The All Party Communications Group (apComms), an independent group of Members of Parliament and Lords in the UK, has released a report blaming record labels for their own losses from illegal file sharing.
In their report, the group wrote “We conclude that much of the problem with illegal sharing of copyrighted material has been caused by the rightsholders, and the music industry in particular, being far too slow in getting their act together and making popular legal alternatives available.”
The report specifically addressed Business Secretary Peter Mandelson’s proposal to kick accused file sharers off the internet.
Lord Mandelson’s 3 strikes approach would make ISPs responsible for tracking their customers’ communications to identify people who may be engaged in copyright infringement.
“We do not believe that disconnecting end users is in the slightest bit consistent with policies that attempt to promote eGovernment, and we recommend that this approach to dealing with illegal file-sharing should not be further considered,” reads the apComms report titled “Can we keep our hands off the net?.”
It also criticizes lawmakers for not waiting to act until EU officials have had the chance to complete work on changes to the Telecoms Package.
We think that it is inappropriate to make policy choices in the UK when policy options are still to be agreed by the EU Commission and EU Parliament in their negotiations over the “Telecoms Package,” says the report. “We recommend that the Government terminate their current policy-making process, and restart it with a new consultation once the EU has made its decisions.
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Result for: legal alternatives
According to a new study recently released in the UK, the largest cause of piracy and other copyright infringement is simply, a lack of choice or legal alternatives. The study went as far to show that over 30 percent of UK citizens had downloaded pirated content, or at least plan to do so in the future.
The study, the 2008 Digital Entertainment Survey, really only said what many have been saying for years now; legal venues don’t have the quality or quantity of the illegal ones.
70 percent of those who had admitted to piracy also agreed that their primary reason for doing so was because “legal sites just don’t have the range of illegal ones”. The same amount of people also agreed that they would purchase the content if what they wanted was available.
Of the respondents who admitted to piracy, 70 percent also suggested that illegal venues were much faster.
Even more interestingly, 68 percent of those studied believed there was little chance they would be caught downloading and understood that many anti-piracy campaigns are more for intimidation.
Read the whole study here, its an interesting read.
