There’s a lot of talk about the Digital Economy Bill – and none of it good.
It seems that rather than improve our broadband network and nurture the digital business springing up across the UK, the Government would rather concentrate on brown nosing the entertainment industry in yet another ill conceived attempt to control content.
You can read the bill and see for yourself; the draconian extremes it goes to will only achieve two things:
1. Further alienation of customers from the industries pushing this crap forward (and probably more file sharing)
2. Reductions in the number of people online if it is enforced.
The battle to control content has been going on since the advent of records, there is a great book which sums up the 40 plus years of failure on the part of the record industry to do anything about sharing music which sums up the problems of their approach very nicely:
Bootleg: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Recording Industry – Clinton Heylin
Maybe these industries should try actually moving with the times instead of wandering around railing against them like a pack of lumbering, luddite dinosaurs.
3 strikes and your out? Wait until you get caught for the second time, then move to Holland!
An interesting but pricey solution Stu!
I love the way the whole approach was ‘let’s crush our customers’ rather than ‘let’s think about how can we change how we make money by providing a better service’. Way to chase that yankee dollar.
I’m more than happy to pay artists for their work; the internet means we don’t need all the chaff that’s piled up on top of the wheat anymore.
The real reason people are upset about this is because they can’t download stuff for free anymore. Regardless of peoples moral standpoints and personal opinion, that isn’t something that it currently legal.
All that is happening is that the law on music sharing and copyright theft is being enforced, possibly for the first time ever on this scale.
I think it’s a good thing, and if a new, legal way of distributing music comes out of it and a mechanism for making sure that the legal owner of the material gets their monetary reward for it, then that’s even better.
What people should really be worried about is the way the new laws could be misused to spy on people and the detrimental affect it will have when the government inevitably leak peoples private data into the hands of those who would misuse it.
Whilst steps have been made to provide legal alternatives to illegal file-sharing, it would be naive to assume that the ONLY reason people still download music illegally is because it is free… I think that a major problem still lies with the industry trying to control how people receive and consume their media; the internet has simply made this a far more consumer-centric market than they are comfortable with.
Everyone has a level of service that would stop them from using illegal file-sharing and it is individual depending on circumstances. For example, a student would probably favour low-cost and a diverse selection of music – whereas your average 15-year old may care less about price and be more interested in music by all the chart-topping acts.
For me, personally:
* A quality equalling that of CD’s, such as FLAC (as I have invested in a decent hi-fi and would like to enjoy the benefits)
* No DRM on the tracks, as I may wish to use the tracks on a different platform or media player (such as specialist DJing software)
* A diverse selection of music, not just what the powers-that-be consider “popular” (there is not a great selection of 60′s french psychedelic rock, gritty soul or heavy dub on iTunes – trust me I’ve looked)
* A fair price that goes to the artist in its ENTIRETY (not to the “hangers-on” – the record label, Simon Cowell, record stores or Apple)
With the exception of the final point, illegal file-sharing ticks all of these boxes (and you could choose to send the artist a donation if you enjoyed the album). Whilst it may be morally questionable, it will be impossible to stop until a solution is devised that is able to cater to the needs of all of these groups of users. Whether a solution like this will/can ever exist is another matter.
@Joe Exactly. The service provision is incredibly poor at the moment, people aren’t being encouraged toward a useful legal solution, they are simply being punished again to fund an industry that has been outgrown by technology.
I don’t need to pay a record label to physically produce and ship a CD to me when I could (if a good solution existed) purchase and download it online. The reason you can’t just download it online however is because it’s taking forever to get all the major labels to pull their finger out and make all their music available.
@Griff “The real reason people are upset about this is because they can’t download stuff for free anymore.”
I’d disagree, there will be a faction of moochers who just want something for nothing, however equally there will be a large number of people perfectly willing to pay.
“I think it’s a good thing, and if a new, legal way of distributing music comes out of it and a mechanism for making sure that the legal owner of the material gets their monetary reward for it, then that’s even better.”
It definitely would be good if a new way of distributing music comes out of it, but it won’t. All these ideas have been put forward to protect the existing methods of production and distribution. There could have been a proposal for a new way to legally share music online in this bill, but there wasn’t.
Here’s an idea, how about an “iPod Tax”?
Re. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2008/01/ipod-tax-smacked-down-in-canada.ars
Oh dear, it’s been quashed!!
What a sad state of affairs! Does the Government truly understand digital culture??? I wonder….
@Oscar I know, makes you wonder who’s putting on the pressure in the background and holding up the growth of digital business…