Panorama (BBC1) on the new filesharing bill.

Jamie,
Yes, I watched it - and like you was rather surprised at the even handed reporting.
As per usual there were the very polarised views of the BPI ( & the PRS I guess) but a lot of sense talked by actual artists.
With the bands saying they need money from labells to support them financially when starting up - others saying that downloads actually started their career and then the labells went to them offering a good deal. I have never actually downloaded any music - and have no plans to do so as of yet, but I do believe that places like Spotify should be completely free (as should Pandora have been allowed to continue) even if they limit the amount of times you listen to a music piece to a reasonable amount of times.
Checking out music before buying is always what I try to do now - espeially if 'new' music to me, as mostly it's not cheap to get half a dozen cd's. Now back when I could pick up a dozen LP's and not worry about the cost - that was a great way to try new music. I guess that time has long gone with the amounts wanted by labells these days. If most of that went to the band I would not be so grouchy, but most seems to go 'some other place' like supporting new groups? Who knows.
Overall a good program that will opefully fuel some debate and not end up with draconian 'nanny state' legislation.
I liked the bit about hiding the ISP - so much software out there to do that right now, I guess that would then become an illegal bit of software as well <rolleyes> with it being found on your pc leading to an asbo or jail time...

Although I do not download copyrighted materials I do use P2P technology to download and share with others copies of the latest Ubuntu operating systems along other free open source code.

• Will I become flagged as a bad guy for using such technology?
  
  
• Will I be stigmatised for insisting upon encrypted P2P transfers?
  
  
• Will I be subjected to deep packet inspection or other such invasive technologies with or without my knowledge and then perhaps be made to prove that I am doing nothing wrong?
  
  
• Do I already have one strike against me for using gnupgp encrypted email?
  

Does not seem all that much between the three major parties seeking my vote so it looks like their is not much I can do about things.

Here is an interesting post, or perhaps rant, by the artist who does the design work for Nine Inch Nails, about what happened a couple of years ago when the 'Oink' file sharing website was closed.

It is quite long, but very informative, get a cup of tea or coffee before trying it, as it takes about ten minutes to look through.

Demon-baby-blog

I have had brief dealings with the BPI, and the wording of the email they sent me showed a very interesting subtext. I used to 'trade' bootleg CDs, people swapping radio sessions, soundboard and audience recordings for free, and had a website that listed the recordings I owned, and listed those I was seeking.

As my background is graphic design I made the website look good, and the BPI thought I was selling bootlegs. I let them know it was not, and removed any details about the requests for CDs, or that I would supply them. They said that even without money changing hands, there was gain through the items received, which I accept, but think is stretching it a bit.

The most interesting thing in the email I received was a phrase they used 'illegal music'. They did not use the term illegal methods of distribution, or illegally made recordings.

The phrase 'illegal music' implies that the music itself was illegal. The only examples I can think of music being illegal are those such as when the Nazi government in 1930's Germany banned jazz and the use of mutes on trumpets, or similar restrictions on composers under Stalin, or the Taliban.

While this was a slip, I thought it betrayed the mindset of the BPI. For many years the companies they represented had a near monopoly on the means for distributing recorded music. They kicked up a fuss when cassette came along, and suppressed DAT from the public market, but now music is readily available in good quality in formats they do not control they are thrashing about like a wounded animal, trying to harm anything they can reach.

The BPI also like to give the impression that they speak for the whole music industry including the artists, but it is worth remembering that they represent only part of it, and over the last few years now that individual artists have the means to distribute their own recordings we have seen bands like Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails and Underworld leave record companies so that they can control their own creativity, and also fully profit form it.

On the subject of 'bootlegs' many artists approve of their fans swapping these recordings as they generate publicity, ad it can also be said that the kind of fan who wants Indeed some artists have released high quality recordings to bit torrent websites asking that fans pass them on for using such free methods.

In balance it can be said that artists like Radiohead, etc. have benefited from the kind of publicity record companies offered and are now secure, and also make a great deal of money from concert tickets, T-shirts and posters.

Sorry for rambling on, it is a subject I feel very strongly about.

Hi Roy

I think you are OK. I know one person who received a warning about downloading copyright material. They had used U-torrent to download a television programme, and the warning letter specified the exact programme and episode they had taken.

They live in Hull where Kingston Communications has a monopoly over phone and ISP services for the area, so they had little option other than to stop.

The programme they were downloading has not been made available to non satellite viewers by broadcast or DVD in the UK. The only way they could watch it was through bit torrent. The series was broadcast in the US two years ago.

They way that the media have been referring to 'bit torrent' as if that were something illegal to use is what concerns me, and I suspect that is the intention.

If it came to taking action against a user of bit torrent, I think they would have to make the kind of specific allegation my friend received.

What concerns me is that there are perfectly legal music downloads, such as the Nine Inch Nails one I mentioned above that could easily be sited as examples of illegal activity.

It can also be noted that many of the large ISPs use software to throttle the use of bit torrent, they detect the signals sent out by users, and then affect their bandwidth. Small, and ISPs aimed at more professional use generally do not do this.

Bad ISPs wiki.

On a very, very similar note - it's odd how the taking of pictures at a concert - even filimimg/recording it, nearly 100% of the time via cameras in a telephone has become completely overlooked and given up on, or even trying to stop as simply so many now do so. Those end up on social networking sites within nano seconds of them being taken.
Not 5 years ago that would have resulted in being thrown out of the gig at least - probably worse if you tried that with a 'real world' camera. Now you just get a forest of hands in the air with screens glowing.
Does that stop or stunt the sales of the DVD that goes with the concert. I doubt it - probably adds a huge amount of sales to it instead.

All publicity is good publicity especially if free and of acceptable quality to those posting and viewing across a multitude of social networks.

quote:

Originally posted by JamieL_v2:
Here is an interesting post, or perhaps rant, by the artist who does the design work for Nine Inch Nails, about what happened a couple of years ago when the 'Oink' file sharing website was closed.

It is quite long, but very informative, get a cup of tea or coffee before trying it, as it takes about ten minutes to look through.

Demon-baby-blog

A good read - thanks for that

The view from The Register with thoughts from Google and others.

If illegal file sharers buy more music and go to more live gigs , shouldn't they make not illegally downloading be illegal?

I think the statement "it's the record business that's in, trouble not the music business" sums it up.

Now what is my son up to?

I enjoyed the Demon Baby blog, a well written piece. "take the money out of the music industry seems the only way to get money into the music industry" ?

Chaps

I can sympathise with the record companies but we all need to be realistic.

If this new law is introduced, the first thing the torrent companies will do is to make downloading anonymity dead easy. This will make the tracking down of downloaders next to impossible because your ISP address will be shown as being 5000 miles away in another country.

This will not only allow music downloaders to continue what they are doing now undetected but also rather less attractive stuff such as paedophilia could be more easily circulated than of present. Not a sensible move at all.

Regards

Mick

What surprised me were the figures they used to illustrate the finding that illegal downloaders were likely to spend more money buying legitimately sourced music than those who just bought legitimately sourced CD's alone - £77 per year as opposed to £44.
I spend more than that each month, as I'm sure most on here do.
I used to tape vinyl albums borrowed from friends. Inevitably most were subsequently purchased and the tapes found their way into the car. It was just another way of getting to hear new music.
The record companies are reaping the rewards of too many years of blatantly ripping off music lovers with over-inflated prices.
Regards,
Steve.

I was using BBC iplayer on XBMC to enjoy watch again stuff. All perfectly legal, no saving to harddrive, etc. However the beeb decided that they only want applications approved by them accessing 'their' content so barred it.

I now use bit torrent to watch them episodes.

Of course the beeb needs to be even handed about it, their very service uses bit torrent to deliver content via iplayer.

The 'Digital Economy Bill' passed through the UK parliament last night, although the option for politicians to block 'pirate' websitesat their will was dropped in favour of what the courts “the court is satisfied has been, is being or is likely to be used for or in connection with an activity that infringes copyright".

This debate which could affect many here had between 15 and 40 of our fine representatives attending it, so much for democracy.

It will be interesting to see how this is implemented in practice. The BPI will no doubt accuse any website that is not run by their members of being illegal, but hopefully the courts will see more sense.

I am not convinced by the courts though, as when they investigated too see if the major record companies and distributors were running a cartel to keep CD prices artificially high in the UK before the advent of the internet, they concluded that they were not. It just happened that CDs cost twice as much in the UK in those days as in the US, but no cartel.

Still inactivity in favour of vested interests is easier to do than proving illegal activity in a pretty grey area.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/tec...al-Economy-Bill.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/tec...omy-Bill-debate.html

The view from the Grauniad and the Government - not much else to say.

Thanks Roy.

This new law will be a boon for unscrupulous lawyers, they can simply send out thousands of threatening letters, knowing that many people will pay up, without considering if they have actually broken the law or not.

Because this will be policed by lawyers, the law will be enforced by those who will profit financially from it. I doubt that any artists will see any increase in revenue from this law, just those who see an opportunity to leech from others.

Mandelson has come up with a real beauty with this one.