A meeting that was called for British musicians to discuss UK government proposals on how to tackle illegal file sharing has come to a consensus that file-sharers should have their bandwidth “squeezed” for persistent copyright infringement. The congregation of more than 100 artists came to the agreement that file sharers should not have their Internet accounts suspended.
Artists including Lily Allen, George Michael, Annie Lennox, Radiohead guitarist Ed O’Brien and Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason signed a statement. It calls for two warning letters to be issued to users when they are caught sharing music illegally before their bandwidth speeds are restricted for certain purposes.
The idea would be to “render sharing of media files impractical while leaving basic e-mail and web access functional.” Lily Allen, who was the target of quite a large amount of criticism for running her mouth on the issue while technically breaching copyright law on the exact same website, was applauded by the audience for her campaign to “alert music lovers to the threat that illegal downloading presents to our industry.”
Jim Killock, executive director of digital rights activists the Open Rights Group, said that the artists had addressed the symptom, but not the cure, adding that the only answer was to “license products to compete with file-sharing.” However, he said major labels are being too cautious to approve some new services.
Result for: warning letters
According to a new survey by music consultancy Music Ally, many users would completely disregard warning letters from ISPs threatening to shut off their Internet for piracy offenses.
The survey was given to US, UK and French citizens, and published by the research firm The Leading Question.
The study also shows that most consumers would prefer to download music legally from their ISPs rather then from their mobile carriers or from their cable providers.
46 percent of those studied chose their ISP as the “ideal music provider” compared to 10 percent who chose their cable or satellite TV company, and 5 percent who chose their mobile operator. An even smaller number, 3 percent, chose handset manufacturers such as Nokia or Apple as their preferred provider.
“ISPs need to find new added value offerings as their core service of offering access to the Internet becomes increasingly commoditised,” noted Tim Walker, CEO of The Leading Question, on Music Ally’s Website.
“Music looks like a good bet both for keeping existing customers and getting new ones, particularly if you can bundle in a music service so that it ‘feels’ free or very cheap.”
To the other matter at hand, 41 percent of those surveyed “admitted to using P2P services said they would stop downloading unlicensed music if they were sent a warning letter from their ISP.” 63 percent said they would stop if they were threatened with having their Internet service shut off.
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Result for: warning letters
After last month’s “three strikes and you’re off the Internet” announcement in the UK was made official, it seems the large ISP Virgin Media will be the first to implement the plan.
Although record labels have been pushing for a plan like this for years, it is not even known yet whether the actual measures are legal. The government is expected to have a meeting on that very subject sometime next month. Despite this fact, BPI and Virgin say they will enact a pilot program using the infamous “three strikes and you’re off the Internet”.
A spokesman for Virgin Media said: “We have been in discussions with rights holders organisations about how a voluntary scheme could work. We are taking this problem seriously and would favour a sensible voluntary solution…the BPI has teams of technicians to trace illegal music downloading to individual accounts. It will hand these account numbers over to Virgin Media, which will match them to names and addresses.”
BPI plans to send warning letters for first time offenders, a temporary suspension of Internet services for the “second strike” and finally a full disconnection for the final strike.
