Digital Economy Bill

[Mr Popodopolous]

Well folks, it was passed as law this week. Looks like it will undoubtedly be law.

Here is that bill in full:

http://www.publicati...1.i-ii.html#top

There are so many things wrong with this law, so many potential issues:

1) If one watches songs on youtube- would this be illegally accessing copyrighted content?

2) How about watching for example, live streaming sport online?

3) Legal downloads?

In addition, the appeals process is a sad joke:

OFCOM Panel; not a proper trial to be cut off oh no. Seems the accused would need to prove that they were innocent of the accusations against them.

Has anyone received any letters about it yet?

Don't think that if the Conservatives win an outright majority then this bill will be scrapped, oh no. I'm pretty sure they support it too.

'Remember kids, home taping kills the record industry!' What a laugh that was!

[Premiership or Bust]

There's one major flaw in their plan to cut off illegal downloaders, the ISPs don't agree with the plan, and they are the ones who have the power to cut people's internet off. If they cut off the internet of everyone who downloads something illegally, there will be about 4 people left in the UK. Also the ISPs won't put up with the lost profits from cutting them off, as the downloaders are usually the people who pay for the higher connection speeds

[CiderHider]

My GOD!, the boring old farts, how long did it take to come up with all that ass covering bullshit.

Haha losers, they won't catch me, I have a rotating IP address nor can they take away the 5.2 terabytes i've got stored from 12 yrs of downloading. They wan't to Police the internet, good luck with that you fools, anyone with a bit of common sense can cover their tracks, who is going to pay for a £140k a year internet investigator to track down some clever ass 14 yr old 133t haxx0r for downloading music or whatever?

[newboy]

My GOD!, the boring old farts, how long did it take to come up with all that ass covering bullshit.

Haha losers, they won't catch me, I have a rotating IP address nor can they take away the 5.2 terabytes i've got stored from 12 yrs of downloading. They wan't to Police the internet, good luck with that you fools, anyone with a bit of common sense can cover their tracks, who is going to pay for a £140k a year internet investigator to track down some clever ass 14 yr old 133t haxx0r for downloading music or whatever?

It's clumsy and it's ham-fisted, but you've got have some sympathy for them. You've got an entire generation who've been able to download what they want for nothing and take it as a god-given right that they can have want they want for free simply because they're used to it.

You've got 5.2 tb of other peoples work. How would you feel if you'd worked your ass off on a new book/film/song and someone got lots of enjoyment out of it and gave you nothing in return? Creativity is rare and people often put their heart and soul into something that's very personal to them. It's only fair they get compensated in return. Obviously studios and retailers ensure that those who actually are creative often don't get a fair return, but that's not justification for stealing it. And studios have to take the risk and pay out on all those creative projects that don't work, so it's only natural they need income to pay for the ones that don't work and reward them for promoting the ones that do.

The reality is that the music, video and comic book industries have been really slow to react and should have embraced the technologies much sooner in a more elegant way. As a result those who have just taken what they want have become spoilt - not all, but I've read a lot of reaction where people think they're entitled to take as much as they want and not pay or think there will be no circumstances. That's just dumb - someones got to pay something at some point or people won't be able to create content.

The truth as always is somewhere in the middle - it's not right that creative people who work hard have their stuff used for free by some people who give nothing back. You can dress it up in whatever form you want but it's still stealing. The studios inability to handle technology may have made it easy for you, but you're still using someone elses work and giving them nothing in return. Equally the studios are dumb-asses for not recognising this and doing clumsy DRM and badly thought out laws. And charging high street prices for online media which has no distribution costs or retailer cut. And making you pay several times for the same content across different media.

IMHO there are only three ways to successfully do this so everyone is happy:

1. Micropayments - should win over those who are willing to pay a fair price but won't please those militant hackers who will keep on stealing. They're gonna be selfish no matter what the content authors do.

2. The artists adopt a different approach and give some stuff away for free (using it to build up a fanbase) and either get money through concerts (in the case of musicians) or extras/subscriptions (for comics/books) or the extras/cinema (for movies). That way you can get lots of fans quickly because it's free, but tap into the loyalty through extras.

3. Advertising. Peter Gabriel and Spotify are trying it, but I don't think it will be popular. But that's just my pet hate of ads so I'm probably wrong here.

Many creatives will be able to bypass studios and go direct to market due to the internet, but not every creative person has the nouse to do this. This is where the studiosare still needed and they're gonna have to get used to their new role - they're effectively just going to become marketing machines.

I honestly can't see retail still being there in 20 years time - HMV, blockbuster I reckon are on a hiding to nothing and play.com and amazon.com will ultimately just be portals.

Something big is going to have to change for everyone to be happy with this. And making a token effort against those who have blatantly stolen a lot is a start. It's just a bad one.

[CiderHider]

It's clumsy and it's ham-fisted, but you've got have some sympathy for them. You've got an entire generation who've been able to download what they want for nothing and take it as a god-given right that they can have want they want for free simply because they're used to it.

You've got 5.2 tb of other peoples work. How would you feel if you'd worked your ass off on a new book/film/song and someone got lots of enjoyment out of it and gave you nothing in return? Creativity is rare and people often put their heart and soul into something that's very personal to them. It's only fair they get compensated in return. Obviously studios and retailers ensure that those who actually are creative often don't get a fair return, but that's not justification for stealing it. And studios have to take the risk and pay out on all those creative projects that don't work, so it's only natural they need income to pay for the ones that don't work and reward them for promoting the ones that do.

The reality is that the music, video and comic book industries have been really slow to react and should have embraced the technologies much sooner in a more elegant way. As a result those who have just taken what they want have become spoilt - not all, but I've read a lot of reaction where people think they're entitled to take as much as they want and not pay or think there will be no circumstances. That's just dumb - someones got to pay something at some point or people won't be able to create content.

The truth as always is somewhere in the middle - it's not right that creative people who work hard have their stuff used for free by some people who give nothing back. You can dress it up in whatever form you want but it's still stealing. The studios inability to handle technology may have made it easy for you, but you're still using someone elses work and giving them nothing in return. Equally the studios are dumb-asses for not recognising this and doing clumsy DRM and badly thought out laws. And charging high street prices for online media which has no distribution costs or retailer cut. And making you pay several times for the same content across different media.

IMHO there are only three ways to successfully do this so everyone is happy:

1. Micropayments - should win over those who are willing to pay a fair price but won't please those militant hackers who will keep on stealing. They're gonna be selfish no matter what the content authors do.

2. The artists adopt a different approach and give some stuff away for free (using it to build up a fanbase) and either get money through concerts (in the case of musicians) or extras/subscriptions (for comics/books) or the extras/cinema (for movies). That way you can get lots of fans quickly because it's free, but tap into the loyalty through extras.

3. Advertising. Peter Gabriel and Spotify are trying it, but I don't think it will be popular. But that's just my pet hate of ads so I'm probably wrong here.

Many creatives will be able to bypass studios and go direct to market due to the internet, but not every creative person has the nouse to do this. This is where the studiosare still needed and they're gonna have to get used to their new role - they're effectively just going to become marketing machines.

I honestly can't see retail still being there in 20 years time - HMV, blockbuster I reckon are on a hiding to nothing and play.com and amazon.com will ultimately just be portals.

Something big is going to have to change for everyone to be happy with this. And making a token effort against those who have blatantly stolen a lot is a start. It's just a bad one.

Good post. And for the record, most of my library is bought and paid for. If I like a new band or a band I respect I'll buy the original, same with films. I've spent tens of thousands of pounds during my life making these super rich super super rich, I have no moral issues ripping off those who I personally consider it acceptable to rip off.

They've been ripping us off for years, as soon as they're not getting every single drop of blood from the stone they go crying off to the Lords to change the law. A sad example of how money motivated and materialistic we have all become, globalization, capitalism, consumerism, Americanization?!?! political correctness, green issues, carbon footprint, e-commerce, scheduling, rescheduling, networking, brand awareness, Ohhhh my God I hate work!!! I WISH I LIVED IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BLOODY JUNGLE SOME DAYS!!

I'm all for the reward of hard work and creative thinkers, but if they're excuse that they can't produce it or wont produce it becuase people are ripping off their music/films by downloading and not paying, or listening to a radio at work without one of those stupid licences, then they should stop doing what they're doing and just **** off.

[Bounce Around the Ground]

3. Advertising. Peter Gabriel and Spotify are trying it, but I don't think it will be popular. But that's just my pet hate of ads so I'm probably wrong here.

Spotify is really popular. Also you can now (officially) watch a lot of popular british tv shows on youtube. You just have to watch an ad before it starts, works pretty well.

[newboy]

Spotify is really popular. Also you can now (officially) watch a lot of popular british tv shows on youtube. You just have to watch an ad before it starts, works pretty well.

It sure is. The free service currently only plays ads now and again. Wait til they get a critical mass of users and watch them ramp up the ad incidence to encourage that £10 fee...

It will also be interesting to see what impact the Warner boss stating that he will withdraw all WB tracks from Spotify whilst it's free will have.

Personally I pay me £10 a month for Napster. Works a treat, despite the slightly random addition and withdrawal of tracks. If you've not tried it's worth a go....

[Mr Popodopolous]

Good post. And for the record, most of my library is bought and paid for. If I like a new band or a band I respect I'll buy the original, same with films. I've spent tens of thousands of pounds during my life making these super rich super super rich, I have no moral issues ripping off those who I personally consider it acceptable to rip off.

They've been ripping us off for years, as soon as they're not getting every single drop of blood from the stone they go crying off to the Lords to change the law. A sad example of how money motivated and materialistic we have all become, globalization, capitalism, consumerism, Americanization?!?! political correctness, green issues, carbon footprint, e-commerce, scheduling, rescheduling, networking, brand awareness, Ohhhh my God I hate work!!! I WISH I LIVED IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BLOODY JUNGLE SOME DAYS!!

I'm all for the reward of hard work and creative thinkers, but if they're excuse that they can't produce it or wont produce it becuase people are ripping off their music/films by downloading and not paying, or listening to a radio at work without one of those stupid licences, then they should stop doing what they're doing and just **** off.

Pretty much agree with all of that. They have been complacent and still continued to sell at the same old prices. It's the same with book sales in a way- Borders hit the buffers, due to Amazon. The old model of selling CDs/films at £10 per album or whatever will go the same way. Their industry needs to change really, or technology will do it for them.