I woke up this morning to the lead news story, both on the radio and on news websites, being
Net firms in music pirates deal
Six of the UK's biggest net providers have agreed a plan with the music industry to tackle piracy online.
The deal, negotiated by the government, will see hundreds of thousands of letters sent to net users suspected of illegally sharing music. Hard core file-sharers could see their broadband connections slowed
I am a member of a newsgroup where people share recordings, mainly from TV and radio broadcasts, or from out-of-print albums etc; also from live inhouse recordings (but only those made before the group commenced). Let's not beat about the bush: any defence for this activity would not stand up in court, IMO. It has a partner group where technical and related issues are discussed. I posted the following:
Just a few thoughts to kick around at breakfast. I am not a lawyer and am more than happy to be corrected on points of fact.
- How can they differentiate between illegal file-sharing (including, for the sake of argument, what we are doing) and the admittedly probably rare examples of heavy users who upload/download totally original material via file-sharing services ?
- How can an ISP tell whether someone's heavy use is due to illegal downloading, including what we do, and the perfectly legitimate purchasing of CDs by download from record companies or Amazon, or use of things like BBC iplayer?
- Isn't there a presumption of innocence until proven guilty ie wouldn't the onus be on the record companies/ISPs to prove guilt rather than for us to prove innocence?
- Doesn't that contravene Data Protection? But prevention/detection of crime is an exception to Data Protection Act? But isn't copyright covered by Civil, not Criminal Law, and thus Data Protection laws still protect privacy?
- If one were to receive a letter from an ISP, would the first response be 'prove it'?
- If an ISP ultimately cuts off one service for heavy use, wouldn't it be very easy just to transfer to another? Or would the ISPs be sharing details of heavy users between them? If so, isn't this also a breach of Data Protection and also anti-competitive, cartel-like behaviour.
Like Billy Bragg and Andy Burnham who were on Today, I am very much of the 'home taping is killing music' generation (presonally, I think that the cynical capitalist marketing of formulaic computer designed tracks is far more detrimental to music). I would defend anybody's right to get the full fruits of their labour, by hand or by brain or by electric guitar. But I would argue that in the sort of file-sharing I do, I am depriving no-one of an income because the product isn't there to be bought commercially. Crucially, also, no one else is deriving an income from the activity - people upload as a community thing. The ones who derive incomes are Filesharing sites/hosts and the ISPs. And I doubt whether any 'levy' imposed on internet users (irrespective of whether or not they download music) will be distributed to those that create the music I download - apparently most downloaders are teenagers.
Billy Bragg pointed out that music played on commercial radio is free at the point of use; its use is paid for by advertising. He suggested a similar model might work for filesharing, via ISPs. I think that's not a bad idea, although it never ceases to amaze me that spend on adverts is seemingly without limits. Plus, I have my home PC set up to all but eliminate ads. And I fast forward through TV ads (except during live football). It surprises when I read how few people skip ads in such a way.
I am not sure whether my bullet points are accurate, but I do believe that this proposal is unworkable under law, technologically and on a common sense level.
