UK Consumers To Pay For Online Piracy 300
Wowsers writes "An article in The Times states that UK consumers will be hit with an estimated £500m ($800m US) bill to tackle online piracy. The record and film industries have managed to convince the government to get consumers to pay for their perceived losses. Meanwhile they have refused to move with the times, and change their business models. Other businesses have adapted and been successful, but the film and record industries refuse to do so. Surely they should not add another stealth tax to all consumers."
This makes my day. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:This makes my day. (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, this is much worse than in Canada. Here, we pay a tax on recordable media [tapes/CD-Rs/DVD-Rs/etc (not HD's yet)], which is to pay for copying of copyright songs (and it only took them more than 5 years to actually pay out some of the money to actual artists). But it also eliminates the legal liability of being sued by the major labels for downloading music. It's a tradeoff, for which the major labels are fighting to change politically [so they can keep collecting the tax, but go back to being able to sue downloaders].
But in the UK, this new tax sounds like they are paying the labels [er, I mean the artists], but the labels still retain the right to sue [so basically everybody is paying into a fund to sue individuals].
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The tax is only on CD-Rs and audio cassette media, and personal media players (as somehow wanting to play your legally downloaded mp3s entitles the record companies to an additional tax, go figure). The tax does not apply in any way to DVDs.
If we garantee their income.... (Score:2)
If we garantee their income then what's their incentive to produce good product?
If their profit is guaranteed by law then they're going to make the minimum possible effort to 'earn' it.
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They have no incentive, other than to get as much work out there under copyright as possible. In all seriousness, the foundation of the business is getting a product out there that people like and are willing to pay money to listen to.
Now - Some people might be perfectly happy not listening to new music... So the other end of the model depends on extending the time they can draw profit from that product... Hence we now have a system where the publishers can collect on work for up to life of author + 70 y
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Netherland too. There's a tax on audio cassettes and recordable CDs (which annoys people who want to use CDs to backup their own data), but not on MP3 players yet, I think. And downloading copyrighted stuff is explicitly legal (but uploading isn't, so no torrenting). Of course the industry wants to tax harddisks too, and they want downloading to become illegal. And they might get that second one, but it looks like they'll lose the CD tax if that happens.
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But how do they check what you're copying, and therefore what artist/writer to send the money to? Well, if nobody knows, I guess they can just keep the money for themselves, right?
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They assume that artists selling the most are also being copied the most, so they get the greatest part. Or so they say, because the allocation weights are kept as business secrets, so nobody really knows how much artists really get. They simply get "something" and have to be fine with that.
Also (surprise, surprise) the private encashment companies keep a hefty processing fee for themselves.
As basically any other country, the Germans are simply too dumb and too comfortable to break out of the same media pol
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Yes! For instance, our Australian policy of public health care gave the American public a chance to see how such things work overseas, fortunately meaning they had ample warning about the DEATH PANELS!
Sigh. Nevermind. You're right, I'm just bitter about Conroy. It's so embarrassing; we can't take him anywhere.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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No, he's making the point that ignoring problems for other people until they directly affect you is a terribly stupid idea. Slippery slope, and all that.
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Re:I'm not sure what's worse; (Score:4, Insightful)
RE:This makes my day. (Score:2, Insightful)
But AQIS (Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service) still must operate inside Australian law, which gives me protection. So I cant be arrested at an Australian airport and held without charge unless I've violated a law, which means I've been charged. This may make you feel better but AQIS and the AFP are a long way off from being a TSA and declari
"Far worse laws" (Score:2)
The US already introduced an equal law - the DMCA. It places similar obligations on ISPs which US residents have been happily footing the bill for in increased internet costs for about a decade.
Know your enemy (Score:5, Informative)
Anytime I feel bad about the current state of affairs here in America a story shows up with EU, UK, Australia, or Canada doing something that would be worse.
Dont' let that lull you into a false sense of security - The US is the main actor behind most of these laws being passed so you will probably find that it is just the boiling frog method of shafting these laws in. Know your enemy. "THEY" are the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) [iipa.com], and they have the full political clout [ustr.gov] of the US government behind them - working to subvert democratic process in just about every country in the world [iipa.com] via stealth taxes/three strikes/no presumption of innocence for the sheeple. Countries sign on to this in exchange for "Free Trade" deals. Examples:
New Zealand Reintroduces 3 Strikes [slashdot.org]:
"IIPA testifies in support of the initiation of negotiations for a Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement [ustr.gov] (TPP FTA) with Singapore, Chile, New Zealand, Brunei Darussalam, Australia, Peru and Vietnam."... "Specific problems in some of the TPP countries are outlined in the Special 301 reports from 2009 for Chile [iipa.com], Peru [iipa.com], Brunei [iipa.com], and Vietnam [iipa.com]".
Where "specific problems" mean: No three strikes laws, no trade deal.
Spain's Proposed Internet Law Sparks Protest: [slashdot.org]
IIPA report card on Spain [iipa.com]. resulting [expatica.com] US political clout [latimes.com] result: local laws and taxes supporting mafiaa industry.
The sad part is that even though countries that want to be in on these trade "deals" are required to implement draconian anti-internet laws and filters [wikipedia.org], obliged to extradite civil cases to the US for trial (software piracy in this case) [wikipedia.org], the resulting "Free Trade" agreement rewards generaly do not benefit [wikipedia.org] the countries involved! Which begs the question, who does benefit... perhaps just the politicians who signed off on the deal?
The only way I can see to fight this kind of slide is to create a black list of any group/industry that lobbies any government in support these kinds of anti-democratic process trade deals. If any group supports trade deals that required destroying the internet, then the internet could become one humongous nightmare of bad press blog artices against your industry group. Seems only fair - shouldn't be able to have their cake and eat it too.
So what you're saying is... (Score:2)
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It seems UK residents have just payed for allot of content. I hope they download it.
Great! (Score:5, Funny)
Now when anybody in the UK contemplates pirating from the Big Ones, he'll know they are already reimbursed for it.
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And the added tax makes the product more expensive and less attractive to buy. Vicious cycle maybe.
Re:Great! (Score:4, Insightful)
Like somebody from Canada posted above, we too have a tax on recordable media such as CD-R and DVD-R (but no HDD's) which is supposedly paid to recording artists who suffer from illegal copying. It is actually legal in the Netherlands to copy music or video from another source (neighbour, friend, internet) if it is for personal use. Naturally the recording industry association is trying to change the law, but just a few months a great move was made by our government showing that they will not be easily influenced by the media lobby:
They ruled that copying of copyrighted material will be made illegal only when the industry makes content readily available online for a fair price and without any DRM restrictions that would limit the usage of the material. This to me seems the perfect response to the tactics the industry is employing to try to keep their outdated business model alive. If they try to block innovation the consumer will find ways to work around it, the consumer owns the government so it always seems strange to me that in western so-called democratic society the government seems to be protecting the business more from the consumer than the other way round. It also shows the Labour party is far from its original socialist roots, I'm glad I don't have to vote in the British elections!
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Except that it seems no-one has read TFA. I know I know...
This isn't some compensation package for the **AA, it's about the cost of implementing an anti-piracy law for persistent repeat downloaders. I don't really agree with the law myself but this is far from what it's being portrayed as here.
piracy? (Score:5, Insightful)
So it won't be piracy anymore, they will just be taking delivery on the goods they paid for.
Not quite.. (Score:5, Insightful)
On the contrary. They found that their old business model wasn't profitable enough so they switched to the far more lucrative business model of convincing the government to subsidize them. With the old model people could vote with their dollars (including piracy) but this new model removes all of those pesky market forces entirely.
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If the ACTA treaty passes, the whole world will pay. Isn't is a general rule of business to offload expenses that should be yours to the taxpayers?
The "governments" will loves this as all those deep packet inspections mandated in ACTA will reveal tons of info on everyone that they can have without silly things like warrants or probable cause.
Everyone is happy.
This is what happens when any group gets to be so rich and powerful that thay (**IA) no longer have customers to be sold, but consumers to be culled.
Not a subsidy. (Score:2)
Labels are not getting any of the money. The money is the cost, to ISPs, of mandatory anti-piracy measures, which it is expected will be passed on to the consumer. The US consumer probably paid a similar amount to their ISP cover the cost of DMCA legal actions in the past decade. It's forcing the shepherd to police the duck pond, which is an entirely different problem that this summary wonderfully distracts you from.
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Re:Not quite.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Society has no obligation to break windows so that the window maker has a job. The recording industry is by any reasonable standard, a failure without government intervention on their behalf. They no doubt employ thousands of people but they no longer feel the need to produce anything so their reason for being no longer exists. The resources squandered on providing jobs for doing worthless tasks are better allocated elsewhere.
I just wonder... (Score:3, Interesting)
How much of this money will the artist see? Wouldn't suprise me if it was zero. Still, the real losses are worth $0 too so it's just another industry bailout in an industry posting record profits.
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Of course it will be zero. This is the mafiaa; what else would it be?
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How much of this money will the artist see? Wouldn't suprise me if it was zero.
Of course they will see this money!
In the millions and millions of sales produced by the erradication of piracy. Obviously.
See, for each extra 25 pounds you pay to the ISP, a pirate is forced to spend 50 on music. Of those 50, the UK media company takes 20 and the artist's company, which currently resides in the United States will receive the other 30. Of those 30, the artist will see 1.25.
It's all so cristal clear I'm amazed they didn't create the law before the ISPs even existed. After all, you could've s
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Zero, this is how much mandatory anti-piracy measures will cost the UK internet industry, not some tax fund being paid to labels.
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Maybe you are taking it too it's logical conclusion (if this stops filesharing in the UK, then how much of the extra revenue will artists see). So maybe I am being harsh, in which case sorry. But I don't think that is the case.
tax? (Score:2, Redundant)
So if I pay this "tax," then that means that I'm free to download to my heart's content, right?
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Re:tax? (Score:4, Interesting)
So are seedboxes going to cause entire data centers or hosting providers to be disconnected? Users in the closed tracker communities pay for seedboxes at remote hosting facilities to help boost speeds and their ratio and they could single handily cause down time or disruption to 1000s of users if this laws consequences was applied to them.
My guess is that if this law goes through then seedboxes would become even more popular. Seed from the remote box, and VPN between the box and the home user. It has to be a much safer option already... bandwidth is cheap and disk space is always getting cheaper.
What about public WiFi projects and airports, hotels etc? As usual there are some fringe cases where this law just doesn't work.
Doesnt this make Pirated stuff, now free to all? (Score:2, Informative)
If everyone is being taxed for the "perceived loss", shouldnt that then make piracy legal? Wouldnt the pirated material being downloaded have been paid for by the people... thus making piracy completely legal?
Re:Doesnt this make Pirated stuff, now free to all (Score:4, Insightful)
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Someone should have told them the cake is a lie.
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You just have and the comment hasn't and won't be deleted. So I think you probably are allowed.
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What you're saying is that for example Sony make or made the CD/DVD writers and blank media, cassette tapes and decks, VHS tapes and decks, MiniDV camcorders/tapes, record players, amplifiers, cables etc. etc. then they moan when the very electronics they produced is used to copy the stuff their record and film production companies puts out.
Either Sony should be forced to be a electronics manufacturer or a film/music company, not both.
Fact remains, the politicians around the world are all corrupt.
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If you read TFA they actually want to spend the money on trying to chase people who pirate. So it's not officially to "pay for the music", it's to pay for punitive measures - so the music industry won't make any money out of it unless this strategy is effective in increasing sales (which I seriously doubt).
So in the eyes of the recording industry and the government, no, they're not going to be any happier about piracy or consider it paid for. In the eyes of the public being "taxed for piracy", maybe - I wou
Obligatory Heinlein quote (Score:5, Insightful)
"There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped or turned back, for their private benefit." - Heinlein
Re:Obligatory Heinlein quote (Score:5, Insightful)
Heinlein was wrong. The ones who "come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped or turned back for their private benefit" don't do it by RIGHTS. They do it because the CAN.
And yes, they "shouldn't" even if they can, because it's not "right". But they have enough resources and it is they that decides what's right/wrong and what should/shouldn't be done.
Power always override rights and morals because in the end, actual changes are made by what has been done and what is being done, not what "should" be done.
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Soap, ballot, ammo. So are you guys in the UK on ammo yet? Pretty goddamn close here in the US (for me anyway).
I'm not very excited about this Bill precisely because we're coming up to a general election which the incumbents are unlikely to win. At that point this Bill will be dropped (because it's associated with the previous administration) and we'll be back to square one, and *everyone* knows it. Think instead about it being there to help secure a directorship at a media company or two for outgoing politicians for the duration of the next parliament...
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There hasn't been much of the "soap" part yet. Mainstream media is more interested in who won the dancing and who's "loving" who to bother with trifling matters such as this.
Not enough people care because not enough people know what's going on, and they are not likely to find out on their own. People are lazy and stupid.
As for the "ballot" part, most people can't even be bothered to do that either.
We don't care. We are apathetic. By the way, who is Katie Price having sexual relations with this week?
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Ammo? Knives don't take ammo & aside from 3 round shotguns, they aren't allowed to have real weapons.
This would make me so reluctant to buy music (Score:2, Interesting)
Seriously, if I were in the UK, spending money on music at all would feel like being double-charged after this fiasco. I'd feel I'd already "paid" for it through taxes. The irony is that the money will be wasted on punitive measures, so the industry won't even profit from it - and if it causes music sales to drop, they will be even worse off.
I honestly suspect that normally music piracy encourages more music sales, not less. But now the industry has managed to shoot even that in the foot.
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they may be first we're probably next.
Good example of piracy versus robbery (Score:5, Insightful)
With piracy, a company sells a copy and the buyer makes a copy for someone else(and whether that someone else would have bought a copy without piracy is debatable). If I buy a 99-cent song and give you a copy, that is "piracy".
With robbery, someone takes someone else's belongings. If someone takes your money without giving you anything and without your consent, that is "robbery".
This is robbery.
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What today *AA call "piracy" is just copying. They know they would look stupid if they want money for copying, and that's why they call it "piracy". Welcome our newspeak overlords ...
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With piracy, a company sells a copy and the buyer makes a copy for someone else(and whether that someone else would have bought a copy without piracy is debatable). If I buy a 99-cent song and give you a copy, that is "piracy".
If you're a friend of mine, I believe that's actually fair use in some jurisdictions.
funny people (Score:2)
"We are confident that those costs will be a mere fraction of the stratospheric sums suggested by some ISPs, and negligibly small when set against their vast annual revenues."
This is from a recording industry spokesman.
Funny how they never talk about themselves in this way, even though it is vastly more true. Didn't they just have a record year, despite all the "we're all going to diiiieeee" whining?
They will NEVER adapt to the new world (Score:5, Insightful)
The content industries will NEVER accept the new world because they know that in the new world, they wont be the king of the hill anymore.
Right now in the old world, companies like Sony, Warner, Fox, Universal, Disney, EMI and Paramount are king of the hill.
With the new world order eliminating the huge production costs (you dont NEED a big studio full of gear to record a song anymore, you can do it in your garage with a PC, some software and some microphones to record with) and distribution costs (you can distribute your songs either for free or for pay online very easily without a middleman), you dont need the big dinosaurs anymore and they are doing everything they can to stop it from happening.
And unlike previous times when disruptive technologies were invented, those who stand to loose the most have the ear of government and are attempting to outlaw the disruptive technologies BEFORE they become mainstream.
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If you want to shoot on film, sure, you have to pay big bucks but with the increase in the use of digital film-making and the growth in the capabilities of digital cameras (including digital SLRs with video record and digital video cameras), the cost for the kit you need to produce filmed content (even "HD" content) is comming down all the time.
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The first part may be true, the second part does not follow (if serious == a lot). There is no law that states that more money equals better quality. It is human perception that makes you assume that. If the most talented director sells his services for 10$/hour, does that make his work worse? Or if some crook charges 500$/hour, does that make him more talented?
The amount of effort/knowledge you have to put into lighting with digital is a lot less, because you c
Re:They will NEVER adapt to the new world (Score:4, Insightful)
Good film cameras, films, lenses, and lightning are expensive,
Rubbish. The movie industry has inflated itself to death. Why would you feel sympathy for someone who has smoked 70 cigarettes a day, on receiving the news that he has cancer? Why worry about the 500 lb man who is dying of heart disease? It's not the price of the "film cameras, films, lenses (wait, you already charged me for the camera!) and lighting". The BIGGEST item on a movie's budget is MARKETING. All those commercials on TV and radio. All those mini "infomercials" about the "making of movie X" before the launch. They cost money. Then there's wages. Why the hell must an actor earn several MILLION dollars for performing? Then, WAY DOWN AT THE BOTTOM, there's the actual production cost for the carpenters, electricians, etc.
Just like the investment banks that started paying themselves multi million dollar bonuses, they've inflated their professions. Now no one wants to work for an investment bank for less, and they whine that they "HAVE TO" pay these huge bonuses to attract talent. For movies - idem. The marketing is a penis-stroking maneuver. Oh I need to spend $200 million in advertising to increase my box office revenue by ...tadaa... $201 million. Oh and we HAVE to pay $10+ million dollars to get Whatshisname to play the lead role, because no other lesser human can make a decent movie (cough - what was the total production cost of Slumdog millionaire again? $250k?)... No, I feel no sympathy. And it ain't the cellulose film that costs $100 million.
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It may be true that "Pro" gear costs $$$ but for these bands in their garages producing MP3 files and burnt CDs, they arent going to go for "Pro" gear (especially if their band only has electric guitars, vocals, drums and maybe keyboard and not fancy instruments like pianos or violins)
These bands arent going to produce songs as good as the big boys get from a proper studio but they arent trying. They are just producing something that sounds good enough and that they can use to get their band out there beyon
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"The main cost as ever is promotion"
Which is where I think the future lies for record labels. Instead of being companies that sign artists up to copyright-stealing contracts, controlling (or attempting to control) distribution and making all arrangements for recording, pressing, etc, labels will be glorified ad agencies. Band X will sign up with Label Y to promote their new album. Label Y will, for a cut of the sales or for a set fee, spread the word about the new album. If Band X is unhappy with Label
Seems like the bill hasn't passed Parliament yet (Score:4, Informative)
Mr Petter said that the Bill, which is being rushed through Parliament before the general election next year, had been poorly thought out.
And they're not giving music guys free money (yet). The proposal is about cutting off repeated offenders from the net.
TFA seems to imply that the cost of "identify offenders, notify them, and cut them off" procedure would amount to 500m GPB, though it is not very clear about the numbers and whatnot.
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The only glimmer of hope is that they've drafted so many poorly thought out bills in the last few months, that they're now trying to rush through before May (when they'll be unceremoniously kicked out of office) that they won't have time to get them all through and so some of the really bad ones might not make it through.
Mind you, they seem pretty determined to get this Digital Economy (aka Make Mandleson Supreme Leader) Bill through, probably to ensure themselves of cushy jobs in the media industry once th
Summary is Wrong and Dumb (Score:5, Informative)
This bill is about requiring ISPs to shut off service to repeat copyright infringers, which the ISPs estimate will cost them (and by proxy, consumers) 500 million pounds.
It's not a "tax" and none of the money is going to subsidise the record and film industries, that's just complete crap from the summary writer, as is the crusty old "update your buisiness model, wah wah wah" copperlite.
The bill is also completely retarded, but you do no service to your cause by misrepresenting (and apparently, not even understanding) the enemy.
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I don't know if you're just nitpicking, but try to see it this way.
- the recording industry lobbied for this bill
- the government passes the bill (not yet, but hypothetically)
- the bill forces raised cost for internet providers
- the cost will be passed on to customers
How is this different from a tax? And your use of scare quotes around tax makes it even more right: it definitely is a "tax".
The point is, if there would not be a recording industry or powerful lobby, this law would not have been proposed. The
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Even without the ease of breaching copyright now, there are many other factors. I have only so much free time in the week and unlike my parents, there is a heck of a lot more to do with the time. Also any new producer of music isn't just competing with other music today, they are competing against the mountain of music that is out there already, selling at remaindered prices.
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More than half of the bill concerns giving powers to the secretary of state over ISP's. I think the sith lords argument is "future proofing" however everything the secretary wants the ISP's to do they have to do and if they don't they get a £250,000 fine from ofcom. Ofcom's roll in the bill seems to be ensuring the secretaries decrees are followed.
There are no checks or balances in the bill and is only concerned with internet piracy rather than the "digital economy".
I
Be careful when you play with matches... (Score:2)
it's reverse socialism! (Score:2)
it is where the government pays the capitalists using taxes from the workers. Awesome!
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If you read the article you will see that no money from the ISPs will be going to the MAFIAA. It will all be spent on policing the MAFIAA's bought laws. I know it's nitpicking but these greedy fools will see nothing from this law and will alienate large swathes of the population.
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It feels a little more like the Fascists. I think capitalism is simply where the means of production is privately owned. And the idea that democratic governments need to "support" capitalism through legislation and outright transfers of wealth is ludicrous. If capitalism is so great(and I believe it is), why can't powerful western governments let it stand on its own? Is our system so weak that a form of corporate welfare is necessary to preserve our system?
as for mansions, I'm totally fine with people being
Did anyone RTFA? (Score:2)
The ISPs are claiming that this will cost them £25 per year per connection to enforce, and they want the content industries to pony up the money.
Now, I don't know about you, but £25 per year per
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£25 per year per connection seems like a lot. In the US, the process can be largely automated
Sure, and that automation comes free of any hardware/software/maintenance/running costs, yes? Apart from the fact that ISPs should not be made into another defective police force there is also the small matter that UK Courts are in my experience, well, crap (I'm being polite here). I can't explain why judges are so far removed from reality other than that there are maybe drugs involved, and a conman with a g
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They didn't say "£25 per household that need to receive a notice", they said "£25 per household".
That means an extra £4 a month for every household. If you're paying for broadband now because it costs "less than £40 a month", and you get threatened with cutoff whenever you actually use that broadband (BBC iPlayer released for Wii last month, this month I get threats of disconnection), how many lower-income families are going to keep paying more for no reason when it crosses that thre
Save the starving middleman? (Score:2)
As opposed to file-sharing taking away 98% of the meagre pittance earned by the record industries annually? Riiight...
Time to invoice them (Score:2)
I was discussing this very thing with some colleagues today and suggested maybe it's time to start pre-emptive invoicing of the music industry for filtering services conducted as a revenue stream for ISP's, and every ISP can do it. If the music industry refuses to pay then filtering services stop until the invoice is paid. If they demand filtering services be conducted then they must pay for the filtering being done - why should the taxpayer.
The way it stands is they expect everyone to pay for them. I wond
NUSPEAK (Score:2)
It has nothing to do with copying media. What the entertainments industry are doing is called privateering - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privateer [wikipedia.org].
The original model for the entertainment industry was: entertainers appear live and perform. This had high overheads and physical limitations.
The recording model was: mass produce the sound and sell these copies to so many people that they
Piracy as a service business model? (Score:2)
If they 'tax piracy' then it must be an act already paid for (i.e. reimbursed), for ANY act of piracy. Therefore it must now be Ok to conduct that piracy for which they are taxing EVERYONE, as opposed to 'taxing' the few who are actually committing that piracy. Since EVERYONE has already 'paid the tax' then by extension it must be OK for EVERYONE to now conduct piracy? After all, you ARE paying for all the piracy now it aren't you? So, now we seem to have a new business model, aka piracy as a service. It mu
We are all criminals now. (Score:5, Insightful)
According to this fluff piece in the Times.
What's a poor citizen to do?
Every single UK broadband subscriber will be taxed / fined an extra £25 per year, to prop up the film and music industry.
Nice work if you can get it.
Why not subsidise the fax industry as well, and the cassette tape industry, and while we are at it, how about the buggy whip manufacturing industry?
Business has a thing called "externalisation", what it boils down to is putting as much cost as possible outside the business, a classic example is a textile mill that externalises the cost of polluting, simply by dumping the pollutants into the local river. Someone else, downstream, can pick up the tab.
The justification for this is that allegedly the latest Star Trek movie was downloaded 11 million times in 2009.
Around 150 million visits to the cinema per year happen in the UK, if you take the alleged 11 million star treks, add in the harry potters, avatars (holds hand up) etc etc it is no stretch of the imagination to claim that 150 million movie downloads happened in the UK in 2009.
According to this metric, and the false logic employed, if downloading was banned, cinema attendances would double.
Bullshit.
Here is why;
1. There is the false logic assumption that if I had not downloaded Avatar, I would have gone to the cinema and paid to see it. This is utterly false. You would have to pay me at least £5 to set foot in a cinema, to compensate me for the travel, mobile phones, noisy bastards, no smoking or drinking, inability to pause, crap seats, etc etc.
2. There is the false logic assumption that people like me with 46 1080p screens who prefer the comforts of our own homes would substitute the video rental shop for the cinema. Rubbish. The video rental shops don't have anything new, or anything good, or much choice of anything, and quite apart from that I have no interest in watching a Blu-ray that does not let me skip past 15 minutes of promo crap.
3. There is a false logic assumption that the media in question (whether it is cinema or rental) is value for money, I am simply not prepared to pay £5 per head for a cinema ticket, or £5 a night for a DVD, for 90 minutes of "entertainment" It is just way too expensive.
4. There is a false logic assumption, in short, that the 11 million downloads of Star Trek represent even 1 single lost cinema sale or DVD rental... You are reading this because it is free, would you pay £5 to read it? Stupid question. Would you pay £0.01 to read it? Stupid question.
5. There is a false logic assumption that the decline in cinema attendance figures, record sales, etc, say compared to 1970, is due to a change in people's attitudes, we have suddenly become a nation of thieves. Simply not true. These EXACT SAME ARGUMENTS were made about the compact audio cassette.
6. There is a false logic assumption that it is acceptable to impose a fine / tax / tariff on EVERYONE, that would be like mandating that I must buy a television licence, even though I haven't watched television for 20 years.
7. There is a false logic assumption that the technologies that they are going to deploy are actually going to catch people illegally sharing copyright material, ONLY, and NO-ONE ELSE, and indeed this is implicitly acknowledged in the desire to fine / tax / tariff ALL users of broadband, irrespective of what they do.
8. There is a false logic assumption that we are dealing with a static target, the ever evolving technology means that it really does not matter what methods you use to counter copyright violations (NOT copyright theft, no one is stealing your actual copyright, and no one is depriving anyone else of their use) because within the month (and I am being generous) they will be cracked.
9. T
From a staunch anti-piracy supporter... (Score:3, Interesting)
conservatives rejoice (Score:2)
For once, a tax that can almost legitimately be referred to as stealing!
Mandelson's private police (Score:2)
It gives the appearance that if enough cash is paid into Mandelson's pocket, a corporation can have their own state backed 'enforcers' with the sole purpose of protecting a revenue stream. All at the tax-payers expense. It rather makes a sham of the governments consultation in which people were sympathetic but clearly showed the recording industry is not a special case and should sort out its own problems.
Phillip.
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Yes, but about their "percieved losses": "money we could have made" 'lost revenues'.
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Doh! 'money we think we could have made' is not equal to 'lost profit'.
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Don't come with that crap like: oh but otherwise I wouldn't have bought it anyway.. You watched it, so you owe them money, even though you might have found it crap...
Sorry, but you don't get to withhold arguments from the rebuttal.
The true "loss" that the industry suffers from piracy is the total they would earn if piracy did not exist at all, minus what they earned in reality; this magical "you watched it you owe them" concept doesn't apply to actual losses. The simple fact of the matter is that not every download would have translated into a sale without piracy. Be it a poor college student who cannot afford to purchase the same quantity of movies they download,
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if piracy did not exist at all
Well, fortunately, that's easy to fix: repeal copyright completely and we're rid of piracy. The IP industry can play on the same playing field everyone else does with actual free market competition.
The huge dead-weight loss of value between marginal cost of production and the desired sales price of the IP industries creates a vast economic loss for society as is; most copyrighted material simply isn't worth many cents for many people, yet the artificial scarcity creates a mass
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If this were an act of law enforcement and the money were a fine, I believe some sort of trial would be required.
What's actually happening is that the UK's government is forcing ISPs to warn people who they believe are breaking the law. Of course, ISPs are saying that this is expensive and that they plan to pass the costs along to consumers.
I think this is going to be a laughable clusterfuck.
Re:true (Score:5, Insightful)
What's actually happening is that the UK's government is forcing ISPs to warn people who they believe are breaking the law. Of course, ISPs are saying that this is expensive and that they plan to pass the costs along to consumers.
I think this is going to be a laughable clusterfuck.
It's worse than that.
The UK's government is forcing the ISPs to spend money to augment the benefits of the media business.
So, essentially, business A is paying the government to force business B to raise his prices and spend the money in business A's benefit.
And it won't be a clusterfuck because it's currently impossible to prove whether the imagined benefits will in fact exist.
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And it won't be a clusterfuck because it's currently impossible to prove whether the imagined benefits will in fact exist.
I was thinking that it would be one for that reason, as well as the gray legality, but upon further thought you may be right. The ISPs might not be able to actually do as ordered, but they'll spend money on creating a department of Bill X Compliance, pass that cost onto the consumers, and it won't be possible to prove that it isn't having any major effect. After all, the media companies can just claim that the piracy rate would have increased even more if it weren't for the ISP's efforts...
I'm not sure what
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What's actually happening is that the UK's government is forcing ISPs to warn people who they believe are breaking the law. Of course, ISPs are saying that this is expensive and that they plan to pass the costs along to consumers.
I think this is going to be a laughable clusterfuck.
It's worse than that.
The UK's government is forcing the ISPs to spend money to augment the benefits of the media business.
So, essentially, business A is paying the government to force business B to raise his prices and spend the money in business A's benefit.
And it won't be a clusterfuck because it's currently impossible to prove whether the imagined benefits will in fact exist.
It's called regulatory capture. Companies have been doing it for years, and some guy got a prize for writing an article about.
Seriously, companies have been using regulation to stifle competition and increase profits for a long time, despite their complaints about being over regulated ( which generally means "I don't like this regulation because it helps my competitor instead of me."
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Piracy is theft
Copyrights are not property, they are special, temporary rights granted by the government for a limited time to encourage particular kinds of activities. Therefore, copyright violations are not theft. Furthermore, we as a society get to define what actions constitute a copyright violation.
Re:I struggle to understand their basis for argume (Score:5, Interesting)
One is the opportunistic thief that intends to merely take a copy of a product for their own use, the other is the opportunistic thief that wishes not only to copy your product but also wishes to make money from it.
The latter group sounds like it includes Sony, which has taken Idol outtakes and made albums that they don't feel obligated to pay the performer for their efforts. Sony also still owes the Bay City Rollers about $60 million from the 70s, which they haven't paid because Sony "lost" the original contract and isn't sure how to pay it out -- so they've kept it for 30 years. Then there is the list of 300,000 songs that all the majors put on compilation albums over the last couple of decades and never bothered to pay royalties on.
Now decide for yourself which is the actual pirate?
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Instead of downloading for free, people will go back to buying copies from market stalls and people in pubs...
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pay for the crimes of the public
Copyright infringement is in most countries a CIVIL offense, not a criminal one. Where it is a criminal offense, it has only been enforced in cases of mass replication for profit, not "casual downloading".
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Have a look at this presentation [youtube.com] showing some examples on how Trent Reznor of the Nine Inch Nails managed to earn a couple of million US dollars selling music that was also available for free.
He EARNED his money by creating loyal fans and by giving them multiple reasons to want to pay for his music.
Re:Perceived enjoyment. (Score:5, Insightful)
Years ago it was rare for most people to regularly communicate with those in other countries, and if they did it was likely to be a very slow exchange involving letters written on paper... Movies would come out in one country and people in another wouldn't even realise until the same movie came out in their country 6 months later. And then there were format differences (NTSC, PAL etc) which made it more difficult to play foreign videos.
When i was younger, any media my parents bought me, they would make me copy and play the copy because as a child the chance of me damaging the original was pretty high.
Now, media is digital so the format difference becomes irrelevant, so they try to create an artificial difference (region coding)...
People regularly communicate worldwide, so when something comes out in one country people in another hear about it and get exposed to the marketing, only they have no legitimate way to obtain it... By the time it comes out in their country, it's already old news on the internet.
People want to copy the media they legitimately purchased onto multiple devices, portable players, media jukeboxes (large hard drives so lots of media is available immediately without the hassle of swapping disks), in-car players, backup copies...
People might want to play out of region movies/games, perhaps they bought some on holiday, perhaps some media isn't available in their country at all, although they will still be exposed to talk of it on the internet.
Nowadays, only "pirate" copies provide the fair use rights we were once able to exercise or would like to exercise using new technology.
Consider that the "pirates" are providing a superior product for a lower cost. In fact, if the pirates charged the same price their product would still be superior. Without artificial help from the government, the media companies business model simply couldn't exist.... Your tax dollars are paying to prop up a broken business model so that what little money you have left after tax can go to them too in exchange for a crippled product.
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Not exactly since movies and TV shows wouldn't exist in their current form without the content companies. The pirates are only providing someone else's product in a different format, albeit a superior one.
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