Culture Secretary Andy Burnham instead backs unspecified “technical measures.”
Back in January it was revealed for the first time that the UK govt had all but ruled out disconnecting repeat file-sharers from the Internet. Today Culture Secretary Andy Burnham has repeated that assertion at Music Week’s “Making Online Music Pay” conference.
He did confirm however, that the UK govt is preparing legislation to force ISPs to apply “technical solutions” to address the problem of repeat file-sharers.
“There will be many who don’t think a simple notification would be effective and we will reserve the powers to apply technical measures for persistent offenders,” he said. “Applying these measures will be a serious business, and not one we take lightly, but it is right that they are in place.”
“We intend to give the Office of Communications (Ofcom) powers to apply technical measures and we think that is the right option,” he later added. “The idea is for measures to be applied against individuals who are serial infringers. That is the proposal.”
It has yet to define who is a “serial infringer” and who will decide the guilt or innocence of accused file-sharers.
A spokesman for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport said the govt doesn’t want to terminate file-sharers’ Internet connections now that the Internet has become as vital as other utilities like water and electricity.
He said that the highly anticipated Digital Britain report, due to be released June 16th, “is likely to include an obligation on ISPs to send out letters to people who are infringing copyright.”
“What Mr Burnham also said was there was the likelihood that the MoU would be backed up by new powers for Ofcom to impose ‘technical solutions’ for repeat offenders if that process of sending out letters was not effective enough,” added the spokesman.
What precisely the “technical solutions” will be is still unclear, but it’s likely to be connection speed throttling, data caps, or a combination of the two. The UK film and television industry recently called for the govt to force ISPs to institute pop-up windows warning users who visit file-sharing related websites.
Burnham also warned that ISPs and the music industry could solve the problem on their own, without govt intervention, if only they were to sit down and figure out a framework for cooperation to tackle the problem.
“Both sides must find a point of balance,” he said. “Don’t wait for the heavy hand of Government, do it now. If you wait for Government then that might be worse.”
Worse? Without govt oversight private business interests will determine who’s a file-sharer and who isn’t. The music industry may lot like it, but the Internet has become a vital utility necessary for full civic participation, and any efforts to hinder or prevent that ability without trial is far worse for UK society than any problems illegal file-sharing may pose.
Stay tuned.
jared@zeropaid.com
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- French Minister – Three Strikes Law Would See 1000 Disconnections Daily
The “Making Online Music Pay” Conference? Slightly childish title, looks like the industry is still a bit miffed
man this guy and his fellows are pure evil.
Culture Secretary my arse, more like the extreamist church of imagnary property.
free culture has spoken.
the distro biz is OVER get a life and move on you pefetic ice man.
now do your fucking job and stick up for men your ment to and not the greedy mothers who fill your pockets.
There is no such thing as imagnary property.
take your snake oil lies and shove them were the sun don’t shine.
this is going to be a bit tricky to enforce, what with all them proxy tunnelling thingies about.Still, i guess they’ll ban them .. oh wait , then they cant rollout central id card database then. And he still hasn’t addressed the issue of IP in the peer reviewed world of science publishing.I think the musicians should be taxed for the damage they are doing to scientists.
Thats my rant.. if this was a science journal, you’d have to pay me to read it!:-(
The “Making Online Music Pay” Conference? Slightly childish title, looks like the industry is still a bit miffed..
not miffed….just trying to get paid for what we produce & promote, then you steal.
Its funny how your prepared to steal from artists, and moan about being ripped off by music companies, while paying multinational telecoms companies, darknets and other ilicit “free” music providers who just leech off music and put nothing back. hyppocrites eh?
Look around you… its the music co’s that are going bust and the digital media companies making all the profits…. but then it doesn’t answer your self serving justification for theft and/or copyright infringement.
Which music co has gone bust I ask? Digital Media companies may be making all the money, but it’s only because they’ve assumed the digital distribution role that record companies refused to adopt.
Nobody’s saying theft is okay, but there’s a huge distinction between commercial and noncommercial distribution. Filtering the Internet isn’t the solution, giving consumers what they want IS. Music will eventually become a blanket music licensing scheme, presumably a flat tax on Internet connections. It’s only a matter of time.
zaavi & pinnacle, for starters, most labels are making losses, publisher profits are down, whilst google make $15bn profit.
Digital media companies are making all the money, because they provide a service that allow unrestricted theft of another industries produce. You cant compete with free. everytime you steal via a torrent, then the ISP gets paid, and the TPB or other pointer get paid via adverts ( google or otherwise) and porn offerings.
There’s been plenty of legal digital music distribution outlets for the past 5 years at least, incl. itunes but few ppl want to use them when they can steal for the price of a broadband connection.
And plenty of digital solutions have died because no one wanted to use them, again proving you cant compete with free.
I’d agree that blanket music licensing could work, but the ISP’s aren’t interested while the government is on their side, and ISP’s are coining it in from the widespread theft their products allow.
Well you can’t compare them to Google, because, as many would know, Google has a search engine, Google Maps, Google Earth, and other completely irrelevent products.
“Digital media companies are making all the money, because they provide a service that allow unrestricted theft of another industries produce.”
That’s because you are not comparing digital vs digital. It is obvious that digital has the advantage, since it will eventually replace (most) analog.
“You cant compete with free.”
Yes it can be competed with. You’re thinking of tangible product entities, but in reality they are copies of the original (digital) product, which in essence is different entirely.
Human factors are key when it comes to being successful, because all consumers are humans, e.g. if a consumer buys a product and hates it, that consumer may not buy products from the same company again; it’s simple human nature. Also, human wills never buy what are unknown to them, with possible exceptions beyond me.
“everytime you steal via a torrent, then the ISP gets paid, and the TPB or other pointer get paid via adverts ( google or otherwise) and porn offerings.”
What on Earth are you talking about? First of all, ISPs don’t get paid by the download or upload.
Second, I’ve never seen anything considered to be blatant “porn offerings” on ordinary visits to TPB site.
You also cannot assume that the content is always stolen, because anyone who downloads it may also buy it if one were able to and also were to like it, or else would never have bothered with it in the first place, let alone download it and waste time/effort.
“There’s been plenty of legal digital music distribution outlets for the past 5 years at least, incl. itunes but few ppl want to use them when they can steal for the price of a broadband connection.
And plenty of digital solutions have died because no one wanted to use them, again proving you cant compete with free.”
What solutions? Were they even considered good ones? Also, what content did they provide? You can’t prove something without any contextual links. Also, iTunes is also quite popular from what I know even though many never use it.
“I’d agree that blanket music licensing could work, but the ISP’s aren’t interested while the government is on their side, and ISP’s are coining it in from the widespread theft their products allow.”
That a stereotypical generalization at best and also an incorrect one. I’m going to omit the reasoning, since you can just read the other ZeroPaid articles that say otherwise.
Concerning “theft their products allow”, one cannot control all unintended functions of a product, e.g. mobile vehicles can be used to commit crimes, but it’s not like the retailers or manufacturers are going expect that.
“any efforts to hinder or prevent that ability without trial is far worse for UK society than any problems illegal file-sharing may pose.”
you mean like encouraging a generation that theft and/or copyright infringement is ok, because you profit from it?
If you get mugged by some that thinks that theft is ok, or preventive action won’t be enforced, then don’t complain.
Mugging is a violent crime, the comparison is idiotic. Also, its been widely concluded that P2P actually increases music consumption, including one study performed by the Canadian govt no less.
do you mean its been widely concluded amongst the digertaati and ISP’s etc that p2p increase consumption? and you mean they consume or steal more, rather than buy much?
so approve the encouragemnt of theft and don’t believe it leads to further lawbreaking?
“do you mean its been widely concluded amongst the digertaati and ISP’s etc that p2p increase consumption? and you mean they consume or steal more, rather than buy much?”
First of all, souxtc said music consumption, i.e. economic consumption via sale of music. You should have already come to understand that before commenting in the first place.
“so approve the encouragemnt of theft and don’t believe it leads to further lawbreaking?”
There is a very serious distinction between merely copying an item for personal use via file-sharing and robbery: for file-sharing the owner, if any, does not lose absolute ownership of the item and the copier would not necessarily have commercial gain for it, while for robbery the ownership of the item will be stolen and the robber will usually have commercial gain for it, which is unjustified in most circumstances,
e.g. when a garden thief steals a pot tree, the original owner is robbed of it entirely, because the owner no longer has it; when someone plagiarizes, the credit of the original author is stolen, not copied.
When files are shared they don’t disappear; therefore are only copied, and I don’t mean plagiarized.
well quit peddling crap and people won’t feel the need to try before they buy