They will pay - for all you can eat

The research, carried out by the University of Hertfordshire, reveals that an overwhelming majority of 14- 24-year-olds would be interested in signing up to an MP3 download service that would allow them to get as much music as they wanted for a fixed fee.

Of those currently using P2P networks 85% would welcome such a service, with 57% saying that it would stop them filesharing illegally and 77% of them claiming they would still buy CDs.

"If they're prepared to work with us if we give them an all-you-can-eat download service, well then, as an industry we may then well have to step up to the plate and try to provide them with that kind of service," says Sharkey.

There is evidence that the business is already moving in that direction. In June, the cable company Virgin Media announced the launch of an unlimited download service in partnership with the world's largest music company, Universal, which will allow subscribers to stream and download as many tracks as they want for £10-£15 a month.

Although the survey found huge enthusiasm for streaming music, such as on Spotify or YouTube, 78% of respondents said they would not be prepared to pay for a streaming service.

From UK Music as reported in the Guardian.

Stephen Fry & copyright

At the Roundhouse, Stephen Fry was preaching to the converted, the generation that has got used to seeking out music and movies on the internet, and isn't entirely sure why you would pay to download.

As reported by the BBC's Rory Cellan-Jones.

Sure, those who downloaded on an industrial scale for profit should be prosecuted - but if the price of downloads came down to a "fair" level, most people were pretty moral and would be happy to pay. He went on to compare the music industry to "big tobacco".

Meanwhile, more sterling reportage from Glynn Moody's Open blog:

If you still doubted that intellectual monopolies are in part a neo-colonialist plot to ensure the continuing dominance of Western nations, you could read this utterly extraordinary post, which begins:

The fourteenth session of the WIPO Intergovernmental Committee on Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC), convened in Geneva from June 29, 2009 to July 3, 2009, collapsed at the 11th hour on Friday evening as the culmination of nine years of work over fourteen sessions resulted in the following language; “[t]he Committee did not reach a decision on this agenda item” on future work. The WIPO General Assembly (September 2009) will have to untangle the intractable Gordian knot regarding the future direction of the Committee.

Radiohead Manager's new label - artists keep copyright

Interesting model:

Brian Message, manager of alternative rock band Radiohead, is helping to launch a new record label where digital distribution is the focus and artists retain the copyright of the music they create. The new label, called Polyphonic, will be a partnership between ATC, of which Brian Message is a partner, MAMA Group, and Vancouver-based artist management firm Nettwerk Music Group,

From ZeroPaid.

Harvard Business School researchers on file sharing

Makes for some interesting reading. It is a work in progress.
Arstechnica wrote in a thoughtful response about it:

...a pair of academic researchers happily point out in a working paper they've posted online, copyright law was never meant to protect the music business in the first place—instead, it is intended to foster creative production in the arts, which happen to include music. As such, they argue it's worth analyzing the deeper question of whether file sharing is putting a damper on music creation. Their conclusion is that this is a much more complicated question, but the answer seems to be "probably not."

Going to read on now.

Post Modernism: Expenses

Mr Osborne billed the taxpayer for the £47 cost of two copies of a DVD of his own speech on “Value for Taxpayers Money”. He said it had been requested by a member of the public.

So I don't forget.

DB response from NESTA, harnessing the digital in positive ways

'Digital Britain is no longer a marginal issue. It lies at the heart of unlocking economic potential and radically reshaping how we deliver public services. Get this right and people will no longer accept being passive consumers of services, but will become a part of the solution.

The challenge for policymakers is to harness this new power in a positive way. It's time for Britons to get digital'.

Following the publication of Digital Britain, NESTA will take forward a practical set of solutions that will:

Develop a rights framework, along with other organisations, for publicly procured new media content which will allow secondary commercial exploitation and create extra public revenues;

Work with the TSB (Technology Strategy Board) on the development of a Next Generation Digital Testbed where the telecoms industry and digital innovators can experiment with novel product ideas and revenue models, intellectual property frameworks and new models of partnership that will enable UK businesses to become global leaders in the digital markets.

In addition, NESTA will launch 'Reboot Britain' in early July which will use the opportunities offered by digitisation to find practical solutions to some of the intractable social challenges we face, for example, providing public services which are more efficient and shaped by the people who use them.

From the NESTA wesbite.
This has to be right: We've seen the consumer voice in these debates infrequently, and yet consumers are the economic and social drivers of the digital experience and the behaviours that result (which appear to be different from behaviours in the physical/material world). New research into what people do, and how they respond to innovative ideas - technology take ups, for example - must be part of the process of making us digital. Much of the response to DB has been, ok a tax, what else? In fact there are many interesting ideas buried in the (large) document. The detail is not the devil; the devil is in the ongoing consultations that will follow DB: such as those over the licence fee, the Ofcom stance on "file-sharing". And, of course, the dreaded 2Mbs...

Social Networks: Five starts to give it away

Digital Britain Day (7)

[UK television network] Five has signed a deal with Brightcove, an online video platform, which will allow its TV content to be easily embedded within people’s social networks and via big entertainment portals, such as AOL and Yahoo.

It is the first UK broadcaster to syndicate full-length episodes of popular programmes like Home and Away and Neighbours, for catch-up viewing across third-party websites. It is also the first broadcaster in Britain to use an externally developed player to host its full-length content. The BBC relies upon its iPlayer, Channel 4 on 4oD and ITV on ITV player.

From the Telegraph. Social prestige through sharing and embedding...

Five hopes to have signed deals with partner websites such social networks like Facebook and portals, like AOL, by the end of this year. However, its own online properties, Five.tv and FiveFWD, the cars and gadgets portal for young males, will be the first websites to use Brightcove as the video platform showing Five content.

New Business models all the time.

Don't Forget Opera

The idea behind Opera Unite is to take the client-server computing model and toss it into a browser. Your computer can share content with other PCs on the Web without servers. This functionality would happen from within a special version of the Opera 10 browser.

From ZD Net. Why is this interesting?

Opera Unite has a series of services such as file sharing, Web server, media player, photo sharing, a chat service and a notes exchange. Opera is hoping developers will jump on the Unite bandwagon and add other services.

The Guardian - via Reuters, Helsinki - follows up.

The new service, which the company has said would "reinvent the Web" is part of Opera's Web browser, enables direct downloading from personal computer to personal computer and removes any need for data storage at servers in the middle. Files can be viewed with any browser.

Similar technologies have been available before for tech-savvy consumers, but these have required downloading separate software, paying usage fees, or a long process of uploading content -- limiting take-up of the services.

Here's Opera.

Virgin Monday; Carter Tuesday

Cable TV operator Virgin Media is to launch a "ground breaking" unlimited music download subscription service through a partnership with the world's largest music company, Universal.

The service, which both sides describe as a world first, will allow any Virgin Media broadband customer to both listen by streaming and download to keep as many music tracks and albums as they want from Universal's catalogue in return for a fee.

The music will be in the MP3 format, meaning it can be played on the vast majority of music devices, including the iPod and mobile phones. The service is set to launch later this year.

Virgin said as part of its cooperation with the music industry it would also work to help prevent piracy on its network by educating users and would, as a last resort for persistent offenders, suspend Internet access.

Virgin said no customers would be permanently disconnected, however.

Will these suspensions include publishing, films, non-Universal songs, software, audio books, data sets, images....And tomorrow is? From Reuters.


And here is Rory Cellan-Jones' initial take:

Then I read further down the press release and found what Virgin was offering in return - action against persistent file-sharers. Here's the key paragraph:

"This will involve implementing a range of different strategies to educate file sharers about online piracy and to raise awareness of legal alternatives. They include, as a last resort for persistent offenders, a temporary suspension of internet access. No customers will be permanently disconnected and the process will not depend on network monitoring or interception of customer traffic by Virgin Media."

And here, one day before DB-Day, is a response from Lord Carter himself.

The UK’s [current] minister for communications, technology and broadcasting, Stephen Carter, has welcomed the announcement of Virgin Media and UMG’s unlimited streaming and downloads music service.

“Government has a role in creating the right legal and regulatory framework for rights and copyright,” says Carter. “However, the market will flourish through innovative commercial agreements between companies, and agreements such as this will help significantly in reducing any demand for piracy.”

How?

L'internet, moi non plus

And there are at least 29 positions on this.

In a video shot for an online news site, French legislators were asked whether they were familiar with peer-to-peer file-sharing technology. “No,” one lawmaker responded, rolling his eyes. “I speak French. Excuse me.”

While France has often prided itself on its contrarian approach to information technology — remember the Minitel? — the response summed up the ham-handedness of the latest digital initiative by the French government. The video appeared this spring, at the height of debate about a plan by President Nicolas Sarkozy to set up a government agency to disconnect persistent copyright pirates from the Internet.

From the NYT.

Wow! That censor word, from The Times

Digital Britain will also try to tighten up rampant internet piracy of music and films, by trying to encourage the creation of an industry body that will have the power to censor pirate websites so nobody can log on to them.

Neil Berkett, the chief executive of Virgin Media, is today expected to spell out an alternative strategy as he unveils plans to launch a massive library of music available for unlimited download for a small fee in partnership with Universal Music, the record label behind Amy Winehouse.

Virgin Media believes there is no need for a bureaucratic body to decide what sites people can visit, and that piracy can be curbed by agreement with individual customers. Anybody who signs up for its unlimited music service will also have to agree not to visit pirate websites, or risk have their internet access cut off for one hour. “We won’t be suspending people’s internet connections. It will be more of an intermission to encourage good behaviour,” said one source familar with Virgin Media’s plans.

Censor pirate websites so nobody can log on? Internet access "off for an hour"...Tax breaks for people that buy vinyl? This is getting absurd.


In a slightly more positive mode, this from the Digital Britain team.

The report will also be commentable, of course, which provides a great route for feedback to Team DB. Obviously, this being the final report, there’s no scope for changes to be made to it on the basis of comments received. But we’d like to think that there is plenty that the community can contribute in terms of how the report’s objectives can be implemented.

The publication of the report is just the start of this process, not the end. We need everyone to stay involved and engaged to help us make Digital Britain a reality.

Saying and Doing

The FT reports on a YouGov report, published today. (Registration may be needed for these links).

A majority of British adults would back stronger government intervention against online piracy if it helped protect media industry jobs, according to a survey released today.

The poll comes ahead of tomorrow's release of the Digital Britain white paper, which is expected to include legislation to force internet service providers to work with content owners to block file-sharing websites and aid the prosecution of persistent illegal downloaders.

In a survey of more than 2,000 people by YouGov for the Industry Trust for Intellectual Property Awareness, more than half supported preventing access to "unauthorised content" online.

These polls: over 50% are concerned about "media jobs"? I think we should see the questionnaire. 1. What is a file-sharing website? 2. How is the "blocking" going to be achieved? 3. What is a "persistent" downloader. 4. Was anyone asked about "new business models"? 5. What about educational initiatives?

And in another article - again jobs are the angle - the FT follows this news up with a piece by the executive chairman of Kudos Productions, Stephen Garrett.

In this parallel universe, consumer rights have acquired the status of a fascistic mantra. What the consumer wants, the consumer gets, even if he does not want to pay for it. Everyone has, to some extent, colluded in this fantasy, blocking out the advertisements while consuming – for “free” – newspapers, films, television shows and music on legitimate websites. Now, and this has happened very quickly, consumers assume they have a right to these things. Free, and forever. Unfortunately this fantasy is unsustainable. All of these cost money to produce; in the case of TV dramas such as Spooks that my company produces, a huge amount. At the point when these creative products enter cyberspace, they are only partly paid for. Producers are dependent on revenues from DVDs and international sales, which piracy hits.

Piracy happens on the internet. The greater the bandwidth, the easier piracy is. We in the creative industries have asked (nicely) that the internet service providers should help tackle piracy by responding in a graduated way to customers of theirs identified as offering or downloading pirated material. The sequence would be along the lines of a warning letter, a “squeezing” of bandwidth, a further cut in bandwidth and then the ultimate sanction: a limitation of service.

It is worth noting here how film and music have (silently) become the UK creative content industry. Where is publishing? Gaming? Software? Academic publishing?

More Carter

The Guardian makes Digital Britain predictions too. Seems somewhat half-hearted, perhaps?

Online piracy

The government sees nothing to be gained this close to an election from making criminals, with no trial, of the estimated six to seven million people who have downloaded illegally copied material. Carter will not introduce a so-called "three strikes" system which results in people being summarily disconnected – instead he is expected to codify in legislation last year's memorandum of understanding (MoU) between several ISPs and the content industry, which resulted in warning letters being sent out to persistent illegal file-sharers.

All ISPs will have to sign-up to a new warning letter regime which will be backed up by "technical measures" that will see the worst offenders have their connection speeds reduced sharply. Exactly how those measures will work and what standard of proof and appeals procedure will be needed, will be the job of the ISPs and content players to work out through the auspices of the "rights agency" – although that will not, however, be its name.

Funding for the new body and regime will come from industry, although Carter is not understood to be in favour of industry levies on computer or internet equipment. But it will still be the responsibility of content owners – either individually or through their own trade bodies – to take any legal action against persistent offenders on whom "technical measures" fail to make any impression. The new regime, however, should deal with all but the most hardened file-sharer.

Digital Britain coming shortly, piracy concerns

From the FT.

Digital Britain's ambitious programme also seeks to reduce online piracy of music and other media.

Lord Carter's preference was for content owners and broadband providers to set aside long-standing differences about who should tackle piracy and agree a solution. But the two camps have polarised further since the interim report, so the government is likely to legislate after further consultation this summer.

A proposed "rights agency", which the government hoped would broker digital content rights and enforce action against pirates , proved divisive among ISPs and broadcasters. A new bureaucratic body of some kind is likely to appear in the final white paper, but its powers will disappoint some content owners who have lobbied hard to block persistent file-sharers' internet access.

Copyright abuse: buy your own songs with other people's credit cards - get the royalties

And file sharing seemed a tricky thing. What about this:

An international fraud in which a gang allegedly made thousands of pounds downloading its own songs from online music stores with stolen credit cards has been cracked by the Metropolitan police and the FBI, the Met claimed yesterday.

The gang are alleged to have made several songs which they gave to an online US company, which then uploaded them to be sold on iTunes and Amazon.

Over five months they bought the songs thousands of times, spending around $750,000 (£468,750) on 1,500 stolen US and UK credit cards, according to the Met. The criminal network then also allegedly reaped the royalties from the tracks, pulling in an estimated $300,000, paid by the two sites, which were unaware of the fraud being committed against them.

From the Guardian.

Times says Lord Carter to return to Industry

From The Times.

The sensitive nature of his current role means political and industry opponents will be watching closely to see what he does next. His report, [digital britain] to be published next Tuesday, will propose measures to extend access to broadband internet services and changes to how public service broadcasting is funded. Most controversially, it will tackle the rapid growth of illegal downloads, which are hitting the revenues of the film and music industries.

The Government is thought to have backed away from proposals to require internet service providers to bar customers caught repeatedly accessing pirated material.

Instead, insiders expect Lord Carter to recommend the introduction of premium-rate internet services that will allow users to access what they wish. Providers would then be expected to compensate music and film producers from a share of the additional revenue.

France, the Internet and Human Rights

On Nicolas Sarkozy's three strikes...

Some European countries, however, have all but succumbed to the pressure of the media industry; France, in particular, has gone the farthest, since the three strikes law was approved there by the French National Assembly with the support of the president Nicolas Sarkozy.

Now, however, this measure has been dealt a blow by the French Constitutional Council (highest legal authority in France), which rejected the idea that some newly created agency can have the authority to disconnect a user from the net. The Council said that free access to the internet was a human right, and only a judge should have the power to disconnect someone.

From Mashable. And CNET adds:

The council said "free access to public communication services on line" was a human right that only a judge should have the power to disconnect.

Sharing another Election Result

Sweden's Pirate Party, striking a chord with voters who want more free content on the Internet, won a seat in the European Parliament, early results showed Sunday.

The Pirate Party captured 7.1 percent of votes in Sweden in the Europe-wide ballot, enough to give it a single seat. The party wants to deregulate copyright, abolish the patent system and reduce surveillance on the Internet.
"This is fantastic!" Christian Engstrom, the party's top candidate, told Reuters. "This shows that there are a lot of people who think that personal integrity is important and that it matters that we deal with the Internet and the new information society in the right way."

From Reuters.

TUC: let's get militant about file sharing and jobs

Today's Daily Telegraph has an article by Brendan Barber, the General Secretary of the TUC. He writes, under the in no way melodramatic headline One week to save the creative industries:

There is no doubt amongst members of our trade unions – as well as the rights-holders who are vocal on this issue – that file-sharing poses a serious but avoidable threat. What is hard to quantify is the number of productions that could have been made but never will be. The films never produced, tracks never recorded, DVDs never made available all cost jobs, whether it’s on the film set or in the high street store. A report released recently highlighted that 800,000 jobs across the economy depend on the creative industries and the production of new output.

Internet service providers hold the key to creating the change necessary to tackle illegal file-sharing. The ISPs have the direct relationship with the file-sharer and all the evidence suggests that, where a system is put in place for dealing with offenders, rates of piracy will fall dramatically. For the vast majority, simply drawing attention to the harm of their actions would be sufficient to correct behaviours but further graduated action should be taken against those who continue to file-share illegally - including limitation of internet access.

Clearly, informing the public about the impact of piracy would be effective. But the rate at which jobs and conditions are being damaged brings an urgent call to the ISPs to play the right role. Just as they need new television, film and music to fuel engagement with the internet, so they should live up to their responsibility to those who work in the production of the content.

What is so interesting - and there's not much here that is, other than a call to make the ISPs "policemen", which having sat in a briefing at lawyers, Clifford Chance, to the ISPA, is going to be a fiercely argued shift in agency that will make the law firms a very large profit and is far from happening - are the assumptions and absences here. How many films "could have been made but never will" is a question that has been asked of the British film industry since the birth of cinema. Why isn't Brighton Hollywood, is an equally relevant question.

Barber doesn't - as with so many of these type of pieces - define what is file-sharing. Has he heard about "darknet" sharing of (offline) hard drives? Does he know about RapidShare? Or about the Creative Commons? The thriving new business models of all types of creative content? Does he remember the new technology and newspapers debates of the 1980s? Does he know that education hasn't worked in these areas, and that we live digitally in an era of legal "free things"? Details, not polemic, are what we need: and forward thinking.

The Internet - and its ramifications - is not going away.

When Barber writes: "Clearly, informing the public about the impact of piracy would be effective." What does he mean? The TUC deserves much better than this: it deserves some detail, some understanding of the digital, and some acknowledgment of the power of the consumer.

Lazy. Almost Appleyard.


PS. From Peter Bazalgette.

Peter Bazalgette, the entrepreneur behind Big Brother, said: "The government decided a year ago that they would replace lost revenue from financial services by [turning to] the creative industries. The irony is that the faster the broadband, the more people will download content illegally."

David Lammy's IP Forum: the Comfort of figures

Tomorrow David Lammy, currently our IP Minister, will host a forum in London on the "economic value" of Intellectual Property with 40 invited participants. He and his team, with the help of the IPO and SABIP, will be seeking to establish "priorities for commissioning economic research on intellectual property". It should be interesting.

Also interesting is the scope of the discussion: it considers such issues as "determinants of patenting in firms", the "value of patents across sectors", "strategic behaviour in the use of intellectual property rights", the "relationship between IPR innovation and economic performance", the "implications of wider factors such as technological and social change..." and "the role, and effectiveness of alternative/complementary potential policies to stimulate innovation."

It is perhaps in these last two areas that the minister's forum can provide some major illumination. As our report (and part two) on digital consumer behaviours and attitudes showed, the debates about IP in the digital realm are being driven from the top down, but influenced from bottom up - by us the users. Issues of value and utility of content online are changing very fast. And, beyond the headline grabbing figures (about which I'll write in some length soon) there are profound questions about the nature of copyright in the era of "free things", the urgent need to investigate new kinds of business models, and the larger discussion about the creative industries and the public domain, that require the impact of us the users to be part of the discussion.

I hope that is the case. But as Rory Cellan-Jones wrote about our report:

This report was meant for the culture minister David Lammy, and feeds into the government's thinking ahead of the Digital Britain report, but it may provide him with little comfort.

So if not comfort, then at least, some food for thought. Here's one idea from the report that Rory picked up on:

For the digital consumer, many file-sharing services are now as big - and as trusted - brands as those of any large, legal corporation. So Limewire or Pirate Bay is seen as offering convenience and good service, just as older consumers might have liked to shop at the Co-Op or get their paper from WH Smith.

Looks like excellent "economic value" from this laptop. The minister has said that up to ten million people download unauthorized copyright/IP protected goods; and we, being naturally more conservative, have pointed to industry figures that claim it is at least seven million. Whatever the number one of the key questions for the Minister and the IPO is the "economic value" of prosecuting all of these people, or of initiating the expensive processes of "three strikes and out" or "turning down the access speeds".

The outcome of this particular forum is much anticipated.