File-sharing ignorance.
There can be only one word used to describe the general points of the leaked green paper reported in the Times this morning - ignorance.We know all too well that the government or most politicians don't understand the internet, let alone new technologies, and it's all too apparent in the suggested "three-strikes and you're out" regime that illegal file-sharers would supposedly be accountable to from their ISPs. If supposedly the "big four" have been in talks with the major media companies for months or even the government over a voluntary scheme, have they not pointed out that this scheme is just about as unworkable as it's possible to be?
Perhaps that's the point; maybe it's meant to be. Even with the latest packet-sniffing software used by some ISPs to filter traffic, the one thing they can't know is exactly what it is you're downloading, unless you're directly downloading mp3 files or an XviD rip from a fileserver, which is more frequent than it used to be thanks to Rapidshare etc. BitTorrent, by far the most popular file-sharing protocol, now has clients that boast encryption that makes it even more difficult for ISPs to be able "shape" traffic or to know what is actually been sent between peers. Similarly, if you use FTPs or Usenet to download, they can know what site or group you're using, but not what it exactly is that you're transferring. They could of course make an educated guess; but this would never be sufficient under law for the cancelling of your contract with the ISP.
This is without even beginning to consider the logistics that would be involved in the policing of such a scheme. At the moment, a number of ISPs can't even begin to offer something approaching an adequate service which equates with that which they advertise. If they were asked to be watching for every user downloading a single illegal file and then following it up with the requisite warning, their staff would be spending the whole day doing just that, and more so. Let's imagine that the scheme wasn't implausible and that it actually could work in practice: the reality would be that ISPs would be disconnecting the vast majority of their customers in rapid order. The users would then switch to their rivals, and probably spend the rest of their lives transferring from ISP to ISP until they're barred from them all or until they're on the few that decide to resist the government's edict. Quite simply, the whole thing would mean that ISPs would be more or less committing economic suicide, like turkeys voting for Christmas.
The only way in which a possible scheme could work would be if they subjected sites that offer "illegal" downloads to that which they do child pornography. This would require ISPs blocking all the major torrent sites, vast swathes of Usenet and more or less every file-sharing service that exists completely, and probably most of the blogging sites as well, considering the number of mp3 blogs there are. Oh, and MySpace and other social-networking sites where users swap copyright protected files, or files that they aren't allowed to. In other words, the equivalent of China's firewall, except blocking more or less everything which China currently doesn't. This would probably make New Labour, the aforementioned industries and the ISPs around as popular as rabies. Even then it wouldn't cover those using proxy servers, or private sites that are well disguised.
It's instructive that document was leaked on the same day that the Grauniad finally won its freedom of information requests which confirmed the secret meetings between 10 Downing Street and the multi-national chairmen's group, which appear to have directly led to a softening of already flaccid plans for taxing pension pots. The government has fallen completely for every single argument made by the music and film industry; that they are suffering irreparable damage and unless action is taken then it'll mean the end of the entertainment world as we know it. You don't need to be told that this is errant nonsense: the same industry which complains of being stretched ever narrower by piracy has been stalling for months from paying writers their proper due, even while attendances at least at UK cinemas continue to rise to ever higher levels year on year. It isn't so much that neither are no longer making profits, it's that they're not as bulging as they once were. For all the hue and cry about piracy and digital downloads, sales of CDs still make up the overwhelming amount of the market. The sale of singles has moved almost completely online, but albums is a different story entirely.
If anything, the change in attitudes hasn't gone far enough yet. Still about the only real choice consumers are being offered online is iTunes, DRM-filled junk at low bitrates that can't even begin to compare with CD quality, a few sites that offer nothing even approaching a back-catalogue at reasonable quality, and the odd independent site, such as bleep.com, which does offer high quality, DRM free mp3s and even FLAC downloads. The record industry is secretly laughing about this; previously they had the overheads of printing the CD inlays and manufacturing the discs, not to mention the shipping, which thanks to the online revolution is now much less hard on the profit margins, and they're offering a lower quality product at a slightly cheaper price. That's the stuff of dreams rather than nightmares. Yes, CD sales are down and downloads have yet to make up the discrepancy, but this was always going to happen sooner or later, and the quicker the industry adjusts to the change the less the pain will be. Movie piracy is not even beginning to approach the scale of music piracy yet, but the power of that industry and its cries of anguish are already becoming hard for any government to ignore.
The thing is, why are the industries so surprised by the sudden changes when they're only reflecting the nature of the executives themselves? Everyone wants a bit of a good thing, and they've been amongst the most profiteering from their parasitical practices. 2006 saw Lily Allen burst through as the Next Big Thing; 2007 brought her imitators in Kate Nash and Remi Nicole amongst others. Amy Winehouse meanwhile was the biggest success of last year, and so 2008 sees her successors take to the front, with Adele Adkins, who'd won a critics' Brit before she'd even released her debut single and now Duffy coming onto the scene. The so-called "indie" department has seen similar, with umpteen different bands aping the Libertines ever since they emerged. When so much crap is marketed as if it's the latest, greatest thing you'll ever hear, why do you think so many people listen to the leaks first? Before they start making demands of us, it's about time these organisations got their houses in order, paid their artists and workers a decent wage, and then decide that their customers need behave in kind. The government meanwhile ought to simply get a clue.
Labels: file-sharing, film industry, ignorance, music industry, music piracy, peer to peer, politics
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