Big Music angers UK ISPs
p2p news / p2pnet: British ISPs, angry at attempts by the Big Four Oranized Music gang to force them to disclose private customer information, say a letter from the Big Four’s BPI to Tiscali and Bulldog is “detrimental to the spirit of co-operation” Net industries wants to foster.
“The Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA), an umbrella organisation for UK ISPs, described a letter by the BPI to two of its members, Tiscali and Bulldog, as ‘detrimental to the spirit of co-operation’ that the Internet industry wants to foster with the music business, says PC Pro.
The ISPA (Internet Service Providers Association ) said its members would be acting outside the law if they co-operated with BPI (British Phonographic Industry) demands, says the story, going on, ‘ISPs bear no liability for illegal file sharing as the content is not hosted on their servers,’ a spokesperson said, citing the EU’s 2002 Ecommerce Directive that absolves ISPs of responsibility for content passing over their networks.
“The personal details of service providers’ customers are protected by UK laws including the Data Protection Act and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.”
Tiscali protested early on, but that doesn’t mean it’s unwilling to cooperate with EMI (UK), Warner Music (US), Vivendi Universal (France) and Sony BMG (Japan, Germany).
It’s already contacted one customer on the Big Four’s behalf. As it says in an open letter, “Should we not receive an adequate explanation during such period [seven days], we shall suspend the user’s account pending resolution of your investigation, assuming by that time we have received evidence from you of a link between the user account and the IP address at the relevant time.”
“ISPs are no more able to inspect and filter every single packet passing across their network than the Post Office is able to open every envelope,” Silicon.com has the trade association saying.
Incidentally, “the ISPA does not accept that p2p sharing of copyright material is ipso facto illegal,” says PC Pro. Its site states that file sharers ‘may be infringing the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988′.
“Nor does it accept music industry arguments that the Internet is to blame for falling music sales,” says the story, quoting ISPA as stating:.
‘Rights holders have been battling piracy for many years prior to the Internet’s widespread adoption. In fact in the second quarter of 2006, digital sales and downloads helped the UK singles industry record its best results in six years, with the market reaching 58 million units on an annual basis. Many argue that peer-to-peer file sharing actually stimulates music sales as it offers consumers the opportunity to try music from an artist prior to purchasing an album’.”
Also See:
PC Pro – ISPs slam attempts to reveal alleged file sharers , July 17, 2006
protested early on – Tiscali as BPI copyright cops, July 13, 2006
Silicon.com – ISPs reject calls for music tariffs, July 17, 2006
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July 17th, 2006 at 6:54 pm
The cartels are doing their very best to make it someone’s problem to do the policing. After all, for them it is about collecting money; not having to spend it on things other than CEOs, board members, and changing laws.
To date they haven’t really been very successful with the court option against Joe Public. Their reputations are taking a collective hit in the reflective thoughts of the public. The evidence that they are continually in court for various illegal actions they have preformed (such as the Sony rootkit affair) doesn’t leave them the moral high ground to stand on they would like to portray.
The dinosaur model they defend requires more and more effort to keep it afloat. The ISPs long ago had an out to this sort of intimidation legally. So it can only be thought that this is nothing short of a shot in the dark hoping to gain some advantage out of it as the cartels well know of it.
July 17th, 2006 at 7:15 pm
Being as I don’t generally download files other than from software sites, I am sort of new to this issue, and have a question.
Why couldn’t ‘A’ provide several ‘B’s with encrypted content (whatever that means) or even facilitate through an encrypted site the sharing of content between one or more ‘B’s and ‘C’s, were ‘A’ to provide the means to decrypt only to those who agreed to a restricted use policy which excluded all parties’ ability to hold the site liable for anything?
I am sure this is not a novel approach and may already be operating in some cases at which point one who knows need only reply and say “It is being done.”
July 17th, 2006 at 7:40 pm
It wouldn’t surprise me at all if this were to actually promote P2P and reassure people that they are not going to get their accounts terminated for downloading music.
Yet another example of some silly Big Music action that has the opposite effect to what they intended.
July 18th, 2006 at 7:48 am
A music tariff, known in other words as a comulsory license, is the right way to go – in exchange for no liabilty – but the $ collectors need to be either p2p networks themselves or users need to pay a license to a royalty collection society -with the use of watermarks to track and distribute funds. This system would also enable many artists to side step record labels altogether while still getting paid.
I agree with the ISPs that there are very significant policy reasons why they should not be put in any position other than neutral communications provider. Once they are targeted to collect funds for big (and crappy music) their position is compromised and all of a sudden they are potentially responsible for everything that happens on their services.
AIM should be congratulated for selecting to take the non litigation path but their submission is flawed in relation to who collects the money.
July 18th, 2006 at 2:13 pm
I’m starting to think that, at least so long as we persist in being in hock to money, a *voluntary* p2p license is the way to go. Keep the price low (5 quid a month?) and set up a government agency to collect and police the fee, like we do with TV licenses in the UK. Of course there are all sort of debates still to be had – how to divvy up the dosh, how to catch evaders, etc – but this keeps it neutral, with record labels and ISPs out of the picture in terms of enforcement.
July 18th, 2006 at 8:41 pm
Some problems here…
“with the use of watermarks to track and distribute funds”
Watermarks are useless for the stated purposse, as mp3 files doing the rounds at present have no watermarks and if they did, they can always be removed. also the data in the mp3 files can be esily edited.
“or users need to pay a license to a royalty collection society”
Collection societies are basically accounting scams that never work except for a few music publishers. If these, with so many years in operation cannot keep a straight accounting and royalty payment system within one country, why would we want to think that ISP’s could internationally?
July 19th, 2006 at 2:07 am
good points to the 2 subcomments above – but the vulnerability to watermarks only arises where there is incentive to remove them – ie. they are being used to track you for prosecution; there is significantly less incentive to remove a watermark when it means it will ensure the artists is getting paid… other options include voluntary traffic analysis – some have suggested that users WILLING to have their downloading activities monitored could be given software to enable this – there are certainly other options than suing users.
Royalty collection societies, if they were selected to distribute the funds, would need to have open accounting and audited books to ensure public and artists faith in the process.
IT CAN BE DONE>!