Harriet Harman, deputy leader the UK Labour Party,
has explained her party's programme for the British Internet: "implement the Digital Economy Act under a clear timetable including getting on with the notification letters." "Notification letters?" Why yes, those would be the letters notifying you that you have been accused, without proof, of downloading copyrighted material without permission, and that everyone in your household is now at risk of being disconnected from the Internet, without a trial. If that costs you your job, if that costs your children their education, if that makes it harder to engage with politics, civics, and your community, well, tough shit. Thanks for sticking up for the little guy, Labour. And thanks for passing the Digital Economy Act without Parliamentary debate, over the howls of protests of your own veteran MPs, even after music industry lobbyists were caught rewriting portions of it to suit their corporate masters. (PS: she also wants all the worst stuff in SOPA to be taken on voluntarily by Google).
— Cory
By Cory Doctorow at 6:27 am Friday, Oct 21
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The UK Open Rights Group has released a report on the way that the UK government approaches copyright policy, in the wake of the government's recent plaudits for the UK film industry's online offering. This matters because the UK government's position is that the film industry constitutes a major part of the British economy, and it has done everything it can to present legitimate avenues for watching film online, so the ongoing illegal download problems mean that government must intervene with extraordinary measures like a national censorship regime that blocks websites that the film industry dislikes.
But ORG's research, along with Freedom of Information requests, show that, on the one hand, the film industry's online offerings are overpriced and underserviced; and on the other hand, there is no evidence to support the claim that the industry is suffering as a result of "piracy." The "evidence" in the government's web-blocking plans is purely anaecdotal, self-serving, and belied by actual facts.
* Excluding iTunes, only 27% of the BAFTA Best Film award winning films from 1960 to 2011 are available to rent or buy online, with only 29% of the50 best British films.
* Only 6% of the best 50 best British films are on Film4 OD or Virgin Media. 14% are available through a LoveFilm subscription and 4% through pay per view on LoveFilm.
* Including iTunes, still only 43% of the top 50 British films can be bought or rented online, with the figure at 58% for the BAFTA Best Film award winners.
As well as problems with availability, prices online do not compare favourably with DVDs:
* For the best selling DVDs from August 2011, the average price on Amazon.co.uk was £6.80. For iTunes purchases, of the films available through its service, the average price was £8.88. For blinkbox purchases the price stood at £9.49.
* DVD prices at Amazon.co.uk for the BAFTA winning films average at £5.84, whilst on iTunes the average price stands at £6.72
...
We have had a response to a Freedom of Information Act request that we made to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. In the request we asked for evidence they hold on the scale and nature of infringement of copyright by websites and on the efficacy of different strategies for dealing with it. They told us in their reply that they don't hold any.
(Disclosure: I co-founded the Open Rights Group, and sit on its unpaid advisory board. I receive no compensation, direct or indirect, from my work with ORG)
By Cory Doctorow at 4:02 am Friday, Sep 16
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My latest
Guardian column, "Lib Dems get a chance to vote on copyright reform," discusses the new Liberal Democrat IT white paper that's being presented at the party conference this weekend, where members will get the chance to vote in favor of repealing some of the worst sections of the Digital Economy Act, dealing with web-censorship and disconnection over copyright claims. The paper is very good, but somewhere between the final draft prepared by the committee and the paper the membership will vote on this weekend, someone inserted a clause saying that downloading is "a form of theft" and goes on to say that "there is no reason why digital offenders should not be prosecuted under the criminal law in the same way as those who steal tangible goods." I've spent the past few days trying to track down who put this language in, and everyone both denies it and says they don't support it -- which raises the question, what's it doing there at all?
This is pretty outre stuff. Every developed nation's legal system treats thefts of tangible goods as absolutely distinct from copyright violation. Applying criminal sanctions for copyright infringement would be unprecedented in the industrialised world.
Don Foster, the Lib Dem MP with the DCMS brief, apparently lobbied to have "a statement making clear that copyright infringement is as serious as theft" included in the document, though his staff disavows any involvement in the phrasing and says: "For Don, non-commercial copyright infringement has only ever been a civil issue." Julian Huppert, the Lib Dem MP who was also involved in the drafting, says, "there is no intention to change the current system in this regard".
Lib Dems get a chance to vote on copyright reform
By Cory Doctorow at 4:05 am Wednesday, Aug 3
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Here's a great and engrossing profile in the
Guardian of campaigning MP Tom Watson, who has been instrumental in Parliament's pursuit of the Murdoch phone-hacking case. Watson has been targetted by News International in retaliation, followed around by PIs, his neighbours' rubbish bins raided, members of his party told to sideline or fire him by high-ranking News execs. I know Tom from his exemplary work against the Digital Economy Act, and it was fascinating to learn about this other major passionate campaign of his life.
"When Myler and Crone first turned up, my knowledge was novice-level," he says. "I knew about three facts. But what I knew was that in any great scandal, you've got to follow the money. They were hick, amateur questions: I think I opened with: 'When did you tell Rupert Murdoch [about the payment]?' I thought that you might as well start at the top.
"They said: 'Oh no – we didn't tell Rupert Murdoch.' Then it was, 'Well, who did you tell? Who authorised it?' Myler got frustrated me with me, because I came back to this four or five times. He ranted. And don't forget: Crone had already tried to get me off the committee. So at that point, I thought: 'You're rude, you've tried to remove me from this committee, you've put me under extreme pressure for a number of years – there's more to this, and I'm getting to the bottom of it.' "When Myler was so over the top . . . it was like there was a big neon light behind his head, saying, 'Dig here.'"
Tom Watson: 'Phone hacking is only the start. There's a lot more to come out'
By Cory Doctorow at 3:24 am Monday, Aug 1
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Last year, the UK government held consultation into its proposed Digital Economy Act, an extremist copyright proposal created by the unelected Business Secretary Peter Mandelson. The process that followed was as dirty as any I'd ever seen (for example, the then-head of the BPI
wrote an amendment proposing a national censorship regime that a LibDem Lord then introduced on his behalf. But it turns out that there was much more sleaze below the surface.
Documents released in response Freedom of Information requests show that Mandelson had already made up his mind from the start about the Act's most controversial section: the rules that said that users would have their Internet connections terminated if enough unsubstantiated infringement claims were made against their households. The "compromise" that the Act made was to suspend this measure initially, and bring it into force if the other measures in the Act failed to substantially reduce infringement. Critics called it the sham it was, saying that a 70 percent reduction in file-sharing was a delusional target, and the FOI documents show that the Act's supporters agreed -- they only intended the compromise as a means of smuggling in France-style disconnections.
Which is to say that the whole business was a sham: the Business Secretary and his pals in the record industry had stitched the whole thing up from the start, and the thousands upon thousands of Britons who wrote in never had a hope of changing things. That's why the Act was crammed through Parliament without debate in the "wash-up," hours before Labour dissolved the government.
One consultation respondent told TorrentFreak: “As someone who went to considerable effort to submit a rational and evidence-based response to the consultation on these issues, I am disappointed, although not surprised, to see that the outcome was predetermined.” The UK Pirate Party is a little more scathing.
“These documents show how outrageously complicit everyone from the entertainment industry, politicians and unions were in framing the Digital Economy Act,” PPUK Chair Loz Kaye told TorrentFreak.
“Its most controversial aspect – suspending people from the Internet – was already sorted out in July 2009. It appears that the consultation was just for show, and the lobbyists got all they asked for. There are now serious questions to be asked of successive governments’ relations to groups like Universal Music and the BPI.”
Digital Economy Act: A Foregone Conclusion?
By Cory Doctorow at 2:46 am Wednesday, Jun 22
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A group of UK copyright lobbyists held confidential, closed-door meetings with Ed Vaizey, Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries to discuss a plan to allow industry groups to censor the Internet in the UK. The proposal has leaked, and it reveals a plan to establish "expert bodies" that would decide which websites British people were allowed to see, to be approved by a judge using a "streamlined" procedure. The procedure will allow for "swift" blocking in order to shut down streaming of live events.
Public interest groups like the Open Rights Group asked to attend the meeting, but were shut out, presaging a regulatory process that's likely to be a lopsided, industry-centric affair that doesn't consider the public. The process is characterised as "voluntary," but the proposal makes reference to the Digital Economy Act, which allows for mandatory web-blocking (thanks to the action of LibDem Lords who submitted a proposal written by a record industry lobbyist as an amendment to the DEA).
The Open Rights Group has a campaign to repeal the DEA that you can sign onto.
We would like confirmation from the government that these are genuine proposals which they are actively considering. We would also like to know what steps they will be taking to consider the views of organisations such as Open Rights Group, and those others who recently wrote to rights holders expressing their concern and requesting such proposals are made public.
So far these discussions have involved only rightsholders and Internet companies, with only in the most recent meeting involving Consumer Focus. (As Jim blogged yesterday, Consumer Focus' response to the proposals they discussed is here). This is a welcome concession. But it is a concession. Open policy making that takes on board the broadest range of views is not something within the gift of politicians but a responsibility they bear.
Premier League joins group lobbying for web blocking, proposing confused "voluntary" scheme - overseen by the courts (James Firth)
Rights holders' proposed voluntary website blocking scheme (Open Rights Group)
Response to 'Addressing websites that are
substantially focused on infringement' working paper (Consumer Focus PDF)
By Cory Doctorow at 2:39 am Tuesday, May 17
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The Hargreaves report on UK copyright reform sounds pretty sensible: it endorses a Fair Dealing exception to copyright for parody; a format-shifting exemption to legalize loading MP3 players; and an orphan works clearing house to make it easy to clear rights for works whose creators can't be identified. The devil will be in the details (especially in for orphan works, where a corrupt process could make it easy for big companies to rip off creators by claiming they couldn't find them), but this is some pretty sane-sounding stuff:
Last year's viral hit Newport State of Mind - a parody of Alicia Keys and Jay Z's hugely successful single New York State of Mind - was forced off YouTube after the seven co-writers of the original declined to give their permission for this use of their IP.
Under the Hargreaves recommendations the parody, which writers Alex Warren and Terema Wainright unsuccessfully attempted to get clearance for in a meeting with Universal Records, would be given the green light.
"The case for introducing and updating this exception is strong in both cultural and economic terms," Hargreaves, chair of digital economy at the Cardiff School of Journalism, will say in the review. "A healthy creative economy should embrace creativity in all its aspects. A legally sound structure would not be mocked by pervasive infringement by otherwise law abiding citizens and organisations with the stature of the BBC."
Report calls for overhaul of UK copyright law
(
Thanks, lewisjamieson!)
By Cory Doctorow at 12:27 am Thursday, Mar 31
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Ed Vaizey, the UK Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries has admitted that he is in talks with ISPs to create a voluntary national firewall. Big copyright companies would petition to have sites they don't like added to the secret national blacklist, and the ISPs would decide -- without transparency or judicial review -- whether to silently block Britons from seeing the censored sites.
Peter from the Open Rights Group adds, "Website blocking is a bad idea, especially on a self-regulatory basis where vital judicial oversight is bypassed.
The good news is that he has promised to invite civil society groups to participate in future discussions on the matter.
You can help explain the problems by writing to your MP at ORG's website."
Minister confirms site blocking discussions
(Thanks, PeterBradwell, via Submitterator!)
By Cory Doctorow at 8:40 am Wednesday, Mar 23
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Creative Destruction and Copyright Protection, a paper by the London School of Economics' Bart Cammaerts and Bingchun Meng, is an eye-opening look at the economics of file-sharing and music. The authors argue that an overall decline in consumer entertainment spending is to blame for the music industry's downturn, supporting their assertion with (for example), research showing that entertainment spending declined by 40 percent in households that didn't own computers (who probably weren't downloading!) over the period of overall decline for the industry.
Their conclusion is that copyright enforcement won't bring back consumer spending on music -- but it will strangle new business models built on file-sharing, robbing the next generation of musicians without paying the current generation. The authors propose several business models, including allowing ISPs to buy unlimited, technology-neutral licenses on behalf of their users.
The authors of the study acknowledge that these alternative models are not going to impress SONY and EMI. "Compared to the value of the mainstream music market, dominated by the 'big four', these are relatively marginal activities," they observe.
But they may become less marginal very soon. With world mobile data traffic set to explode by a factor of 26 by 2015, and with most people in the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South/Southeast Asia expected to link to the mobile 'Net before they get electricity, file sharing could be poised for a second great leap forward, whether Big Content approves of it or not.
These millions of new Netizens are not going to have the money to buy digital music files. They're going to use BitTorrent. That will put more and more pressure on governments to decide whether they want to criminalize a huge portion of humanity, or encourage the market to adapt to the new "ephemeral" models described by this study and others.
Did file-sharing cause recording industry collapse? Economists say no
By Cory Doctorow at 5:55 am Tuesday, Nov 9
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In a fascinating interview with TVOntario's Search Engine podcast, Michael Geist describes and predicts the likely outcome of the years and years of wrangling over Canada's new copyright bill,
C-61 C-32, which includes a sweeping DRM clause that makes it illegal to modify your own equipment, even if you're not otherwise breaking copyright law, making it one of the most radical DRM laws in the world. Michael sees reason to hope for a more moderate C-32 in its final form -- I hope he's right.
It All Comes Down to This on Copyright?
MP3
By Cory Doctorow at 10:34 pm Monday, Oct 25
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France's HADOPI administrator (which processes copyright accusations against Internet users)
is now receiving 25,000 complaints a day. A family whose household attracts three unsubstantiated complaints is disconnected from the Internet for a year. Meanwhile, use of non-P2P downloading sites to get access to infringing copies is way up.
By Cory Doctorow at 10:36 pm Wednesday, Sep 29
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Ars Technica's Nate Anderson continues his excellent reporting on British law firm ACS:Law, a much-derided firm that sends threatening copyright letters on behalf of pornographers. ACS suffered an Anonymous denial of service attack in September, and inadvertently dumped its entire email repository, which is now available for download all over the net. Today, Anderson digs into ACS's finances -- how much it makes, what it expects to make, and how much paper it goes through printing threatening letters to mail to poorly researched accused infringers.
Now, Crossley has expenses, of course. He keeps an office in Westminster, London. He employs a staff of 19 paralegals, five administrators, and a few supervisors. He has to pay for all that paper he uses to print his letters--believe it or not, paper costs Crossley more each year (£31,000) than he pays in salary to any one of his employees.
But these costs are minimal. Crossley pays his administrators only £13,500 a year, his paralegals get £16,000, and no one makes above £20,000. Rent is £6,000 a month. Each month, his total expenses come to just about £50,000, or £600,000 for an entire year.
So let's run the numbers. For 2010 and 2011, Crossley expects his firm's share to be £4,261,585, but he only has a total of £1,200,000 in expenses. Raw profit in Crossley's own pocket: £3,177,722. Nice work if you can get it, and it explains why he's been looking for a mansion to rent and buying a Bentley and a new Jeep.
P2P settlement factory expects £10 million from... mailing letters
By Cory Doctorow at 4:31 am Wednesday, Sep 15
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The UK government's Department for Business, Innovation, and Skills has concluded its consultation on how to pay for all the new copyright enforcement built into the Digital Economy Act.
The DEA is a sweeping, punishing copyright law that the former Labour government crammed through Parliament without debate in a closed-door, poorly attended vote hours before it called the next election (which it lost). The Act requires ISPs to send letter to their customers warning them that an entertainment company has accused them of infringing copyright (if this fails to reduce national levels of infringement by 70% in 18 months -- which it will fail to do -- ISPs will then be required to disconnect entire families from the Internet on the unsubstantiated accusation of a rightsholder).
The Act also allows rightsholders to demand that whole domains be censored across Britain, through provision of a Chinese-style Great Firewall of Britain.
One question that wasn't answered by the Act (that would have come out in the debate, if it had happened), is who will pay for this -- the copyright industries, who are the beneficiaries of reduced infringement, or the ISPs, who would then bear the additional costs and have to pass them on to their customers, including the ones who aren't breaching copyright?
Now the UK government has answered the question: the ISP industry and its customers will subsidize multinational record labels and movie companies to the tune of 25 percent of the cost of sending out the letters. The Open Rights Group estimates that this will come out to £500 million in extra costs that all ISP customers will bear.
So much for the so-called ideology of the LibCon government -- fair markets, proportionate justice, and small government. Instead, it's business as usual: smoke-filled rooms filled with powerful industrialists who use the state to distort the market at the public's expense.
Cor blimey! British ISPs must fund P2P copyright crackdown
