Report Claims ISP's should stop Illegal file Sharing of Music

 

 

There has been a lot happening in the past few days with the recording industry having a few wins. The UK have legislated that ISP inform by letter and education that P2P file sharing of copyright material is illegal.

A Case in Dublin Ireland this week settled to the Recording Industry pressure to do similar with threats of disconnecting them from the service if the practice does not cease. http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_news/20090129a.html

 

This report commissioned by International Federation of the Phonographic Industry's(IFPI) the representing body is pushing the ISP's take the action to stop the P2P downloading of content.

http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_resources/dmr2009.html

 

Why should the ISP industry be responsible to Police the Music industry. Who makes them the police and do they really want to be the police. How do  ISP identify genuine P2P download against illegal P2P.

 

The Film and Music industry should take this as an opportunity to capture and audience as Mark Pesce point out to the live presentation of "Piracy Is Good?", delivered by Mark Pesce on May 6th, 2005 at the Australian Film Television and Radio School in Sydney. To down load his presentation you have to use a bittorrent but is legal. This was done to emphasise the value in bittorrent software and P2P protocols (Mark Pesce, 2005)

You can read his presentation here at http://www.mindjack.com/feature/piracy051305.html

 

Pesce point out how the BBC1 in the UK has used bit torrent to get attention to shows like the First episode of Doctor Who and how Television Programs distribution model is not meeting the demands of the consumer and that producers need to consider other distribution models to change with the new technology and give the consumer better choices .(Mark Pesce,2005)

 

This is a survey I took part in on National Recording Association Industry Professionals  web site http://www.narip.com/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1&limit=5&limitstart=5

 

Should ISPs require customers to pay a "music tax" to combat illegal downloading?

No

24
66.7%

Yes

12
33.3%

Number of Voters
:  36

First Vote
:  Friday, 25 January 2008 21:04

Last Vote
:  Thursday, 29 January 2009 20:38

(NARIP.Com, 2009)

So this is so crazy. They now want to place the burden onto the ISP's as Tax Collectors to support their industry. Its a bit like saying you should pay me a tax for reading my Blog.

Please Pay your Tax to Chris'o Blog at PayPal please

So clearly the so far is telling them that the idea is stupid from their own members.  Log on and have your say

 

The new market opportunities for these copyright holders in a fantastic one and should be embraced. The money you will save of lawyers  would fund the new model as you would only need a few million to get it up and running.

Here are a few comments I stolen from http://www.nme.com/news/various-artists/42116  that are worth considering about this issue.

 

MartynDavenport

Jan 16, 2009

When is the music industry gonna get off it's high horse and accept that they're the criminals for the prices they charge? They can keep harping on about how wrong it is to share files, and how it damages musicians etc, but they're patronising people. Call me old-fashioned, but maybe bands would have to go back to earning their wages from doing what it is that bands are actually supposed to do, play live. Instead of only touring to advertise their over produced over-priced albums.

Hackneyman

Jan 16, 2009

Why is it, that the only people who can't work out how to make digital music downloads work for them .. are the record companies Their blanket condemnation of 'illegal downloads' and throwing arbitary figures about doesn't reflect the situation as us music fans see it.Surely some downloads, they might view as having being downloaded illegal, are just the modern equivalent to old fashioned radio play that would then lead to a 'sale'.Apparently 'legal' downloads had a very good year http://mp3.about.com/b/2009/01/02/digital-download-sales-gives-music-industry-a-boost.htm"In the top ten selling digital tracks, Leona Lewis's Bleeding Love was number one with 3.37 million downloads, followed by the track, Low, from Flo Rida Feat featuring T-Pain (2.94 million downloads). For digital albums, Coldplay's Viva La Vida triumphed in the top ten selling digital album charts with 617,000 units; Jack Johnson's Sleep Thorough The Static was number 2 with 325,000 units sold"According to their 95% of all downloads are illegal statement then those figures above = 5% of 'potential sales which means that we were conning Leona Lewis out of 57 million extra sales - it's all just rubbish and propaganda...If the record industry keeps wining like this, the day when all recorded music is free can't be too far away, and the artists can make their money from gigs, merchandise and sponsorship... it will be the record company's own fault.HM

The Felony

Jan 16, 2009

If the record labels weren't so greedy in the first place we wouldn't have this problem. It's appalling what they pay the artists. I'd rather not give my money to them. There is a benefit of illegal downloading; its caused listeners to find new music and not just listen to regurgitated rubbish in the pop charts.

 

I just note the figures from Hackneyman on legal music down loads and show how artist are becoming popular by producing their music for free and still enjoy strong sales.

 

For further reading have a read of the reviews on mp3.about.com

http://mp3.about.com/od/digitalmusicdelivery/a/mp3annualreview.htm

References

Mark Pesce,2005,"Piracy Is Good?",viewed 30 January 2009, from http://www.mindjack.com/feature/piracy051305.html

http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_news/20090129a.html

http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_resources/dmr2009.html

NARIP.com, 2009,"Survey", viewed 30 Januarys 2009,from http://www.narip.com/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1&limit=5&limitstart=5

nme.com,"Music Industry Claim 95% of downloads are illegal",viewed 30th January 2009,from http://www.nme.com/news/various-artists/42116

Banned Photo What's Next

Photo by Nicole Boenig Mcgrade

This photo was originally banned by the City of Subiaco.

Well the Politically Correct  City Of Subiaco decided this photo was did  not meet the Australia Council's new protocol for artists working with children(ABC,2009)

 

Although the ban had been lifted it just shows how ridiculous this thing become when people try to censor content on what they think or is right or wrong that effects others.

So you can see why we do not want Internet censorship in Australia if this sort of thing keep happening. and we will never know what the Government is censoring

 

To the Photographer Nicole Boenig Mcgrade. Great Photo takes me back to my a time in the past when we played in the streets as kids.

Clean Feed Filter survey out by Netscape

Netscape a released a comprehensive survey about the Federal Government Clean Feed policy taken from a sample of 10,000 participants with fairly predicable results.

http://www.netspace.net.au/filtering/results.php

Well worth a look

US Study shuns Australian Internet Censorship Clean Feed

As study this week released by Derek E. Bambauer Brooklyn Law School  titled Filtering in Oz: Australia's Foray into Internet Censorship that condemns the idea and reveals it unworkable.

The study also had concerns of the Australian Government lack of clarity on what content will be filtered.

You can down load the study here http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1319466

 

Or for a brief overview Crikey.com has an article here http://www.crikey.com.au/Politics/20090109-Brooklyn-Law-School-study-highlights-net-censorship-problems.html

 

One scary though that I read in the study was and I quote.

Furthermore, Minister Conroy has suggested that
opponents of the filtering program support child pornography.164

Minister Conroy your country must be all pedophiles.   " You idiot !!!" In a tone to say think about what your doing here sir.

Bambauer, Derek E.,2008,Filtering in Oz: Australia's Foray into Internet Censorship(December 22, 2008). Brooklyn Law School, Legal Studies Paper No. 125. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1319466

You Tube used by a Vigilante to lure pedophiles

Here is a story published today on news.com about this vigilante trying to lure pedophiles on You tube.

He has posted the men's faces, nude pictures, registration plates and mobile phone numbers on the site as well as their conversations.(news.com,January 11, 2009)

The police advice that he may interfere with the other investigations by sending the pedophiles underground. This bring back the question of free speech and space the Internet provides. Although I consider what this man is doing is very Nobel of him but I also believe it is very dangerous of him. Its is well known over the world that police forces are continually  fighting the battle of child pornography and pedophilia on the Internet buy joining chat channels and social network sites acting out as children in a bid to lure these leaches. So this mans efforts could interfere with the  work they are doing.

 

Will the governments clean feed  stop this man from exercising his free speech on the Internet is worth the debate. Is what he is doing going to make a difference to protecting young children from these sick individuals.

Well I say no he wont. Leave this to the experts who now have several years of experience in the Internet pedophiles.

Clean Feed Self Regulation Model

As governments continue to control the Internet many advocate that Self Regulation is a better model for controlling the Internet. With the Australian Clean Feed  proposal almost ready to go to trial  and a loud out burst from civil libertarians   Steven Conroy is committed to see this through.

What about select regulation of the Internet? How does it work and and could it be used to control banned content from the Internet. ?

As most European Countries have a voluntary code with ISP filtering its is very much a self regulated model.  In the Australian Government report commissioned by the Howard government  and completed after the Rudd Government came to power It claims that the filters in Europe contain about 1800 entries blocking Child Pornography sites from around the world.(Internet Industry Association Feasibility Study - ISP Level Content Filtering,n.d)

  This is a very small database and if that what we are spending our money on then a data base with 1800 entries would certainly make very little difference to the performance of the Internet. One would say that you could support this proposal as it not a huge database and if it helps against this hideous industry of Child abuse then lets do it. But the idea has a much wider implications than these 1800 records. Suppose the government wanted to block  site that where not politically correct  or any one who spoke out against them such as the filtering system in china. In Australia and other free speaking countries would bring the Internet to stop.

Some European Countries filter Online Gambling site as well as Child Pornography Site. How many categories can filtering extend to.

The new issue has raised with Bit torrent filtering the the Australian Government wants to implement to combat  banned content.  Apparently this is feasible possible and I imagine through DNS filtering " Blocking the domain the content is coming from" to do this. Although bit torrent may be a method to access banned content there is still legitimate content available through bit torrents. The commercial world is using the technology to provide content to customers such as software vendors proving trail software. There is also the video market using Bit Torrent to distribute video trailer.  Restrictions on this technology will kill it and limit  us to high speed downloads.

Now you would have to imagine that there need to be some manual interception to completely stop the transmission of banned content. How do you manage compression files that  have been encrypted. How does filtering know the content of these files without the use of the encryption key to decode it. Well the only way is the do the same as the perpetrators of the this material do to intervene its it distribution. Lets face it this is what the filter is suppose to achieve or is there another agenda to it that has not been discovered.

So you would think in the end the money would be better spent on the Australian Federal Police to combat Internet crime.

Bill your Phone Company for wasting your time

I found this interesting blog about a man who sent his phone company a bill for wasting his time and they paid it. view here

No would our Telco's here do this? I think not.  I had some phone trouble a couple of years ago and I needed Telstra to reconnect my line before I could churn my account.  So I gave my credit card details to have the service installed and the day after the phone was installed I change service providers.  Telstra sent me a credit notice of $15.35 for overpayment. 2 and 1/2 years later I still receive  a credit notice that my account is $15.35 in credit.

Now for those of you that have had demand for payment letters from Telstra know there they don't muck around about asking for their money. I acquired one of these letters and edited it with my details and sent to Telstra. Really only for a laugh and I bet they are still laughing about it at Telstra because I never got a response.

Then there was the door to door salesman selling mobile phone for Voda Phone. He told me he will unlock my phone so I can change to Voda Phone. As I was selling Phone at the time  I knew he could not do that. However he got me to sign a contract and when he was leaving he announced that he could not unlock the phone and I needed to go to Telstra to do so.  I asked then to cancel the contract as the deal was of no value to me. He ran out the door and I chased him up the street. He wasn't going to cancel the contract.

I rang the company immediately to say I don’t want this and the man on the phone told me to sleep on it. If could have stretched my hand down the phone and grab him by the throat then I may have been writing this from jail.

SO not been happy with this I tried to contact Voda Phone direct.  After several trick like never do what they say so an operator then helps you I got to talk to a human  who tried to help and put me through to finance who I spoke to someone who said they will make sure that the contract gets cancelled and no money will leave my account.

Sure enough Money did leave my account the next month and I quickly contacted Voda Phone and informed them I am not a happy chappy.  Well it took 3 days of negotiations to finally needing to threaten legal action to get the money returned to my account.

Now despite the fact that it was still $1 short. there was the cost of several phone calls and faxes to sort this. But I was happy at the time just to get my money back and stop them taking money out of my bank. But maybe I should have billed them for their trouble.