The Digital Economy Bill currently passing through the Committee Stage at the House of Lords is trying to help foster digital innovation and protect the rights of content creators. There has been significant discussion over the legislation, particularly in relation to copyright infringement such as the transfer of files to other people over the Internet without the permission of the copyright holder.

TalkTalk has been one of the most vocal voices against the plans for protecting copyright, not because copyright shouldn’t be protected but because of the impact the plans may well have. Their latest release warns that ‘Robin Hood’ developers will neuter the bill with new applications and tools. This is something that is almost inevitable—In the digital world there is nothing like a challenge such as breaking some encryption or building an ability to hide data from others.

thinkbroadband look at both sides of the coin.

Speaking to The Telegraph, Mr Dunstone, whose company owns and operates the internet and telephony provider TalkTalk, said he refused to send his customers who were suspected file-sharers warning letters about their supposed activity or disconnect them, even if these clauses of the bill became law.

He explained that he may choose instead to fight the Government in court, if his lobbying fails and that his company would “consider all its options” should these clauses in the Digital Economy Bill go through.

Read Emma Barnett’s full article here.

The Digital Economy Bill will have precisely the opposite of its desired effect. The Bill will ignite the development of tools that make it easier for people to access music, films and other copyright-protected material for free and undetected, defeating any attempt to protect copyright.

That was the message to MPs and Peers today at a briefing in Westminster organised by TalkTalk, the UK’s largest provider of broadband to homes.

Already there are dozens of such tools available, developed by latter day Robin Hoods who in many cases are not motivated by money.

It is not known what proportion of copyright-protected content is accessed using these new tools but research by the BPI suggests people are migrating away from traditional P2P (which can be monitored, albeit at great expense) and using these other tools instead (1).

Examples of these tools include:

• Applications which scan thousands of internet radio stations, and in a few hours download tracks from selected artists and then catalogue them
• Services which effectively conceal users’ IP addresses, allowing them to download material without detection
• Websites which stream “pay to view” sporting events broadcast outside the UK
• Tools which allow users to ‘rip’ content from on demand TV and music services such as iPlayer

MPs and Peers were today (Tuesday 26^th January) given a chance to see some of these tools and applications in action at a briefing entitled Principles and Practicalities of Copyright Protection, held in Westminster today (Tuesday). They also had the chance to hear from four organisations – Which?, Liberty, Consumer Focus and Open Rights Group – about the damaging effect of the Digital Economy Bill on human and consumer rights.

“The measures in the Digital Economy Bill will hasten the migration away from P2P, ignite the development of new tools and popularise the notion that stealing content is socially acceptable, akin to breaking the speed limit by one or two miles per hour,” said Charles Dunstone, chief executive of TalkTalk. “The inevitable consequence of persisting with this legislation will be to increase the moral chasm between labels and fans and between government and citizens.”

TalkTalk has published a series of case studies which show that people who develop tools which can be used to access content illegally are frequently not motivated by money. Rather, they are irritated by digital rights management (DRM) restrictions placed on content by labels and studios.

“Content owners really frustrate music and film fans by allowing material to be downloaded only to one device or used in only one format,” said Dunstone.

“Most fans grudgingly put up with it but some are smart enough to develop applications which allow content to be copied from one format or device to another. And that is the genesis of many of the tools which are currently out there. If the Digital Economy Bill becomes law, more tools will emerge and they will be simple enough for anyone to use.

“Copyright infringement is illegal. We do not encourage or condone it. But we live in the real world and it is clear that the Digital Economy Bill is futile and will only hasten the development of more beneath-the-radar tools and applications.

“The old model just cannot work in the digital age. Once content is digitised it effectively becomes freely and easily available to anyone who wants it. That is the stark reality the content industry has to confront.

“Record labels and film studios need to find new ways of persuading fans to pay for their content.  Those that can’t find new ways of making money in the digital age won’t survive. They will be replaced by new ventures which see the online environment as an opportunity rather than a problem.”

While some high profile artists such as Bono and Lily Allen have spoken in favour of disconnecting people accused of copyright infringement, other celebrities have registered their vehement opposition.

Stephen Fry has used Twitter to urge his followers to sign TalkTalk’s petition on the Number 10 website. At the time of writing the petition has been signed by almost 32,000 people.(2)

“I’m no defender of systematic deliberate criminal downloading,” said Stephen Fry, “but in my estimation the government’s proposed Copyright Protection Law is ill-conceived, constitutionally outrageous, morally unfair and epically foolish.

“This is not the way to protect and strengthen the creative music, film and TV industries – it is a way further to alienate and antagonise the very people on whom those industries depend.

“Large scale criminal P2P downloaders will certainly be smart enough to avoid attention while the innocent or small-time (most of whom are good customers) will be penalised without recourse to the due process of the law. I shake my head in sad disbelief that Britain could seriously be contemplating going down a path like this.”

Ends

For more information please contact

Steve Marinker

Citigate Dewe Rogerson

0207 282 2841

07779 031 936

Editors’ notes

1)       Harris Interactive for the BPI, February 2009

2)       TalkTalk has also run a competition, judged by Stephen Fry, calling for individuals to create content opposing the Digital Economy Bill. Entries can be found out:

www.dontdisconnect.us/category/competition

Magna Carta did not die in vain!

Fair shares for all – Digital strangle-holds for none.

Paul Sanders doesn’t pull any punches when explaining how the current status quo doesn’t exactly help smaller artists:

“The market, despite all the hot air about Long Tails, has spent the last decade relatively over-rewarding the hits. If ISPs have been leeching cash out of the record business, as Bono contends in another piece of sophistry (”rich service providers, whose swollen profits perfectly mirror the lost receipts of the music business”), then the studies are showing that it is the middle that is being slimmed, leaving a longer thinner tail and almost as fat a head as ever. 

“….big companies have every reason to keep things just as they are. That means trying to make sure that consumers spend as much money as possible on as few tracks as possible. So while in the best value deals the wholesale rate per track is hovering around 20p, you are not allowed to buy more at the same price – in fact with Sky Songs the price goes up if you want more than 20 tracks per month. 

“So perversely, if the pain of filesharing is felt disproportionately outside of the hits market, then the biggest companies have no reason to swap what they have now for a market that would give the smaller labels more chances to get paid.”

And it’s not just Paul Sanders who disagrees with Bono. We spoke to musician/blogger/teacher Steve Lawson about Paul’s Register piece, who said:

“I think the piece in The Register was a fairly typical piece by someone in his position – rightly calling Bono up on the nonsense he’s talking, but still buying into the idea that the ideal endgame is a subscription model that would ultimately still lead to a gross inequity in the distribution of that money (how on earth is ‘usage’ going to be tracked in order to distribute the money fairly?). 

“I find the lack of foresight in the thinking of the record industry baffling – I guess it’s because they are resolutely thinking of themselves as the ‘record industry’ not the ‘music industry’ and even more so as an ‘industry’ rather than as some kind of conduit for culture.”

I’m not very well qualified to propose solutions to helping the music industry’s business model – our views are entirely based around seeing that our customers’ interests are looked after – but it’s clear that not all musicians feel the same way about filesharing. For example, Canadian singer-songwriter Dan Mangan has joined the likes of Shakira, Norah Jones and Nelly Furtado in saying that filesharing isn’t necessarily evil:

“I don’t mind people sharing my music, if downloading or pirating a digital format of a song brings someone to a gig and then they have a real face to face, human interaction, maybe they bring a friend, maybe they buy a t-shirt, that’s great for me. “Even though the music industry has changed so much and people are buying less CD’s, I refuse to believe that people don’t want to support art that they believe in.”

Like I say, we’re not here to propose how musicians can earn a fair crust (and we don’t condone illegal filesharing), but with the Digital Economy Bill ignoring the realities of the situation, it’s clear to me that trying to disconnect alleged filesharers simply isn’t a solution for the music industry’s wider problems.

Others seem to agree with me – in fact, some have come up with some pretty creative ways of getting the message across as part of our Sing Our Petition competition.

Don’t end up like Springfield, Petition now (while we still can)!