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Cutting off the music file-sharers
Repeat offenders who persist in illegally downloading music from file-sharing sites such as Limewire could be blocked from accessing the Web under government proposals.
“Technology and consumer behavior is fast-changing and it’s important that Ofcom has the flexibility to respond quickly to deal with unlawful file-sharing,” says Minister for Digital Britain Stephen Timms.
Opponents of the idea are more succinct. They say cutting people off is unnecessary and potentially illegal. Human rights have been invoked.
Business Secretary Lord Mandelson, they say, has been successfully leaned on by lobbyists for the creative industries whose products are being hijacked.
The music industry, which is losing millions through illegal downloads, is naturally pleased. The industry body UK Music says: “UK Music is pleased that Government is proposing accelerated and proportionate action to meet their stated ambition of reducing illegal file-sharing by 70-80% within 2-3 years.”
What do you think? Is there a case for such drastic measures?
Related blog: Who benefits from a file-sharing crackdown?
from The Great Debate UK:
Can anyone stop the dominance of iTunes?
**Tom Dunmore is Editor-in-Chief of Stuff magazine. The views expressed are his own.**
Amazon’s music download service has finally arrived in the UK. That’s great news for music fans, who will benefit from lower prices and greater choice - but it’s not going to save the music industry from the dominance of iTunes.
After all, Amazon’s download service has been running for a year in America, but it’s still way behind iTunes. In fact, even if you add all of Amazon’s CD sales into the mix, iTunes is still bigger.
Here in the UK, iTunes has well over 50 percent of the music download market (some put the figure as high as 80 percent). And that’s despite Amazon’s biggest online rival Play.com selling MP3 music at knockdown prices for the past six months. Why? Because neither Play.com nor Amazon can match Apple’s integration of iTunes software and iPod hardware.
More importantly for the music industry, despite all the new rivals in the download market, there’s nowhere near enough music being sold to make up for the slump in CD sales.
The last figures published by the BPI, the UK's music industry body, showed that total year-on-year album sales were down 5.5 percent. Digital sales were up, but not enough: 7.5million less CDs were sold in the first nine months of 2008 compared with the same period in 2007. Download album sales were up less than 3.5m.
And that was before the economic downturn really began to bite. To compound the music industry’s woes, the UK high street’s biggest music retailer, Woolworths, has gone into administration – along with its music distribution arm Entertainment UK. Supermarkets are having to source their CDs direct from record companies, and megastore operator Zavvi has been forced to cancel all orders through its website.
Wise words but what’s with selling stuff in MP3? That format’s older than many of the people buying it!
Ideally iTunes would sell the other 70% of it’s catalog in DRM-free AAC then again, as long as iPods are the best-selling players, the DRM’s only a hypothetical problem.
Let’s hope the other music labels realise there is no real market outside of iTunes and let Apple make the switch as EMI have.
McD
Is file-sharing morally wrong?
A woman who shared a pinball game online has been ordered to pay 16,000 pounds in compensation and legal costs to its creator.
The Patents County Court in London ruled in favour of TopWare Interactive, a U.S. computer game developer that said she had infringed its copyright.
The case is the latest attempt by the entertainment industry to try to protect its music, games and films from growing threat of online piracy, which it says is killing business.
Quicker Internet connections have sparked a boom in people swapping music, films or TV programmes.
The Recording Industry Association of America says file sharing has hit profits, put songwriters out of work and made it harder for new bands to get a contract.
“The crime is theft,” it says on its website. “Everyone who makes, enjoys or earns a living in music is hurt.”
File sharers hotly dispute that argument.
Though I have not had the time to read all the comments here, I think I get the jist of what many of you are saying…same say that since we don’t downlaod books, video games, dvdes, or computer softwear for free, why should that be okay for music? Others say that downlaoding is like lending a friend a book or a video game and that’s not illegal is it? The truth is though that musicians need to put food on their plates. And being a musician myself, it scares me to think about the way the industry is headed. In the comment from Ransack Productions, they stated “Most people understand that major record labels will loss but feel that their artists wouldn’t loss because they make their monies off of tours shows, and other marketable commodities with in the music industry that they can capitalize on” but hoenstly, tours and merch wont pay the bills. Unless you are completly DIY (which is hard to get noticed and gain a fan base) you are going to need a record company to help you out with some cash flow. But what most people don’t know is that they expect you to repay that money back, which comes from touring and soemtimes merch. When people attain music for free they are taking valuble money away from those bands that do infact need to repay those record companies. I think in the end this will cause good music to suffer. All those young kids that want to play in bands will soon realize there is no money in the industry (untill we find a way around this) which in turn will cause many potential musicians to turn other ways to support themselves.
So, I don’t know if I would saying the act of downlaoding is morally wrong (like theft or what not) but I think technology has come back to bite us in the ass. We did this to ourselves. And I think it sucks. Untill we find a new way around this mess…the future of the music industry is looking pretty gloomy.
Can music piracy be stopped?
Teenagers love music and films – but today’s generation don’t expect to pay for them when they can download them for free over the Internet.
The entertainment industry says it is losing millions of pounds from online piracy but Internet service providers have been reluctant to police the activities of their customers.
Now six of Britain’s largest Internet providers have agreed a plan to tackle piracy, agreeing to send warning letters to those suspected of illegal file-sharing.
If the tactic doesn’t succeed, sanctions could be introduced such as disconnection for those warned three times, or filtering to prevent illegal tracks from being downloaded.
What do you think? Are the plans fair and workable? Do you expect to get a warning letter?
Privacy and civil liberties are being eroded constantly, and people are only worried about the music and film industry losing some of their huge wealth. I find this a worrying aspect of our apathy towards the increasingly intrusive state (now to include commercial companies )
Please remember the internet is FREE. We only pay the ISP’s a connection fee to it. They have no ethical rights to monitor our surfing habits, and they have no rights over the internet itself. The original ethos of the internet was all about free & freedom. Governments and commercial interests wish to repress the freedoms of the internet (for your security of course!! )
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The Wall
Excellent site, keep up the good work