Andrew explained TalkTalk’s views and made clear how the Bill’s proposals will affect consumers’ fundamental rights.

You can listen to the interview here: iPlayer (1:55 in).

So we were surprised – to put it mildly – to hear Geoff quote “a TalkTalk survey” to support his arguments. The problem is we don’t recognise the figure Geoff mentioned. Having checked with him, it seems he has been rather misleading in selecting one figure from a press release we issued last autumn. But more of that later.

First, the context. The relevant passage of the Today programme interview focused on the security of people’s wireless internet connections. The Digital Economy Bill will place the onus on broadband customers to secure their WiFi connection. So if anyone hacks the connection and uses it to illegally download copyrighted material, the blame lies with the innocent owner, not the hacker, unless they can prove they took ‘reasonable steps’ to protect their connection. If they cannot do so then they could be disconnected.

We think this is utterly wrong in principle and doomed to failure in practice. In fact, only a few days ago we issued a piece of research which estimated that the cost to consumers of making sure their wireless connections were secure with the latest technology could run to several hundred million pounds. Geoff Taylor said that “most people on residential connections using wireless already have their connections secured – it’s something like 95% of connections, according to a TalkTalk survey, are already secured.”

In other words, only 5% are unsecured. (If you want to listen to the relevant passage of the interview, you can do so here – from 6mins in.) This is incorrect and hugely misleading. Last autumn we undertook a survey of over 1,000 wireless connections in a series of residential streets in Ealing.

We found that 41% of the connections were vulnerable to unauthorised use, and actually the true number may be much higher. Under the terms of the Digital Economy Bill, these people could be disconnected if someone downloads copyrighted material via their connection.

When we announced the results of this survey, we also undertook a demonstration in Stanmore, where we checked 68 local wireless connections. Using this much smaller sample we found that 34% were vulnerable to hacking. Six per cent had no security at all and 28% had only WEP technology, which – as we pointed out – many people think is secure but is actually easily hackable by anyone with a laptop. Only one connection out of those 68 used WPA2, the highest form of wireless security protection and the only type which has so far not been hacked.

The BPI appears to have taken the 6% figure and claimed it accurately represents the number of unsecured wireless connections in the UK. You can judge for yourself whether you think they or we are more accurate in portraying the threat of unauthorised downloading. At any rate, we think the Digital Economy Bill presents a major threat to Britain’s internet users. It is a dangerous and misguided piece of legislation, which we believe does not deserve to become law.

According to 38 Degrees:

“There’s plenty to oppose in the Digital Economy Bill, it gives the government the ability to disconnect millions. Schools, libraries and businesses could see their connection cut if their pupils, readers of customers infringe any copyright. But one group likes it, the music industry. In a leaked memo a few days ago they admitted the only way to get the bill through would be to rush it through without a real parliamentary debate. Let’s stop that happening.”

The Open Rights Group is working with 38 Degrees  on the campaign. Spokesperson Jim Killock added:

“The numbers have exceeded even our expectations, but we are all clear that disconnection is wrong as a punishment. It should be no surprise to corporate lobbyists like the BPI are busy trying to write our copyright law, and forcing attemts to curtail our human rights to favour their business interests. But we expect better of our MPs. Many are decent folk; many won’t have through through the implications of this Bill. A debate is what allows the issues to be drawn out and understood – as well as fully publicly debated.

“The internet has become a fundamental part of our lives. While not yet a formal right, it clearly is the prime means by which we exercise our rights to work, to receive an education and for freedom of speech. This is what is drawing the reaction to this legislation. It has nothing to do with copyright infringement: we are appalled that the basic tool of our society – the internet – could be taken away from people because of trivial financial misdemeanours.”

To write to your MP (it really doesn’t take that long!), go to 38 Degrees site: Don’t rush through extreme web laws

As usual, Twitter provided an interesting barometer for views:

MikeKevan: The one sidedness of last nights panorama was dissapointing, felt more like scaremongering than reporting. BBC I am dissapoint.

@PiratePartyUK: #FALSE: “bittorrent means piracy” – bittorrent is an entirely legal protocol, like ftp. #debill #panorama

Growkin: the people on the panorama show are idiots “the kids take our work laptop and do what they want” IT IS YOUR WORK LAPTOP!!!
RossHaffenden: #Panorama “why don’t your go on Itunes ?” “because it costs too much”. Illegal downloaders spend twice as much on music etc SURPRISE? NOT!

The Open Rights Group’s Jim Killock felt that a lot of the programme missed the essential point: people’s rights not to be disconnected. On the ORG’s blog, he said:

This perspective was curiously underplayed in the Panorama broadcast yesterday. Instead, we mostly listened to a discussion between different musicians worrying about the future of their industry.

While that’s a concern – and the central concern of the BPI – our concern is our rights, democracy, and the future of our society, which is being built on the internet. We do not withdraw the basic tool of society without the most extreme reason. We certainly do not do such a thing without a massive public and democratic debate.

For close followers of the filesharing/music rights debate, there wasn’t anything new in the Panorama episode. Most users interviewed said they regularly used download services, although it was pointed out that filesharers spend more on music than non-filesharers. Andrew Heaney was clear about TalkTalk’s position on filesharing: “If the Secretary of State requires us to cut someone off, we will refuse to cut them off, unless a court has taken the decision that that subscriber did something wrong and they are guilty.”

Check out Panorama on iPlayer and make your own mind up. In the meantime, here’s our song: “Home Taping Is Killing Music”.

If, like me, you remember the 80s, you may also recall recording the Top 40 on Sunday nights. Up and down the country, people were hovering over their cassette players with their fingers over the pause button, trying to get the perfect recording before Tony Blackburn spoke and ruined it. Back then the music industry told us that home taping would signal the end of the music industry and that it must be stamped out. There are clear parallels with today’s debate about filesharing and the Digital Economy Bill.

That’s why we teamed up with Dan Bull, the musician behind Dear Lily and Dear Mandy, to create our very own music video. ‘Home Taping is Killing Music’ is a tongue-in-cheek video that features 80s legends Madonna, George Michael and Adam Ant (well, actually it’s just a trio of look-alikes) lip-synching to the song Top of the Pops style.

The song’s release coincides with the results of some research we conducted which found that the majority of music fans would simply switch to alternative ways of accessing copyright-protected content for free, if using peer-to-peer (P2P) services leaves them vulnerable to disconnection. In fact, 80% of 18-34 year olds questioned in our survey said that if new legislation made it dangerous to use P2P services they would switch to using methods which are undetectable.

We’ve consistently made it clear that we don’t encourage illegal filesharing. But in our view, the government’s filesharing proposals won’t change a thing – persistent filesharers will find another way of getting songs, movies and software illegally. It’s a never-ending game of cat and mouse.

Home taping didn’t kill music in the 1980s – it survived. The same will happen now in the internet age – illegal filesharing won’t kill music. And if you read the comments on the Have your Say page on www.dontdisconnect.us you’ll see that most people agree and suggest that the answer to bands making money out of their tunes lies in adopting new business models, not record companies trying to clamp down on suspected filesharers.

Only Idiots Assume  written by Londoner Liam Mullone and sung by his friend Hils Barker, is a stinging attack on the Government’s plans to disconnect people suspected of watching films and music online without paying for the privilege.

Fry selected the song to win a competition organised by TalkTalk, Britain’s biggest provider of broadband to homes.

“I am insanely in love with Only Idiots Assume,” said Stephen Fry. “It’s got the anger, the wit, the musical skill – all in a wonderful package that reminds me of the high days of my youth when punk roamed the land and the young were angry and funny and spunky and spiky.”

Liam Mullone, who, along with Hils Barker, is carving out a successful career on the comedy circuit, described the entry as a “ska-punk reply to Peter Mandelson”. Lord Mandelson is the minister behind the Digital Economy Bill which contains the controversial copyright protection clauses. The Bill is making its way through Parliament and may become law before the election.

“I’m used to having my material taken because you can’t protect a joke,” said Liam. “I sympathise with any artist who gets discouraged at the thought of not making a living. But just because a problem is bigger than the government’s imagination, it isn’t bigger than the Magna Carta or the principle of due process.

“Assuming that people with high download volumes are stealing stuff is like calling someone a witch because they have a black cat. It’s a medieval premise.”

TalkTalk’s petition against the Government’s plans has so far received over 32,000 signatures on the Number 10 website.

The company has been an outspoken critic of the Government’s plans to disconnect people suspected of copyright infringement, arguing that such a penalty should only be imposed if guilt has been proved in a court

Andrew Heaney, TalkTalk’s executive director of strategy and regulation, said: “We launched this competition (called Sing Our Petition) to show the depth of public feeling about the Government’s misguided proposals.

“We wanted to tap into the outstanding creativity of the Great British public to send a clear message to the Government – these laws won’t work and people don’t want them.”

Fry continued: “I’m no defender of systematic deliberate criminal downloading but in my estimation the government’s proposed ‘Three-Strike’ 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.

“Aside from the skewed psychology and hilarious inappropriateness of major labels and studios leading a crusade for artistic freedom and independence, the planned legislation reveals a deep misunderstanding of the online world. 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 law. I shake my head in sad disbelief that Britain could seriously be contemplating going down a path like this.”

Last week TalkTalk held an event for MPs and Peers designed to demonstrate the futility of the proposals, specifically why the system designed to spot copyright infringement will entrap completely innocent customers while persistent offenders will remain undetected.

About Hils and Liam aka ‘Broken Dongles’

Liam Mullone and Hils Barker are stand-up comedians and libertarians.

Liam was previously a gravedigger, a restaurant critic and a journalist for the Times, and has written for ITV1, Radio 1 and Radio 4, with credits including The Now Show, the Arthur Smith Lectures and 28 Acts in 28 Minutes.

Hils is also an actress and a writer. She gigs up and down the country, including recently at the Hammersmith Apollo as part of the LIVEstock gig to raise funds for Friends Of The Earth. You can catch her soon on Radio 4’s comedy panel game Act Your Age.

Both have created work on the theme of civil liberties. Liam’s 2007 show Health + Safety explored the dehumanising effect of “beneficial” H&S legislation, and Hils’ 2008 show Exhibitionist! looked at the nightmare scenario of the Government knowing as much about us as Facebook – or even running it. The duo are turning this idea into a sitcom for the producer Paul Jackson.

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

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.

The Digital Economy Bill is one of the few pieces of legislation the government is actively pushing through parliament before an election is called.

Its aim is to build Britain’s telecommunications backbone and to pave the way for a world-beating digital economy – an admirable objective with cross-party support.

Yet lurking within this worthy endeavour is some of the most dangerous and misguided legislation to have come before parliament in recent years.

The Bill sets out to tackle online copyright infringement – frequently referred to as ‘illegal peer-to-peer file- sharing’ – in order to support Britain’s creative industries.

There is no doubt that some people do use the internet to watch films and listen to music without paying. TalkTalk does not condone or encourage copyright infringement, but I believe that the government’s proposals are disproportionate, impractical and deeply unprincipled.

Incredibly, the Bill effectively gives music labels and film studios the right to instruct internet service providers, such as TalkTalk, to cut off the internet connection of anyone that the labels and studios suspect of copyright infringement.

They don’t have to prove it in a court of law or to an impartial third party. The onus is on the customer to prove their innocence.

Consider this: if the police want to disconnect someone they suspect of viewing child pornography they have to apply to a court first and prove guilt. The Digital Economy Bill, in effect, casts people who download music without paying for it as a more urgent menace to society than people who view images of child abuse.

We know many broadband customers caught up in this Orwellian nightmare will be innocent since the detection method cannot establish the individual who is file- sharing. It can only identify the connection, which many – including the unauthorised – can use.

Already the consumer group Which? has identified innocent broadband customerswho have been pursuedrelentlessly by lawyers using the same process outlined in the Bill. These customers are the victims of Wi-Fi hijacking – hacking into other people’s internet connections in order to download content.

Because determined filesharers can easily avoid detection using Wi-Fi hijacking and a growing array of other tools and applications, it will be innocent broadband customers who suffer the consequences of this nightmare.

The music and film industry has lobbied hard for these measures, claiming that copyright infringement costs them about £400million a year in lost revenues. But the cost of tackling the problem will be massive – maybe hundreds of millions of pounds a year.

And guess who foots this bill? The music and film companies? Not a chance. You will pay for it – an extra £2 per month on your broadband bill, according to BT.

In fact, the cost of copyright protection plus the socalled ‘phone tax’ will jointly add about £30 per year to broadband bills.

Demand modelling shows this could make internet access unaffordable for 600,000 hard-pressed families. So much for the government’s claimed commitment to ‘digital inclusion’.

For the record, we make no money out of copyright infringement. The extra traffic costs us money as we have to add additional capacity to the network to carry the data.

The reality is that when content becomes digitised it, in effect, becomes free. It doesn’t matter how many websites are blocked, how many services shut down, how many families snooped on, people will always find ways to access copyrighted content free online. Film studios and music labels have to live with that truth and adapt their businesses.

The creative industries’ arguments are phoney and the government’s response will turn our digital economy into a disaster zone.

More than 31,000 people have registered their opposition to these absurd proposals by signing our petition on the Number 10 website. You can also sign at www.dontdisconnect.us.

Meanwhile, our blog post earlier has been reported on pcadvisor.co.uk, broadbandgenie.co.uk and computeractive.co.uk and a Twitter search on “Bono” shows that his views have been, well, mixed to say the least.