ones to pay for
protecting it.Furthermore, it’s inevitable under this system that many innocent customers
will be falsely accused of filesharing and put on an ‘offenders register’
though they have broken no law. Letters are sent to the owner of the connection
over which the illegal downloading is alleged to have occurred. The actual
downloading could have been done by someone else entirely, even a hacker many
hundreds or thousands of miles away. But the connection owner – the bill payer
– is the one who will be written to and put on an offenders register to be
exposed to court action. It is this same scheme that would be used to identify
customers to disconnect.”Andrew Heaney, (Director of strategy and regulation) TalkTalk
TalkTalk have stood their ground, firmly opposing the Digital Economy Act
since it was brought into conception under the previous government by Peter
Mandleson. The Internet Service Providers Association which acts as a trade
body for the ISP industry takes a similar view that ISPs should not be forced
to foot the bill.
“ISPA has consistently argued for the ‘beneficiary pays’ principle, and is
disappointed with today’s announcement. Full cost recovery for serious law
enforcement cases is an established rule, and ISPA sees no reason why it should
not be the case here.”Nicholas Lansman, (secretary general) ISPA
Whilst ISPs are able to complain all they like, it is unlikely that any
changes will come from this. The DEA is one that the government are trying to
bring in to action as quickly as possible and the announcement today already
includes a push back of the date by which Ofcom must implement this by 3
months. The full BIS consultation response can be read here (PDF).
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I’m now counting down till BT release a press statement along the lines of this… was quite funny to see they tagged along after a while when talktalk had been opposing this from the start 🙂
But I gotta agree with talktalk boy, its a joke charging ISP’s (with costs going onto customers) to monitor this. Its just a damn joke.
The ISPs won’t be charged. They’ll just tack it onto our bills so we’ll all be paying. As far as I’m concerned that gives me the green light to start doing it. That’s convenient since it seems the only way to obtain lossless digital music anyway.
TT are a **** ISP but at least leading the way in fighting this.
Copyright/Patenting is anti-free market.
“The ISPs won’t be charged. They’ll just tack it onto our bills so we’ll all be paying. ” Which of course is even worse, the majority pays for the minority. So are any other countries trying to pass a similar joke of an enforcement through? If not I’m sure they leechers will just VPN into another country and carry on
They seek control of the net, we should ALL fight that, as for piracy they will never stop that, after all we are supposed to live in a democracy not a communist state, like this country is slowly turning into
So the DEA join the list of badly thought out & poorly implementrd laws along with the likes of Dangerous dogs, hunting & ecstacy to name a few. With so many lawyers as MPs you’d think they could get it right! My brother is of the opinion that the legislation is deliberately made a mess so that more lawyers can get rich by arguing the toss in court. Is he being overly cynical? I think not.
Watching a DVD last night I was struck by the dire warning, which can’t be skipped, at the start – I already viewed as a potential criminal by virtue of buying their product!
If they can afford to pay 10million$+ to the lead actos(s) they they can pay to enforce their own copywrite!
@Scubaholic
Remember that when you buy their stuff you are supporting the removal of your/our liberties.
Don’t buy their music for a couple of months in protest. Vote with your feet.
@checker
Or don’t buy it from them at all and save a lot of money and your liberties.
playing devils advocate, when asked for who was on what ip at what time just send the local MP’s details and when enough letters land on enough MP’s desks they will take a different view…
@Scubaholic
it wasn’t this was it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALZZx1xmAzg
This is damn right unfair and we will probably see our bills go up.
“They’ll just tack it onto our bills so we’ll all be paying. As far as I’m concerned that gives me the green light to start doing it.”
I completely agree with that statement! 100%
Besides if i actually like what i download i DO actually BUY it. Now i wont be buying it.
cont… as far as im concerned they can put the DEA up their ass.
quick question, if my ISP increases the prices of my broadband back (because of this), would i be allowed to end my contract early without paying a fee? I damn well refuse to pay increased prices for this. I am more than willing to pay for more to fund FTTC or innovation but not to make rich people more rich. What a disgrace.
And if they take you to court for downloading then you can prove that your bills went up to cover which goes to the right holders, which technically means you have actually payed them.
It’s probably against the law for them to be charging us for a service/product we are not even getting 😛
But with the method they have chosen they are even punishing people who DO actually go out and buy their products.
🙂 I love it how the CO’s are trying to say it will benefit ISP’s because it will reduce traffic loads by getting rid of illegal traffic.
GMAN99, i don’t think it would make a difference to traffic at all. Infact, i think it may increase it 🙂
Can i ask what would happen if all of the ISPs decided not to comply with the DEA and just continued as if it wasn’t there? What’s the worst that could happen to them?
If the music and film industries don’t accept change they will simply go bust. They still seem to think that every one wants to pay for a film in the cinema, then again on DVD, then again on Blu-ray and again on iTunes. They just can’t understand that their customers are not made of money like they are.
Hehehe I just love some of the comments on here, I hope it reflects the thoughts of many. “Well I’m paying my copyright tax so… let’s get downloading”
Dunno Lego, I still don’t know how this is going to work. Who will be doing the detecting the ISP’s, the CO’s? Both?. Non-compliance will probably result in fines
@Checker
oops I bought a CD the other day, still waiting on snail mail though. Always buy CD for music, no download can beat having a physical disk. Even if it is just stuck in the rack after ripping to the PC.
So what next, will Car Boot Sales be required to have on-site checkers and enforcers to look for copyright violations?
i buy a few tracks of iTunes, but i wont buy an album for just one song. I did actually buy Clash of the Titans even though i downloaded it, i loved that filmed and therefore bought the blu-ray.
GMAN99, they can’t possibly fine ALL the ISPs if they don’t comply with it.
A poster on another website suggested that ISPs go on strike for a week, no internet, etc.. they are correct it would make a point 😛
Im not going to buy a film and pay a “copyright tax”, not a chance.
No idea what will happen to be honest, as there’s still no explanation about how it will work, if its just about ISP’s notifying their customers and the CO’s are doing the detecting (how?) then there’s not a whole lot for ISP’s to do I suppose apart from a letter/email. One thing I do know is…. it won’t work
Im currently on talktalk, if i get a letter then i’ll be moving to a smaller ISP. So after the letters they give our details to the rights holder? WTF happened to the Data Protection Act, and considering i checked the box stating i do not wish to be contacted by a 3rd party orrganisation, then they would be breaking that law too. Soo many laws being broken just for 1 useless piece of crap law.
^ That won’t work remember, none of this will actually work. Its not like people will have to find new ways to get around it, they can now. Fail.
I woke up last Sunday morning and found my router was on the fritz, blind panic! Breakfast was put on hold while I dug out an old router to get me up and running again. So.. a week.. forget it 🙂
Posted by otester about 5 hours ago
Copyright/Patenting is anti-free market.
Or don’t buy it from them at all and save a lot of money and your liberties.
—-
Trying to justify your downloading again otester?
I don’t like this either, however it’s people like you that download half the planet that gave the excuse.
Downloading without paying is anti-free market, is not a question of liberty any more than theft of physical property and is illegal, period.
My real major concern is that the privacy zealots and piracy advocates who think it’s their right to download anything they want illegally find a way around all of this and we end up with people like me who do actually pay for content as free market rules require, supporting downloading through levies.
I think they should threaten to strike, strike at the same time the TUC will strike and the government will certainly panic!
Everything has gone down hill since this new government, they have the “we know best” attitude. Someone said something which i agree with is that labour do this and that, tories undo all that work, then labour undo tories hard work and labour then… you get the picture. The UK seems to be going in circles.
Technically the government should just get rid of all the quangos and leave the EU and the deficit would be sorted but thats another topic.
Yeah but Ed Vaguely has seemed to made it worse, he really has not done anything good yet LOL and the new government still haven’t scrapped it 😛
Dixi, i’m all for right holders to protect their content but there IS a limit, and this DEA has gone way beyond the limit. As i said above MOST people do buy an actual copy if they liked their “illegal” version.
Take settlers 6 for example, you HAVE to be online to play the game, if you get disconnected then you lose your progress, infact when it was first released no one could play the game because the server was overloaded. The right holders really do need to update their business model and get with the times.
Ed Vaguely has done nothing so far apart from annoy people, he’s just made everything worse. We need to hire someone new and actually has a degree in networking, GMAN, CB, ur both hired! 😀
” You are basically gonna be charged for the copyright infringing download versions, even if you dont want them or never download. If you are gonna pay for something you may as well have it.”
Well said.
@Dixinormous
Freemarket is where the market settles itself, not the courts or government.
Theft implies the owner was deprived of a physical product, otherwise it’s copying.
The judges in Spain seem to have got it right, likening it to ancient book sharing.
I hope you do get sued whether you did it or not, just to teach you how retarded copyright/patents are.
Guess for some it takes a real world lesson…
“Posted by Scubaholic about 6 hours ago
Watching a DVD last night I was struck by the dire warning, which can’t be skipped, at the start – I already viewed as a potential criminal by virtue of buying their product!
”
Interesting that pirates don’t watch those warnings, but those who pay for the goods are forced to. Crazy stuff!
One other thing that others seem to have missed from the other article is this whole charge for appeal thing.
This could be heavily abused becoming a government cash cow.
For me this isn’t about trying to justify piracy (not me anyway I think its pointless, its wrong and everyone knows it) for me its about wasting money on a system that won’t work and possibly opening up your internet access to full logging and perusal, if people don’t like the new Talk Talk malware system well this system would no doubt be worse and for all ISP’s (if its on the ISP to monitor you). And on top of it all pointless because the people your after just secure their connection, proxy their ip or VPN into another country
I suspect I’ve seen more of the real world than you have otester. The content simply won’t exist if everyone who wishes to can freely take copies. No prospect of financial return equals no investment.
The judges in Spain likening it to sharing of a physical thing are obviously wrong.
I have little doubt you will get sued, quite rightly. In the interim I’ll continue to purchase things knowing I’m actually giving the people whose time and money produced the products a return.
You’re a copyright thief, nothing more however noble you think you are.
As a reminder also I said I wasn’t overly keen on the DEA however it’s people like you who provide an excuse.
Copyright theft has become far too mainstream and regrettably something had to be done. For all the industries’ nonsense rhetoric content is more expensive to produce than ever and is more copied than ever.
A lot of people need to be reminded that they should actually pay for other people’s work rather than help themselves.
Again all that said I don’t think the DEA is the way to go.
Very noble Dixy, but can you tell me why I should purchase something in the UK, at 2x the price of the US, with all considerations of tax and duty, something that downloads from the same US server, is byte identical, and accepts my UK credit card?
I support copyright, but I also completely understand why some just don’t.
Reminding people that it’s worth something is a start over fleecing.
it should be remembered that often the originators have little control on how their copyright is exploited for commercial purposes.
the real power houses are the distributors/studios… the ones that really dig their heels in on a shift to their ideal market idea.
No argument here I think you have it spot on. That’s the free market, purchasing products for the best possible price and conditions. Supply and demand, retailers and distributors see their demand drop they re-assess the terms of supply. Downloading skews it as they can’t compete with free and change pricing to compensate instead.
On the twice the price in the US, when did you last visit a US shopping mall? The difference in pricing is a lot less, and if imported properly difference in price is even more marginal.
Question now is what volume of campaign will the rights holders start with, and who will risk the negative press. Artists who disagree are unlikely to do much to contract restraints.
I imported CSI Miami Season 1 on DVD recently from Canada, cost me about £17 can’t grumble at that 🙂
I keep a keen eye on the stuff i’m interested in. It only takes a quick peep at Amazon to find disparity with prices. Ok, so music and DVD are closer these days, but software is way out of wack in many cases, and examples of music and dvd can be found as well with ease.
I think you’re way off base, Dixi.
When it was tapes people used to record music, the big publishers called foul, that it would destroy them and all content. When it was VHS people recorded movies and TV to, the big publishers called foul, that it would destroy them and all content. Now it’s P2P, and the big publishers have called foul.
No, it’s not going to destroy them, and they will continue to make movies, just as they have been for more than a decade since P2P sharing took off.
Without P2P, without tapes, or VHS/Betamax, these industries would never change. They want to maintain their old business strategies, and now that they’re being forced to change – again – they’re complaining.
Silly question here: I’ve already seen mistakes made when chasing infringers (contacted demanding details of the user of IP 81.187.x.y, when the attached evidence was for 81.87.x.y).
In the DEA world, do I as consumer have any redress against an infringement notice sent to my ISP in error? Or do I just have to hope that the rightsholders won’t make too many mistakes?
Oh, and I should add that the appeals process isn’t the answer – I get to spend time and effort, just to get the rightsholder to retract a false claim, but I don’t get compensation for doing so, as I would if (e.g.) they sued me in error.
As I understand it, the infringement reports are sent to the ISP in question. The ISP is then meant to forward the reports to the end user – presumably at this point the ISP should have checked that the evidence actually implicates the end user in question.
Nothing happens at this point until the “rightsholder” asks the ISP in question for a list of subscribers who have received “enough” infringement reports, and then pursues them through the courts.
@ElBobbo: Or, put differently, the rightsholders already make mistakes when they pay 100% of the costs. Now, they get to make my ISP pay 25% of the costs, and there is no penalty in place for mistakes.
Further, a false accusation of illegal activity where the accuser should have been aware that the accusation was false is normally considered defamatory – do I get to take action against a rightsholder who makes mistakes?
I don’t know – sorry – but I do know that libel cases are fantastically expensive in the UK, so I hope you’ve got deep pockets if you do choose that route.
Libel cases are only expensive if you can’t get a conditional fee arrangement – for clear-cut cases, you take the risk that the lawyers will get all the money, but that’s about it.
And it’s yet another sign of how ill-thought-through all this is if the only way to make rightsholders accountable for their errors is UK libel law…
Yes ElBobbo piracy has happened for a long time. However never to the scale it is now and that’s what it’s all about, scale. Previously the physical media was degraded by copying and you needed to have a physical media. No more – perfect copies can be taken without any physical presence and are at an unprecedented level. You cannot compete with free, it is obviously harming these companies, just the disagreement is ‘how much’.
Farnz – there is an appeals process in place which is nothing at all to do with libel.
Dixi – How, precisely, is it any different to recording a TV show onto VHS or a tune from the radio onto a tape? You still need a HD or media of some sort to store all of the downloaded “material”, don’t you. Aside from the minor loss in fidelity, there’s no difference between what has been very widely accepted as reasonable (VHS/tapes, etc.) and downloading over the internet.
Also, I’d like to see some objective statistics showing P2P harms these companies. And by objective, I don’t mean the “downloaded means lost sale” numbers.
Recording broadcasts has never been a major issue. It’s rather different from downloading cinema cams, BluRay and DVD images that have never been broadcast though don’t you think?
There’s a good reason why movies tend to be shown in cinemas then released to Blu Ray and DVD and *then* broadcast. So that sales of the tickets and media can make back money for production and advertising – broadcast revenues won’t.
Of course some sales are lost to downloads. Getting accurate stats, good luck with that, but obviously there’s some loss. Either way totally inane arguments.
I’ve notice Dixi does this in pretty every thread, picks the opposite side, regardless of facts and plays the “troll”.
I just want to see what others think as this will decide if I bother to post back any more. I am more worried about others being mislead.
@Dixinormous
“Copyright theft” – Double speak?
Lost downloads? That’s based on an assumption…
I notice otester does this in pretty much every thread. Evangelises copyright theft regardless of facts.
Copyright theft is what it’s called. Double speak or not people are sued and prosecuted for it.
Lost sales from downloads isn’t an assumption it’s perfectly obvious, only the amount is subject to assumption.
^ Yeah…yeah…yeah and pigs can fly…
CB – if you’d care to read my posts before you start blustering you’d note I have repeatedly mentioned my distaste for this law. My comment has been that it’s people like otester who gave the industry an excuse to pursue this nonsense.
Accusations of trolling are also pretty rich coming from you to be perfectly frank.
I’ll take that to indicate you’ve no reasonable reply otester – not surprising given your points are completely inane.
If you’d care to share these facts that I’m apparently ignoring otester I would welcome them as I’m sure would others following this discussion. It would also be useful to know how copyright theft fits into the free market philosophy.
Do some research, Dixi:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/07/28/copying_is_theft_and_other/
It makes you look silly if you equate theft and copyright infringement. Much like these companies who want to call it theft, it means you can call downloaders “thieves” and “pirates”.
Do you know that the RIAA are facing a new price-fixing lawsuit for online music purchases, after having settled the last one in 2002 for $143m (£91m) in order to avoid admitting wrong-doing.
So, who exactly are the thieves now? Perhaps you’d like to defend their price-fixing? They’re scum, they’re out for money, and they don’t give a damn about what’s right and what isn’t.
Dixi: You appear to have missed my point; the appeals process is designed to handle cases where there is genuine disagreement on whether I did or did not break the rules. It’s roughly equivalent to a hearing in civil process.
There is no process in place to handle rightsholders deliberately or negligently filing false reports; this is unlike civil law, which has the concepts of perjury and barratry to penalise such misbehaviour. As a result, I can’t see what incentive is being given to rightsholders to get it right.
The real thieves are the music/film publishers and the government, As one has grossly been overcharging for it’s stuff in past years and the government has happily taken the vat on top. they are the theives,
CB:
Posted by Dixinormous about 18 hours ago
I don’t like this either, however it’s people like you that download half the planet that gave the excuse.
Posted by Dixinormous about 8 hours ago
As a reminder also I said I wasn’t overly keen on the DEA however it’s people like you who provide an excuse.
ElBobbo – It’s called copyright theft, even in some legal circles. I’m aware it’s not the criminal offence of theft.
I couldn’t care what the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of AMERICA) do. Two wrongs don’t make a right, if you don’t like the prices you don’t buy the product, you don’t just help yourself. You don’t steal a car because you don’t like the price, why copy IP?
Rights holders levelling false reports are wasting their own money – let them.
While people are still paying for the stuff they aren’t overcharging. Free markets and all that Tommy, supply and demand.
If people are disinterested in paying for the products at a certain price they lower the prices until they can sell the product or do other things to sweeten the deal.
I’m guessing you haven’t noticed how much cheaper albums and singles are now, and have been for some time? That’s the free market in action, nothing to do with people helping themselves to the product.
Still people are clearly convinced it’s fine, so there we go. Cheers for the DEA.
No but a car devalues due to the market, because you own it. You don’t own copyright on someone elses music et al unless they’ve signed it over to you. Nor can you always sell a license.
It’s infringement. Not theft. That’s from experience of actually having legal experience of stopping it on some of my works.
However my licenses are much more liberal than the entertainment industry’s.
Dixi: First, it’s not their money – it’s my ISP’s money as well – 25% of the cost comes from my ISP, not from the rightsholders. Every penny my ISP spends on these notices is a penny not spent on service quality.
Second, if I don’t spend my time on the appeals process (without compensation for me), I face penalties just like the law breakers. Why is that fair?
Nonetheless Farnz 75% of it is their money. It does them no service to make spurious complaints. They do need to supply a reasonable level of evidence to make them, they cannot pull things from thin air.
The appeals process is the same as most other things – if evidence is provided (as it has to be) and one chooses not to defend themselves it’s an admission of guilt.
Whatever – all agreed per above, I’ve seen it referred to as both though of course it’s correctly described as infringement.
Dixi: First you say there’s no way that the media companies can compete with ‘free’ and that p2p is obviously having an effect on their business – then you say that lower prices on music is “the free market in action, nothing to do with people helping themselves to the product.”?
Consistent much?
Shrugging off the price fixing cracks me up. Some people are so bizarre. It’s not P2P users that are responsible for their behaviour, that price fixing was before P2P became widespread.
It’s the RIAA companies that have stiffed you, colluded to keep prices high – even after having been caught at it – that are now going to make ISPs pass along their business costs to you, and you seem perfectly willing to take this bullshit. What are you on?
Dixi – Prices are really only determined by supply and demand where there is perfect competition, and to some extent monopolistic competition. In this case the large companies associated with the music industry are exploiting their oligopoly position.
According to the law of free market, a more expensive product must lower its price or compete in another way with a cheaper product or it will face extinction.
MAFIAA is unwilling to compete, wants to be the most expensive and have complete control over content (censorship), the latter, which the elite wants, so they fanning the flames, if they had no interest, the MAFIAA would have died long ago.
Dixi: Today, when they pay 100% of their costs, they get it wrong on a regular basis (100% of the time, based on the 6 I’ve received in the last two years). What exactly makes you think that paying less each time will improve matters?
Second, in the legal world, you bring a frivolous action against me, you get to compensate me for my time defending myself. I cannot see where the appeals process will pay my costs if the claim is frivolous.
I still cannot believe they are expecting ISP’s to pay a share. ISP’s just supply a network that is all.
This will result in ISPs passing the cost to users, probably an increase in paid services to cover piracy such as proxies, VPN services and usergroups.
All result in users having less money to spend on digital media and genuine sales going down.
It’s just genuinely very stupid, I can’t believe we can have laws like this passed, sigh…
El Bobbo – I’m quite consistent thanks. Price drop is due to legitimate digital distribution breaking the traditional distribution model, not competing with P2P.
otester – Thanks for making my point. Given that P2P is no more a product than stealing the physical media it is nothing to do with a free market. P2P does not participate in a free market any more than shoplifters do. The sooner you stop trying to give P2P any kind of legitimacy, presumably to absolve yourself, the better.
CB – I actually largely agree with you. Please note I haven’t spoken positively about the DEA at any point. The cost share applies to the largest ISPs which may mitigate impact a bit. Nonetheless the DEA’s copyright provisions are an abomination, and one we have to thank people who think downloading is fine for. People like otester who were firing out 300GB/month when 1Mbit was common for DSL started it off and widespread usage due to Kazaa et al gave the rest of the ammunition and excuses. It’s a volume issue, never before has so much infringement happened.
Regarding ISPs increasing prices, this has to be done anyway. People are using more bandwidth generally and the market is more saturated so less companies are in acquisition mode.
Presently margins are tight and products too cheap, O2 are probably the first shot in a salvo of price increases. DEA cost sharing gives ISPs the necessary excuse to raise prices.
@Dixinormour
Don’t worry I’ll buy a dictionary for Xmas.
buy you*
but you will have people who will download anyway without paying the extra £20…
To be honest i dont download any films anymore, spend like £3.50 on sky box office, or if i had something like GoogleTV i would prob buy directly of that instead.
Sometimes its easier to download it than physically go to the shop or wait for the post, but for now i have sky and lets me watch it straight away so im more than happy for pay for that. Some people dont want to buy a film which they will probably only watch once.
£20 Blu-ray for 1.5 hours watching and then sits on a shelf forever, hmm….
Also as i mentioned before about Settlers 6, having to be connecting to the internet whilst playing even if playing offline and if you have no internet connection you would get kicked off the game.
I also mentioned that people could not play it at first because of the server issues and cant pay the game if Ubisoft servers are down.
I do not mention though that people who downloaded it illegal had no problems at all, they cracked it and works fine.
cont…
So in that scenario where a company protects their product so much that its actually better off to download it. Before you ask i did buy it but couldn’t play it anyway as my internet was unstable. 🙁
some people cannot watch films on their dvd/blu-ray players because of the DRM companies put on the disks.
They really NEED to update their business models and stop wasting money on useless protection which makes the product more expensive. If they didn’t do all that crap then they would be able to lower the price of the film/album and more people would buy it.
well now hdcp has been cracked that’s less of a concern.
Still paying £20 blu-ray which you will probably only watch once every so many years.
@Legolash2o:Lovefilm is better value than SBO.
I pay £12pcm (or would if I hadn’t paid six months in advance) and for that I get 2 discs a week. That’s £1.50 a disc. I don’t actually watch as many as I could either. The next pair usually arrive three or four days after the last ones went back.
It’s probably £1 a disc if I tried.
@CB:And I like your idea about a monthly payment to access all and any content.
You get some really brainless people talk about piracy.
Where does everyone think that the extra “billions” lost to piracy would come from? The people who pirate say, one tv show they really like and buy another, do they just rip up the money they would and throw it away? Don’t be stupid.
That money is spent elsewhere, on rent, food, holidays, coffee, laptops, ipads, ipods; it all goes back into the economy.
If you turned all purchases from piracy into dollars sent to the big media companies, you would end up with tens of thousands of jobs lost, local businesses shutting, and the entire economy slowing down.
Piracy actually benefits the economy.
From the MPAA’s own factsheet, there are more than 296,000 employed core business of producing, marketing, manufacturing and distributing motion pictures and television shows, with an average salary of nearly $76,000 – a massive 72% higher than the average salary nationwide.
Yeah, piracy is definitely putting these people out on the street. No, the people who think piracy is a bad thing simply have no understanding of economics.
A lot of people who don’t know how to get content freely are also ones to complain because they don’t know.
I play games more than listening to music any ways, and if I have to choose, it’s games any day of the week, people seem to forget this, music has competition as well.
CB – there have been a few studies (I only remember one offhand, a Norweigian one) that show that those who download free music – including copyrighted music by P2P – were also much more likely to purchase music. (2000 users, all over the age of 15).
Piracy benefits the economy – hilarious. So one angle of your argument ElBobbo is that piracy doesn’t cause a loss of sales, another is that it benefits the economy because people spend money that they save through piracy elsewhere. Contradict yourself much?
The studies don’t prove anything by the way, you’re implying a cause and effect where there isn’t one.
I must’ve missed the massive rise in economies when the Internet made piracy mainstream. Yes you’re talking total rubbish ElBobbo. Ditto information related to average salaries, etc. Massive salaries at the top skew things, just as they do with many other sectors.
You have no idea what you’re talking about and if you’d care to show just ONE reasoned analysis that illustrates the economic benefits of piracy rather than pulling something out of your backside I’d welcome it.
otester – your point is total nonsense, and that you are now down to jealousy to try and justify piracy is laughable, though I guess we’ve been through most other avenues between you and ElBobbo, none of which you have any factual basis for.
Some people are enjoying the freeloading while it lasts. Freetards try and make out they’re doing nothing wrong and offer up weak justifications.
Reasoned analysis? You are the one making the claim that piracy is hurting the industry, which is why we are discussing the DEA. You are the one who has yet to come up with any cogent argument whatsoever, and bluster your way through denial after denial.
“The studies don’t prove anything by the way, you’re implying a cause and effect where there isn’t one.” Particularly brilliant piece of idiocy. So you’re saying that piracy doesn’t affect purchases? Case closed.
From http://www.mpaa.org/policy/industry :
Worldwide Box office takings have increased by 29.4% from 2005 ($23.1B) to 2009 ($29.9B). From 2008 to 2009 the worldwide box office takings went up 7.6% from $27.8 to $29.9B.
Even the MPAA’s figures show that you are talking out of your arse.
Who is talking about “never buying anything”, CB? Do you have ANYTHING to show that pirates buy less media than anyone else? Because the study shows that they buy MORE than anyone else.
CB – I see you didn’t actually read the figures, did you? The number of admissions has increased since 2005 from 1.38 billion to 1.42 billion in 2009.
All a load of crap.
In 2005 the number of admissions was 4.4 per person. In 2009 the number of admissions was 4.3. So what?
All that means is that MORE people have gone to see a movie than in 2000 or 2005, since TOTAL ADMISSIONS ARE UP.
You’re as bad as the media companies, trying desperately to mangle the numbers to fit your stupid argument, which has absolutely no basis in reality.
Posted by ElBobbo about 18 hours ago
“The studies don’t prove anything by the way, you’re implying a cause and effect where there isn’t one.” Particularly brilliant piece of idiocy. So you’re saying that piracy doesn’t affect purchases? Case closed
I’m saying the studies don’t show it. If you could show me a study which makes the conclusion that increased piracy of music means increased purchase I’d welcome it.
As it is it could be said that all it means is that the group that is most interested in music purchase and download more. This doesn’t mean either behaviour influences the other.
You also do your utmost to note correlations that aren’t there – people watch less movies, there are just more people to watch them.
You see what you want to. It doesn’t change that piracy costs. You are yet to make any cogent argument you just pick figures and put whatever spin on them suits.
You haven’t shown anything at all.
http://www.1up.com/news/indie-dev-estimates-25-percent
http://www.infendo.com/world-of-goo-has-90-percent-piracy-rate/
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/08/machinarium-suffers-95-piracy-rate-offers-5-amnesty-sale.ars
So you still believe piracy doesn’t have costs, yet also that the money people save by pirating content is spent on rent and food?
Do you seriously think that if it weren’t for piracy people would be homeless and starving?
You are utterly obsessed with the view that piracy is good for you because you are looking for excuses to justify not paying for things. That’s all you’ve done, just a string of justifications, they have enough money, it helps the economy, they are evil, etc.
Weak.
To quote you, “As it is it could be said that all it means is that the group that is most interested in music purchase and download more.”
So the group that downloads more, purchases more.
Don’t you realise how you sound? You are making my argument for me.
Congratulations, people pirate games. So what? What proof do you have that they would have bought it otherwise?
“Do you seriously think that if it weren’t for piracy people would be homeless and starving?” No, they wouldn’t spend that money buying what they are pirating! Which is why they are not LOST SALES.
Geez.
Yep, and there’s no way you can correlate the two behaviours. As I said go find me a study which shows that downloading increases, rather than reduces, purchasing. There is no study with cause and effect there, the only way to confirm that would be to remove each factor and see what happens to the other.
Proof they’d have bought it? Well according to you piracy saves people from starvation and homelessness and powers local economies saving 10s of thousands of jobs so some must have saved money to pay their rent and feed their kids?
I worked many years for a pharmaceutical company. They spend billions on research, yet they soon lose the patent on their drugs, no more that 20 years from date of discovery, which then takes another 10 years to get it on the market. Why should films and songs have such long copyright protection? 5 years should be maximum
So if they wouldn’t have spent that money buying the content in the first place how is the local economy helped and tens of thousands of jobs saved by piracy if its’ effect is economically neutral?
You can’t even make your own arguments properly. You still maintain that no content is downloaded in lieu of purchase. Ridiculous.
I don’t see a valid question there, Dixi. When you can come up with one that isn’t dribble, I’ll try to answer it.
If I pirate a million shows, does that mean that I would have bought them otherwise? No.
I’ve yet to see any numbers showing how piracy equates to lost sales, Dixi. Until then, your entire argument is worthless.
Back to work for me – when you have a moment you may want to consider http://247wallst.com/2010/01/13/apple-app-store-has-lost-450-million-to-piracy/
No doubt you’ll claim the article is written by a rabid corporate whore, daring to claim that a massive 10% of downloaders would have purchased but hey.
Pay attention, Dixi. What I said was if all piracy equated to lost sales, THEN you would have people spending money on media instead of food and rent.
Lastly to reverse your ridiculous argument, so if you wanted to watch something and had no way to get it for free you would by default not buy it?
It’s fair to say that if there is a large and balanced enough sample of downloaders and no-one getting an item for free would have purchased it anyway there must be zero demand for the product because some of that cohort of downloaders would have had the financial resource to purchase it had it not been available for free.
That or people just randomly download things they don’t actually want.
Pay attention ElBobbo. Where have I, or anyone else, said that *all* piracy equated to lost sales. That is nonsense and disinformation every bit as much as your claim that there are *no* lost sales from piracy – the actual truth is obviously in the middle and likely much closer to ‘none’ than ‘all’.
Oh, another “someone pirated my application, but they would have bought it otherwise!”.
Stupidity.
From the article: “A fair estimate of the proportion of people who would have used the App Store if they did not use pirated applications is about 10%.”
A stupid, pointless thing to say. Why is it a fair estimate? What proof is there that these are lost sales?
No, show that piracy equates to lost sales. If this was JUST a moral argument, then you might have a valid reason, but these stupid and invalid ASSUMPTIONS are being used to pass laws to try to prevent something that isn’t proven.
A load of crap from you, CB. Admissions are up over 2000 and 2005. There _is_ an “increase in people going”, but fewer tickets are bought per person. So what?
None of this shows that piracy hurts the economy, otherwise the RIAA/MPAA wouldn’t be showing RECORD PROFITS year on year. So much for “piracy killing the movie business”.
CB: Show that piracy equates to lost sales. If you can’t do that, you have no more argument than Dixi.
“There _is_ an “increase in people going”, but fewer tickets are bought per person.” Probably because they hiked the prices so much. To me the DEA is a classic case of closing the stable door long after the horse has bolted. Downloading has forced the music industry to re-think their business strategy, which IS part of the free market, and they have been ripping their customers off for countless years without really trying to engage with them. Hence the increased popularity of music festivals, where people engage directly with their favourite bands.
How many tickets were sold in 2000? 1.39 billion.
How many tickets were sold in 2009? 1.42 billion.
Do you know what that means? It means they sold more tickets in 2009. What were you saying?
More pointless babble. What we’re seeing is that the movie industry is not significantly affected, even with a supposedly vast amount of piracy.
What does it show? That the claims piracy hurts content creators are complete rubbish.
“No you show it increases sales because i never claimed it decreases sales”
You and Dixi have admitted that piracy doesn’t decrease sales, so clearly this entire argument is already over.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/illegal-downloaders-spend-the-most-on-music-says-poll-1812776.html
“The survey, published today, found that those who admit illegally downloading music spent an average of £77 a year on music – £33 more than those who claim that they never download music dishonestly.”
What more do you want?
The IFPI responded to the survey saying: “The net effect of illegal file-sharing in the UK and elsewhere has been to reduce legitimate sales. This is why spending on recorded music has fallen every year since illegal file-sharing began to become widespread.”
Really? That’d be why 2009 was the “best ever year for the UK [music] singles market with more than 150m copies sold”.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/jan/07/singles-sales-reach-record-high
The music and movie industry clearly have no ethical qualms about lying and spinning the numbers to lobby our government to bend the laws to their wishes.
Why do you support them?
I think all that needs to be said is in here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/jun/09/games-dvd-music-downloads-piracy
Pirate scum? That sounds libelous to me.
Wow, 10 million? That’s almost… two thirds of one fucking percent of the number of tickets sold in 2004. Excuse me while I cry a goddamn river for anyone suffering such a downturn in the current economy.
Are you a shill?
What do you think? How to choose a case for a credit card?