Big Music vs The Invisibles
p2pnet news view | P2P | Music:- There’s something missing from the pic on the right. Do you know what it is?
And while you’re pondering, read the statement below, celebrating UK singer and drug abuse expert Lily Rose Allen as a heroine »»»
We the undersigned wish to express our support for Lily Allen in her campaign to alert music lovers to the threat that illegal downloading presents to our industry and to condemn the vitriol that has been directed at her in recent days.
Our meeting also voted overwhelmingly to support a three-strike sanction on those who persistently download illegal files, sanctions to consist of a warning letter, a stronger warning letter and a final sanction of the restriction of the infringer’s bandwidth to a level which would render file-sharing of media files impractical while leaving basic email and web access functional.
The ludicrous Creative Coalition Campaign says »»»
Illegal file-sharing costs jobs and damages UK businesses. The Creative Coalition Campaign is working to ensure these jobs are protected, that our creative industries are able to survive and thrive, and that new, legal online services are able to launch and compete in a fair market place.
It comprises: Brendan Barber, general secretary of the Trades’ Union Congress; Derek Simpson and Tony Woodley, joint general secretaries, Amicus/Unite; Christine Payne, general secretary, equity and director general of the Federation of Entertainment Unions; John Smith, general secretary, Musicians’ Union; Gerry Morrissey, general secretary, Broadcasting Entertainment Cinematograph and Theatre Union; Benjamin King, chief executive, Publishers’ Association; Susie Winter, director general, Alliance Against IP Theft; John McVay, chief executive, Producers’ Association for Cinema and Television; Geoff Taylor, chief executive, British Phonographic Industry; Suzan Dormer, chief executive, Directors’ UK; Phil Clapp, chief executive, Cinema Exhibitors’ Association; Mark Batey, chief executive, Film Distributors’ Association; Lavinia Carey, director general, British Video Association; and Kieron Sharp, chief executive, Federation Against Copyright Theft.
You see, Allen had posted a diatribe against file sharing which really hit the spot with the likes of Elton John. And, of course, the Big 4 record labels, Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music, and their various pseudo-trade organisations, who’d started it all in the first place.
But the statement supporting Allen wasn’t from any of the corporate copyright enforcement outfits. It was ostensibly produced and signed by members of the Featured Artists Coalition — no doubt with a little help from their friends.
And among the signatories are Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien, Billy Bragg, Annie Lennox and George Michael.
Oh, and Lily Allen who, the FAC admits, isn’t even a member.
And that’s passing strange because at the beginning of the month, “A rift has opened between music’s creators and its record labels, with a broad alliance of musicians, songwriters and producers fiercely criticising the business secretary Lord Mandelson’s (right) plans to cut off the broadband connections of internet users who illegally download music,” said p2pnet, directly quoting The Guardian.
The ‘broad alliance’ was the FAC.
Furthermore, Mandelson’s plans aren’t Mandelson’s plans, we suggested, going on:
“They’d be more properly attributed to Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music who, together with the major Hollywood studios, Time-Warner, Fox, Disney, Columbia, Paramount, MGM, have intimidated weak-kneed governments such as those in the UK, France, New Zealand and Australia, into trying to implement what’s euphemistically called the Three Strikes Law.
“It’s anti-P2P, anti-file sharing and anti-consumer designed to turn countries where it’s adopted into virtual copyright enforcement divisions, with ISPs acting as the fall guys.”
Says Helienne Lindvall in The Guardian »»»
… contrary to what many sections of the media would have you believe, this is not just a music industry issue. While the FAC and Lily Allen “battle” has been fought in the press, Equity, the NUJ, the Premier League, the Publishers Association, the Writers’ Guild, the Musician’s Union, the TUC and Unite have all recently signed up to the Creative Coalition Campaign, which supports the government proposal. They must be grateful that record labels are taking all the flack in this debate.
A source close to the FAC board (they’re quite weary of speaking out of turn at the moment) says: “The proposal was fine until Lucien Grainge pushed Mandelson to add the disconnection bit to it.”
But I asked him, what kind of effect will sending warning letters have if they can’t be backed up by some sort of action? What if we have legitimate services, have educated the public of the actual effects of illegal filesharing and someone still uploads hundreds of thousands of tracks – some of them not even yet released – onto a torrent site?
“Well, then I’d say even the FAC would agree that we’d have to take legal action. The reason the FAC is against the current government proposals is that they think it’s a waste of time.” He continues: “They don’t believe the proposal will go through in its current state. First of all it’s too complicated and costly to enforce, technically. Secondly, civil liberties groups will oppose it and possibly even take it to court. By the time the legal wrangling is over, filesharing will be a thing of the past. Everyone will go to darknets or swapping hard drives. Then all we’d have as a weapon would be our moral standpoint.”
A moral standpoint? What would that be worth? And how effective would it be as a defence against someone uploading hundreds of thousands of tracks to be shared by billions, without compensating the creator for a single penny?
“By the time the legal wrangling is over, filesharing will be a thing of the past,” says Lindvall. “Everyone will go to darknets or swapping hard drives.”
Boy, have I got news for you, Helienne.
Members of the online communities, who represent the bulk of the online music-loving public, won’t go to the darknets, etc.
They’re already there.
The filesharing phenomenon can be represented by the image of a huge iceberg, and the file sharing so beloved by the lamescream media is merely the tip.
“The Big 4 record labels, which separately and collectively control the corporate music industry, know there’s absolutely nothing they can do to stem the tide of music that’s flooding the Internet,” I wrote recently, continuing »»»
They also know the file sharing they cite is no more than the visible (and very small) section of a huge iceberg that began to grow, layer-by-layer, when it was discovered large music files could be reduced in size to the extent they could be passed around online, computer-to-computer, peer-to-peer, people to people.
The labels could, and should, have been tapping into this phenomenon to the benefit of shareholders and music lovers alike. Instead, they tried to crush it and, congenitally unable to admit they made a terrible tactical, marketing and business mistake, began attacking their own customers in a bid to gain control of who distributes what online, and how they do it.
Now, the image of the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dyke comes to mind.
P2P networks and indexing are the focus. But they’re just one small element of the phenomenon of openness and sharing which comprises the fabric of the Internet.
The darknet spectrum is where the real world of online music thrives.
It should be called the Light Net.
In April I ran DarkNets: not tomorrow, but here and now.
It featured surfer’s pictorial representation of a typical file sharing network (above).
In the intro, “DarkNets range from simply passing (and mailing) discs around, to WASTE, through trusted friend-to-friend bulletin boards, FreeWAN cells, Freenet-type sites, physical and WiFi sneaker nets of various kinds, hidden sites, and so on,” I said, adding »»»
And nothing has changed.
Every day people around the world log on to large and small darknets and share not only corporate music and movies, but also documents and papers of various kinds, images, home-made software applications, independent movies and music.
You name it.
So targeting people such as Joel (Tanenebaum and Jammie Thomas-Rasset) in what’s no more than a dark and dirty public relations exercise isn’t merely an obscene misapplication of the American justice system and the useless victimisation of completely innocent people, it’s a total waste of time.
People share.
They always have and they always will.
If they didn’t, we’d still be living in caves.
Meanwhile, “There’s something missing from the pic on the right,” I said at the beginning of this, asking, “Do you know what it is?”
No? Well, it’s you, The Invisibles, upon whom Lily, Elton, Mandelson, the Big 4, FAC, CCC, BPI, IFPI and all the rest of them, depend wholly and utterly.
And as usual, while the ‘debate’ goes on, everwhere around the world, you’re still sharing music with your friends and relatives just as though nothing was happening.
Which is, of course, the reality of the situation.
Jon Newton – p2pnet
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
posted a diatribe – Lily Allen disses P2P file sharing, September 17, 2009
Elton John – Elton John joins anti-P2P brigade, September 23, 2009
The Guardian – YouTube and PRS make peace as musicians protest about plans to punish file sharers, September 3, 2009
Creative Coalition Campaign – UK unions sign up with Hollywood, Big Music, September 16, 2009
The Guardian – Behind the music: Is the music industry at war?, September 24, 2009
wrote recently – Darknets, Joel Tenenbaum and Big Music, July 27, 2009
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September 25th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Why is it the only people in that group supporting Lily are all union leaders (what a shock, think of CAW “logic”) and execs?
September 25th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
the bbc is reporting that lily allen attended/is attending this
so-called meeting, although she has stated that she won’t
attend because she didn’t want to start a media frenzy.
did she attend?
whether she did/does, it’s only because her owners tell
her to go/not go.
she says she pulled the blog because of “the abuse”.
that’s BS. her owners pulled it – or ordered her to pull it.
either way, she was the only person there spouting abuse…
and to her fans! what a cunt. most other people there had
something to say, whether right or wrong.
she’s complained that she and all musicians
with big music contracts have to slave for years
in order to repay them for advances and fulfill their
contracts. if that’s the way she feels she should go
indie and not be a slave to big music anymore.
i read in a comment here that she says she’s quitting
the music business. if that’s true, how will she get out
of her contracts without being sued?
either way, i’ll never buy any of her shit now. i might have
wanted to sample some through p2p, and if i liked it i might
have bought it. but both scenarios are now out of the question.
September 27th, 2009 at 11:26 am
” i read in a comment here that she says she’s quitting
the music business. if that’s true, how will she get out
of her contracts without being sued? ”
Because it’s probably not true.
Her leashholders are probably going to just suck it
up for about a year, and then push her out again as
the ‘newest thing’ hoping that everyone has forgotten
this episode of stupid.
The saddest part of it is that they are probably right.
They know exactly how long it takes the majority to
forget, and the smal rest of us can’t get enough
attention to worry them.
September 28th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
@robert: because they’re all communists