Comments on: The Independent View: Making your voice heard on the file-sharing law

By: Home Taping Is Killing Music Industry Profits | Nomad Radio

Home Taping Is Killing Music Industry Profits | Nomad Radio — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 11:41:39 +0000

[...] around various blog posts on the government’s disproportionate, draconian and hopefully unworkable plans to [...]

By: Libdem Guru

Libdem Guru — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 00:34:04 +0000

The Law protects the big and small acts. End of story.

Circumvention of the 2003 Act is just that. The ISP’s have indirectly made a fortune from illegal copyright material and they should pay up.

By: Hywel

Hywel — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 23:25:25 +0000

“Piracy is a reaction to goods that are not worth the price that the companies are asking, nothing more.”

Metallica managed to sell plenty of stuff though (though personally I think everything from “And Justice…” onwards isn’t even worth downloading for free)

By: Herbert Brown

Herbert Brown — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 23:14:22 +0000

Andrew

I could have sworn I was told only a few hours ago that there were no effective anti-sharing measures, short of a totalitarian state. And that was why it was “illiberal” for file-sharing to be illegal.

And supposing such things did exist, how on earth could you know how many additional sales had been generated? Let alone what proportion of the others were “unable to pay”. Can you back up any of the claims you’re making?

By: Andrew Suffield

Andrew Suffield — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 21:38:49 +0000

Are you sure it’s not a desire to get something for nothing – regardless of whether the goods are worth the asking price?

The following data point is relevant: the conversion rate for effective anti-sharing measures is about 1:1000 – that is, you get about one additional sale for every thousand copies prevented. Most people who are receiving shared files are doing so opportunistically; they would not pay for the item. Of these, the majority are unable to pay due to limited or no income. The “untapped customer base of file sharers” notion is a myth; if it wasn’t available for free, they would just go without.

Whether that translates into “a desire to get something for nothing” is a subjective judgement on precisely what that means. Industry claims of “losses” are pure fiction though – their goal here is to convince other people to pay for them to get that fraction of a percent.

By: Richard

Richard — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 20:02:58 +0000

Thanks for all the responses – hope you’ll all be sending in your criticisms to the government!

By: Andrew Suffield

Andrew Suffield — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 16:03:41 +0000

Here’s a random but curious observation: while less insane than what the US is up to, the proposals here are to make the penalties for sharing your possessions with your friends approximately 100 times higher than the penalties for shoplifting the CDs.

The message they are sending is very clear: steal, don’t share.

(There’s a campaign slogan for you)

By: Herbert Brown

Herbert Brown — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 16:02:26 +0000

“Piracy is a reaction to goods that are not worth the price that the companies are asking, nothing more.”

Are you sure it’s not a desire to get something for nothing – regardless of whether the goods are worth the asking price?

By: Huw Dawson

Huw Dawson — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 13:58:45 +0000

We all know how this legislation is going to turn out – reactionary and internet illiterate. Piracy is a reaction to goods that are not worth the price that the companies are asking, nothing more.

By: Nathan Massey

Nathan Massey — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 09:41:59 +0000

I think the fact that our online communications in this country are tracked and recorded at all is appalling, and this proposed legislation will only further the governments intrusion into our lives. You wouldn’t be very happy if all your post arrived opened each morning because the government had to make sure you weren’t receiving letters that contained copyright material would you? Yet this is exactly the sort of thing that is being proposed.

As a private citizen, your business is your own. These big media businesses need to realize that their old business models don’t work in today’s world, and should be looking to new ways to monetize their content (Spotify is a great example), rather than fining and jailing anyone they please.

By: Tim

Tim — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 09:15:00 +0000

Yes, I think I agree with you. However, if there had been an ongoing petition then I would have felt duty-bound to sign, rather than have it seem like the campaign had less support than it did.

Thanks for flagging up this issue, by the way. I’m consistently shocked how few people care one way or the other about issues around intellectual property, privacy and the Internet.

By: Richard

Richard — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 09:03:39 +0000

Tim – Yes, unusual to find a subject without a No10 petition about it… but for now I think the consultation is the better way to protest to the government

By: Tim

Tim — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 08:52:14 +0000

I did a quick search, but (somewhat surprisingly) I can’t find any e-petitions on number10.gov.uk pertaining to this.

There were, however, a worrying number of petitions for internet censorship. People scare me sometimes.