Getting the message out there

Accompanying Lord Mandelson and Ben Bradshaw’s visit to the BRIT school in Croydon to put the other side of the peer-to-peer file-sharing debate, the guys created a multimedia package that takes the press notice and tells an interesting policy story. What’s more, it was live on Flickr, YouTube, Twitter and the corporate website within 4 hours as one of our new-style hybrid stories/multimedia resource pages.

Combined with the Digital Britain Forum blog’s discussion of the file-sharing issue, I think this makes an interesting and little-heard case for a policy, through digital media. I think that’s what government information in the 21st century is about.

From Helpful Technology.

An interesting file share move by Friendfeed?

Friendfeed added yet another feature to its short social messaging service that you won’t find on Twitter: the ability to share MP3s and other files directly within your feed.

From Wired.
Isn't this something of a political move? Bret Taylor, co-founder of Friendfeed told Wired the plan :

...is to respond to infringement complaints as is required by the DMCA (by removing infringing content from the site after being notified by a content owner) and by terminating repeat infringers’ accounts. It’s unclear how copyright holders would even know anything’s being infringed, given Friendfeed’s privacy options.

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.

The wordle, of course

Digital Britain Day (8)

From Wordle.
Main points, via The Guardian. More when read.

4.11pm: To Recap The Main Points:
•Illegal filesharing is "tantamount to theft", repeat offenders will have their broadband connection reduced.
•Part of the BBC licence fee will be used to fund universal broadband access
•But also a levy will be placed on all fixed phone lines to help pay for universal broadband
•A small part of the licence fee digital switchover surplus will fund regional news pilots between now and 2013
•Talks between BBC and C4 are ongoing
•Martha Lane Fox to become "digital inclusion champion"

From Charles Arthur.

British ISPs will be required to cut illegal file sharing on their networks by 70% within a year under new powers set to be given to the communications regulator Ofcom, the Digital Britain report says.

The government will empower Ofcom to demand that ISPs collect data about alleged infringers of online rights – by downloading or uploading content without permission – and to notify them that their conduct is unlawful. Persistent infringers could see their details passed on to rights holders – principally music and film companies, but also games and software companies – which could sue them in court.

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.

Swedes File Share Less since Legislation

The Swedish Association of Video Distributors (SVF) commissioned a survey of some 2,700 people asking what their file-sharing habits are now in comparison to before the April 1st passage of the controversial new copyright law that gave copyright holders the power to obtain court orders forcing ISPs to divulge the personal information of suspected file-sharers.
It found that some 20% of Swedes aged 15-59yo have "cut down on or completely stopped file-sharing."

Perhaps more revealing is that a startling 36% of file-sharers aged 15-24yo said the same. This is the group that’s known to usually be the most prolific file-sharing demographic.

Interesting: as it this from May 4.

Last week Swedish ISP Tele 2 announced that as result of demands from it customers it will stop storing their IP addresses in a bid to fight back against the country’s passage of a law making it easier for copyright holders to go after individual file-sharers.
“In certain cases, this will make an investigation impossible,” said Stefan Kronkvist, the head of Swedish police’s internet crime unit. Passed on April 1st, the law allows copyright holders to seek court orders forcing ISPs to divulge the names associated with IP addresses suspected of sharing content illegally.

Both from ZeroPaid.

e-books do furnish a hard drive, don't they?

A surge in book piracy has followed hot on the heels of the growth in ebooks, the New York Times reports. Publishers trying to stamp out unauthorized editions online say the ease with which books can now be copied online make their efforts little more than a game of "Whac-a-Mole," and hope to learn from the lessons of the heavily pirated music industry.

Unbelievable, eh? Who ever would have thought it?


From Newser.

Several publishers declined to comment on the issue, fearing the attention might inspire more theft. For now, electronic piracy of books does not seem as widespread as what hit the music world, when file-sharing services like Napster threatened to take down the whole industry.

Publishers and authors say they can learn from their peers in music, who alienated fans by using the courts aggressively to go after college students and Napster before it converted to a legitimate online store.

From the NYT.


Tomorrow, we hope to be publishing the full report of Copycats? Digital Consumers in the Online Age. A major review of online behaviours and attitudes and their implications for Intellectual Property. But the bottom line is that the sweetshop is always open; and its been created by a consumer electronics industry - hardware and software - that makes searching, copying, sharing and saving a one-click operation for all half-way savvy digital consumers in the age (except perhaps for Rupert Murdoch) of "free things". If Pirate Bay, then what about Google? If RapidShare then what about DVRs and Sky+? The UK IP Minister, David Lammy, talks of "one in four" having file shared (our report highlights 29 ways that we found to file share, it's not just P2P). That's 10 million people in the UK.


Much more tomorrow when our commissioning body, SABIP, launches the full report. Return here for the link.

A content maker talks launch dates in the digital age

It's time for staggered releases to end. Every day they continue, more people, tired of seeing adverts and reviews of shows and movies they won't be able to buy legitimately for months or years, call up a techie friend and say "that torrenting thing, how do you do that?"

Every day these shows and movies aren't available to buy, worldwide, on the same day, for a reasonably equivalent price, more people are finding out how to get them for nothing. And once they're used to doing it that way, it's going to be harder than ever to get them back.

Naomi Alderman on film downloading in The Guardian.