Peter Mandelson’s proposals to introduce harsh penalties for people suspected of making illegal file downloads have come in for much criticism, particularly for the low standard of proof that would be required and for deploying too much stick and not enough carrot in an attempt to change people’s behaviour. So it was the main topic I picked for the bloggers interview with Nick Clegg during party conference.
Here is Nick’s answer:
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33 Comments
I’m so angry about this clip, I’ll make sure that by the election every musician I know has seen this.
Theft is a serious issue; it’s not illiberal to prevent it. I didn’t know politicians were that clueless as to how the music industry works and what’s happening to it. You’ll all be sorry when England has lost an industry that we’ve been a worldwide leader in for over 40 years, because it simple isn’t profitable any more for newcomers. That time is now – anyone that works in music knows this. His comments in your video above show a mindblowing lack of comprehension as to how normal musicians make a living and technology. As we know, service providers can simply pull the plug on connections, it’s not as crazy as he makes out. He made Mandelson sound well-considered and rational.
If you’re in any way a creative person, you’d have to be insane to vote for the Liberal Democrats given the view of their leader on Intellectual Property. If you value the UK’s position in the arts, media and music you’d never vote for Nick – as he says, he’s no an expert on this subject.
If Clegg had any guts he would say a Lib Dem Government would continue with the current approach of turning a blind eye. What I just saw on that Youtube video was a sort of mealy mouthed “yes, I can understand X but I can also understand Y”.
It’s not theft.
ISPs actually cannot simply pull the plug because they need a court order.
“Will somebody please think of the poor musicians” is a poor stance to take on this issue, because filesharing allows them the greatest opportunity for self promotion ever. On top of this, it is not the case that a new musician cannot get a record contract because the record labels cannot afford it. The record labels rely on the wholly pathetic excuse of a copyright system to make very large pots of cash. Filesharing is a scapegoat they use when people ask them why they’re not doing as well as forcasted, despite the fact that the real problem is that they have totally failed to take steps to embrace the true potential of the internet.
Filesharing =/= music downloads. Filesharing is everything from the latest Tarantino film to the latest (fully free) release of Ubuntu which is developed on the Isle of Man.
Clegg did not come out on the side of illegal filesharers, he came out in the middle – he leans towards an open internet but he also recognises that people still need to make money.
In addition, you might be surprised by this but it’s not terribly hard to find most bands music for free, thanks to services by, for example, Spotify. This is how filesharing SHOULD work to the artist’s benefit. Listen to their album for free, payed for by advertising, then go and see them live/buy the CD/decide they’re not very good and don’t bother.
Hmm, still a bit evasively fence-bound, isn’t it? And this is preaching to the choir, too.
It’s a fair summation of the issues, but I don’t hear much actual opinion; and not even the germ of an actual policy.
And with all respect I have to ask Krzysztof; what industry are you in? Is it one where you expect to be paid for today’s work, for the rest of your life? Because that’s the orthodoxy of privilege that the “struggling artist” argument is really defending. The issue is NOT theft – it is the parasitic layers of artless extortion that stand between the consumer and the product.
Ugh, typos galore.
I didn’t even watch the video to the end, because the first 90+ seconds are pure waffle.
What is the Lib Dem official line on filesharing and the government’s current consultation? Why doesn’t Nick know what the line is, if we have one, and why don’t we have one, if we don’t?
Hey Rob
I’ve got a small band signed to a UK independent. I don’t expect to be paid forever for something, but getting paid in the first instance would be a good start. To clarify, this isn’t so much about copyright as people downloading rips of your album for free. Basically, the answer for the artist is to make more commercial music; I think there are a lot of bands we have today that would never of happened if they thought like that – Pink Floyd, for example. I’m all in favour of reducing the copyright terms – 20-30 years seems ample to me. Licensing is (/was) usually secondary to independents, selling comparatively small numbers of units profitably is what’s given the UK one of (if not the) most diverse musical cultures on this planet. You can download a lot of independents discographies wholesale now, for free – the collective work of hundreds of normal musicians for nothing. The majority of the people effected by this are gigging musicians, they get paid £50 or so for a gig and get a few quid here and there from recording and publishing. They’re not popstars, they’re the fabric of music in this country and they’re the exact people you’re attacking. Popstars will still get their advances, and live in their unreal world – it’s the normal musician that are most damaged by such attitudes. Majors don’t need to balance the books in a single industry, they can sustain losses in a way independents can’t. How is this any different from the “support local farmers” argument? Why are you so defensive of some industries but you’d leave music exclusively in the hands of big business?!
On the day of release of our album we found a blog with a link to it and a hit counter for that link, the number far exceeded what we’d ever hoped to sell; hundreds of blogs posted the album. 5 years ago a big proportion of those downloaders would have used it as a preview and bought the album, now they’re so used to it they just don’t buy any more (people justify this with the “we go to gigs” argument, which I’ll come on to later); this is a cultural trend. Music is no longer a good career choice in the UK, the industry is too unstable to rely upon in any way – when you have kids this is not going to be a lifestyle that sustains your family unless you are very, very lucky. What this will mean is less young people choosing to create music in the UK.
Huw
The only people that think it isn’t theft have never spent 2 years of their life making something, only to have it stolen. That is the divide. In reality very little of what you say is true and you’ve just made the argument for disposable culture and mediocrity in music. Good luck with that.
What ISPs can and can’t do is a function of legislation, and that is what we’re debating. Therefore, the status quo is of no interest.
Regarding the free publicity that you speak of, what exactly are you publicising, given that you’ve already given away your product for free? Gigs? I think you need a reality check, go and talk to some bands about the current landscape – for all but the biggest bands it’s hard to command a fee that could in any way be considered a wage. How do you think they should live? Let me explain how this works : major=advance, indie=split profits. If there are no profits to split then the only people that can operate are majors, because they can cross-sell (Hannah Montana, High School Musical, Pop Idol, American Idol, etc, etc); they have access to multiple revenue streams that indies don’t.
Spotify is a step in the right direction, but as you point out, it isn’t free at all, it’s simply paid for with advertising. So, in this paradigm you’re suggesting reducing the quality of music listened to (the streams are well below CD quality) and accepting advertising whilst listening. Is that the listening experience that you want our culture to have? If you think paid for by advertising works then you probably want to get rid of the BBC too – but, as we know, the Beeb seems to make better quality programmes because of the way it’s funded…..maybe funding all our art via adverting isn’t such a good idea?!
“Filesharing is a scapegoat they use when people ask them why they’re not doing as well as forcasted, despite the fact that the real problem is that they have totally failed to take steps to embrace the true potential of the internet.”
Indies don’t forecast, they put out music they believe in and pray it’ll work! Indies don’t spend lots of money of advertising and they’re usually at the forefront of embracing “the true potential of the internet”. You may see this as a lack of business savvy, yet for 30 years we’ve led the world in the creation of independent labels and developing alternative artists; these labels and artists often don’t have a lot of money, they create some of the most diverse music the country has to offer. Everything works on small margins, and as those margins decrease it’s becoming harder for them to operate outside of popular culture. Read up about Rough Trade, Factory, WARP, ZTT, Domino, Ninja Tune , Creation, Tru Thoughts, XL, Beggars Banquet, etc – none of them would exist in the world you envisage, and without them, I can’t see that Britain would have much of a musical legacy. Your argument basically means that only majors could compete, and they will be increasingly less likely to take risks; so when you’re sick to death of hearing the latest pop idol in 10 years time and there’s no alternative, recognise that your own attitude caused the problem. This stance has and will lead to people like Simon Cowell becoming the profitable arm of music.
Perhaps the Lib Dems could be really radical and come out against the very idea of IP from a radical Liberal position? Some good arguments here: http://mises.org/books/against.pdf
Krzysztof
You have a lot of valid points, but you’re still missing the really big issue.
Filesharing is here to stay not least because it has masses of legitimate uses (open source software, the patches for my online game etc). The failure of the music industry to embrace then new technologies means that you’ve lost one, and maybe soon two, generations of listeners and turning them all into criminals by passing draconian laws that do nothing but alienate them will only dig the hole you’re in deeper. You need to change attitudes. You won’t succeed with the current generation, give up on them as the cost of your own failures, and look to winning the next generation; with luck if you provide the service people want, you’ll also win back a large proportion of the current generation.
The music industry has for a very long time been it’s own worst enemy. How many millions of people were driven to filesharing by the stupid DRM the music industry used to use? I paid for the music, but it won’t work in my car, it won’t work on my computer, it won’t work on my mp3 player. I have to own 3 different mp3 players because different music companies use different DRM. The company or service stops and the music I own can’t be played any more.
If you are faced with two choices; the easy and the hard, you’ll chose the easy; even better if it’s free.
What the music industry has to do is provide a service that people want, that’s easier and better than the illegal firesharing and priced at a level people are prepared to pay. People will pay for convenience, and people prefer to be law-abiding, yet you’ll always drive people to the illegal stuff unless you provide it at a price they perceive to be appropriate. That’s as true about illegal music downloads as it’s been for every other commodity. THe massive US book publishing industry started as a pirate organisation, selling illegal copies of UK books, eventually it went legit. You need to find a way to make filesharing and music-downloading legit. People want it, that’s obvious, you need to find a way to provide it.
You need to treat illegal filesharing as you would any competitor. Why does someone buy expensive designer goods instead of cheaper ones? Why buy the more expensive mp3 player, instead of the dirt cheap one? You need to figure out as an industry how to provide something the consumer is happy to pay for.
If you want a suggestion.. here’s mine.
A single online “store” for music, backed by every single record label, with every possible song available (a one-stop-shop) (Why hunt around 5 different websites for your favourite bands, with different payment system, layouts, etc, if you can download them all from one place for free?)
It provides a spotify type service, using ads or very cheap subscription service, allowing people to preview bands, albums, get used to them, or maybe micro-payments (1p a play for example).
An easy way to “share” music with your friends (e.g. playlists in the spotify-type-service). Nothing promotes a band better than one person giving someone else a copy saying “here, listen to this, it’s fantastic”.
Easy ability to buy stuff from the band, e.g. concert tickets, merchandise. Maybe give people a “free” month’s subscription if they spend over a certain amount.
Allow easy purchasing of physical copies.
Provide free (and DRM free) digital downloads of any physical media bought.
Allow artists to supply directly, not just labels. (a system like amazon-market place for example)
Pay a sizeable portion of the profit to the artists, people would much rather their money goes to their favourite band than some corporate suit.
None of this regional restriction (cartel) behaviour. The service and all the music must be available in all countries at the same time. Those that are left out will just go back to filesharing.
Easy to use interface.
The better your service, the more people will use it, the less people will be on filesharing networks and the less music will be available on filesharing networks and the more people will need to turn to your service for their music.
If you want a far-away, although possibly quite appropriate, analogy (a friend once described the music industry as government supported drug cartels): If the government made heroin available from legal shops, people would buy it there in preference to the drug pushers, even if the cost was the same. It’s safer, it’s legit, it’s much more convenient.
The war on filesharing, just like the war on drugs, will never be won. People will always want to fileshare, just as people will always want to do drugs, what you need to do as an industry is figure out how you can convince most people to use your service, not the competition. Making your customers criminals for wanting your product can hardly be good for business; if they have to pay massive fines, or go to jail, they certainly won’t buy your music.
Hey Martin
Thanks for your reply. Completely agree with much of what you’ve said, indeed a decent platform, with a level playing field for all would be a great thing. I know only too well that it’s far easier, quick and more convenient to download than any other method currently available – this is frustrating. I used to agree with nearly everything you said, then I went through the process and had a rethink. A decade or so ago the internet, and even filesharing was pretty healthy for music. People found single pieces of new music on Napster, took ages to download on dial-up, and often went out and bought the CD on the strength of it – I did it, it was great; bought more music than at any other time in my life. Now you can get nearly entire genres of music. That is a big difference from the Napster days. Early on filesharers were the biggest music purchasers I knew, but now my neighbour gets his entire music collection from torrents, things have started to go badly wrong and this will have a trickle down effect on the smallest selling independent labels – the very culture that makes the UK music industry so interesting and diverse. What you’re left with is mainstream pap made by corporations that are entirely concerned with making money in the long term, in several different industries. They don’t care if they can’t make money on the music, that can be written off against other activities.
Regarding “the music industry” – its pretty big, and its hard to make generalisations about it such as the ones you’ve drawn. Many record companies were as opposed to DRM as we are; it’s not their “fault” – for an independent two man operation it’s hard to pay hundreds of thousands for people to sit on standards committees…actually, it’s not hard, it’s simply not possible. The vast majority of the music industry has little to no say in the overall development – that’s still largely the domain of the majors and Apple.
The “war” on drugs and downloads are not the same thing.
Drugs are obtained via illegal, unregulated distribution networks.
Downloads are obtained via regulated, legal distribution networks.
This idea that it can’t be stopped is largely bollocks, perpetuated by folks that don’t understand how them interwebs work. Most forms of filesharing is still done on centralised servers, and the traffic is passed through many very well regulated networks and hubs. We already inspect what goes through these nodes. We’ve done very well as a society at stopping child porn with these methods (and that also helped clean up the music industry a bit too). My big gripe is how mainstream and normal its become, and that nobody really thinks that matters – I wouldn’t really care if I thought people naturally had some kind of “fair-use” morality built-in; I used to think that was the case, but in recent years I’m less sure of it, people now seem to take it for granted. It’s a social norm to download everything an artist has made without giving anything in return for it, if you can’t see any issue with this then you’ve invented an entirely new form of socialism – even Marx would of had issues with this arrangement!
“You need to treat illegal filesharing as you would any competitor. Why does someone buy expensive designer goods instead of cheaper ones? Why buy the more expensive mp3 player, instead of the dirt cheap one? You need to figure out as an industry how to provide something the consumer is happy to pay for.”
Why would you be happy to pay for anything if it was free elsewhere?
I know a lot of people think it isn’t stealing, but it is. You can get it on Spotify, youtube and there are previews on amazon, the company website, our website, myspace, etc. So when people download a CD quality rip, they’re not usually there to preview it. It just so happens the product I make can be easily reproduced, if I stole your product would you be happy? To be honest, it’s not even the “try before you buy” culture I have an issue with, it’s that we have new generations of people that really don’t see that there’s a problem at all here – your “lost” generations.
Generally, you get what you pay for. Sorry for any typos, in a hurry!
Krzysztof: you ask, “Why would you be happy to pay for anything if it was free elsewhere?” People do that all the time though. A great current example is Chris Anderson’s book “Free”, which is all about the economics of having goods and services available for free and how people can still earn a living. The book is available in numerous places online for free but is also selling lots of traditional printed copies through bookstores. His thinking is that providing the free versions means he ends up earning more, not less, because the free versions act as advertising both for the printed versions and for other things he can sell, such as his time for personal appearances.
Mark
People read this blog to determine what the Lib Dems think on certain issues. Lets hope that your post isn’t indicative of general Lib Dem economic thinking; the inference seems to be that if we all gave things away, we’d all make more money.
Srsly.
It’s truly disturbing that you seem to have groupthink that’s beyond socialism (the 2 main parties at least try to sound grown up on these issues) but it would seem the Lib Dem position is complete disdain for IP and for the music industry. This collective wisdom that musicians should give thier primary product away free in favour of secondary/tertiary revenue streams is just silly.
I’ve got a feeling when it gets to the election the Lib Dems are going to have a big problem with diminishing returns in this marginal too. Anyway, I’m off to a festival in Holland, have a good weekend all – be seeing you.
Krzysztof: I don’t think it’s the case that everyone would always make more money by giving things away for free, but there are a large and growing number of good, hard examples where firms and people have evolved their business model, with a success that isn’t measured in some vague “groupthink” but in the hard realities of pounds and pence in their bank accounts. The book I mentioned has plenty of good examples of this – well worth a look at, especially as you can get it for free! – but this has also been a regular features of the music industry over the years, with the shifts between the primary sources of income between sheet music sales, live appearances, broadcast fees and recording sales. You talk about the sale of recording being the “primary product” of the music industry, but for decades previously it wasn’t. Given how often the industry has shifted around between these four sources of income, it would seem very odd to me for someone to now argue that the current balance is the only one possible and should stay that way in perpetuity.
Peter Mandelson’s proposals is harsh one so as this video. This video is completely ridiculous.
Mark
I read as much of the book you suggested as I could find – bit shocked by how far from reality you are with this stuff.
Before I proceed, I’d like to prefix this with a fact from the Smith Institute website : “Design, advertising, music, film and TV, fashion, computer games and publishing produce a higher proportion of our total wealth than anywhere else in the world.”
So, it is the fundamentals of our economy you’re toying with here – I want to make this clear. If you’re incapable of understanding and protecting the basics of economy, why would anyone vote for you?!
I assume your post (as with the book “Free”) applies to all IP that can be digitally reproduced : music, design, software, literature, film, tv & radio, etc. It seems you and Huw would like to see all things that could be free removed from the UK economy, and used as advertising for America corporations (Google, MS, etc). The Lib Dem trade deficit sounds like it’s going to be pretty exciting; I was under the impression it was tax cuts, not revenue cuts you were interested in.
Firstly – do you realise the size of the music industry before it made money from recorded music? The advent of the 7″ vinyl record revolutionised the industry and gave us the infrastructure we have today; prior to that, it’s hard to call it an industry at all. Recorded music makes up 80% of the current revenue of UK musicians, that’s what you’re trying to replace with “free”. The cost to the UK economy of your suggestions, in music alone, would be roughly £3.2bn. (source : PRS). Advertising and sponsorship, as a revenue stream for UK musicians has FALLEN over the past 3 years by 3% – this would include your “Free” replacement revenue streams. You need to adjust to the realities of these things, instead of making cheap (/free), flippant suggestions if you’re ever to appear fit for government.
Secondly – your 4 sources of income are hilarious. Musicians in the past 50 years have made more money from merchandise than sheet music. Most musicians are extremely adept at tapping multiple revenue streams, I was selling music on the internet over a decade ago and in the interim many things have happened that have provided secondary incomes for short periods. We already gig as much as we can and this avenue has plateaued over the past few years; the fallacy that live gigs will continue to make up the deficit is perpetuated by folk that are clueless on these issues – they themselves have no personal experience. We’re in a recession now, I feel fairly confident this years figures will demonstrate that gigs won’t make up the difference indefinitely. None of this changes the fact that the whole thing hinges on sales of recorded music. Without those sales we’d lose our independent industry for good – Simon Cowell may well appreciate your suggestions, but they’re not going to help anyone that makes anything other than populist trash.
I’m not saying the current balance is the only one possible – I’m saying that as sales of recorded music slump, we’ll lose our independent music scene and that will be tragic. Music will carry on, but our countries culture will be greatly diminished.
>The book I mentioned has plenty of good examples of this – well worth a look at, especially as you can get it for free!
You can only get it free illegally now – the author withdrew his giveaway in favour of traditional revenue streams. What a shock! Doesn’t that rather undermine your argument? Surely if he had the basics of a decent concept he’d be able to give us a proper proof of concept? (Especially as he’s first to market). Also, there is the small matter of the books content regarding the music industry – if what he said were true, we’d write off some of our biggest exports : music, film and literature are basics of our economy, yet it infers we should be doing it “just for fun”. What are the Lib Dems going to do to replace the vast hole you’d leave in our economy? I’m a little shocked that anyone involved in politics could be so flippant about such fundamentals – we’re talking roughly 10% of our GDP (including all other reproducible creative products) and you seem completely at ease with that. When Nick said savage cuts, I didn’t realise that it was the countries revenue he was savaging!
I just don’t think you understand this country, its economy or the future of that, and have demonstrated as such above. Suggesting industries can, en masse, run by giving away the primary product for free is hilarious, and slightly unhinged. If you really think your suggestions are a viable future for our creative industries I’d like to see a budget based on such bizarre thought, removing the sales of music, films, tv, books, etc, from our economy and replacing it with Google Ads/Web 2.0 revenue.
>the hard realities of pounds and pence in their bank accounts
I’ve met thousands of musicians, but I’ve yet to come across one that makes his living in the manner you suggest. Is this not a perfect example of the Lib Dems daydream policy culture? You introduce me to a real, living musician that earns money in the fashion you suggest, then we’ve got a debate, instead of a ridiculous marketing ploy that you’ve fallen into, that even the author can’t fully exemplify, that you’re now saying should become a fundamental of our economy.
This thread stands as tragic testament to what Lib Dems really think of the very industries keeping this country afloat. We’ll pay you back at the polling booth – we’re all Lib Dem voters and have been for decades, up until now.
If the Lib Dems are the party of the freetard then there’s clearly no place in it for creatives. Good luck with free.
£3.2bn is approximately 0.23% of Britain’s £1400bn GDP. Just to put that number in proportion.
Hi Sanbikinoraion
A quarter of one percent is a lot of GDP for a single product, plus it’s not just this product, it’s all digitally reproducable creations that our country produces. Also, that particular product clearly has a whole heap of dependancies.
We’re the second largest exporter of TV programmes in the world. Our film industry is one of the few area that our economy is growing in, The rules apply to all of these parts of our economy, not just music, surely?! Are you really ready to write off these important growth sectors in favour of Free?!
“the Creative Industry…accounts for 6.4% of UK Gross Value Added and is the largest in Europe with some 157,400 businesses in 2008.”
http://ukinargentina.fco.gov.uk
Krzysztof
I’ve read this thread with interest, and I found your arguments about penalties for illegal downloading and file-sharing convincing. And I think you’ve made good counter-arguments to the points put to you. I’m surprised this particular viewpoint from an independent musician isn’t heard more often in the cacophony of noise about this issue.
I don’t know what the party position is on this, despite a trip to the official website http://www.libdems.org.uk and to Don Foster’s website. Maybe I didn’t look hard enough.
Given Nick Clegg’s even-handedness in the video clip, I suspect the unofficial policy is one of keeping quiet on the principles (because of the risk of repelling either creatives on the one hand or downloaders on the other) while at the same time opposing the likely heavy-handed proposals of the Labour party.
So I wonder if LibDemVoice might be interested in an Opinion piece by you, to bring this viewpoint to wider attention and perhaps to continue the discussion?
Hi Lonely Wonderer
Sadly, what I’m doing here is considered professional suicide to most musicians (they’re probably right) – my friends and family have told me not to do this. Musicians are a bunch of lefties really, so asking people not to steal our precious music makes us sound like tossers – just look at what happened to Lily Allen when she tried to express these opinions last week!! My view is common in the industry, but usually expressed behind closed doors, it’s not cool to say these things. However, our indie scene is beyond cool, it’s part of our culture and we need it – if it dies without anyone saying anything I’d feel worse than getting harpooned by some Lib Dems on a blog.
Unlike Nick Clegg, I don’t think the neutral position helps the party at all. It seems extremely dangerous to me to suggest that big chunks of our economy are a free-for-all; we could stop most of this problem overnight without any disconnections, court-cases, etc. We did it with child porn, terrorist materials, etc. Packet sniffing is the norm now on most high traffic nodes, has been for years – very funny to hear Nicks view on what action can/can’t be taken. We don’t care about hardened file-sharers, they will always do it, but I’m not happy that it’s easier to obtain material illegally than it is legally and I’m even less happy that Nick can walk around in a circle and say absolutely nothing.
To demonstrate how this feels, I’m going to try to get rid of my local Lib Dem MP; deny her a job so she understands what happens when your industry is attacked and there is nobody there to defend you (my family worked hard to elect her…myself included). Most of the people that download without any expenditure on music are lost to us both – they don’t buy music, and they tend not to be the voting sort either – they care as much about you as they do I (not a jot). I never lost a sale arguing with them, and you won’t lose a vote!
People really think the industry is populated with rich rock stars that are owned by big corporations, they don’t see the underground culture of fresh, innovative music made by people barely breaking even, just making enough to do one more record. That is what UK independent music is really like, it’s full of people that believe so strongly they’ve risked their steady job, marriage and home in order to release music they feel passionate about; only to be robbed of their years worth of work by folks like Huw that really can’t see a problem with taking content without compensating its creator, or what it means to our society in the long-term. The population consistently say that music is their favourite form of entertainment; Mark and Huw’s view above that the UK’s favourite form of entertainment should be made free-to-all just seems ludicrous and immature to me – I used to think that when I was younger and didn’t really understand the complexities of the issue very well, now I see it would be cultural suicide to continue down this route and not protect our independent content creators.
Turning a blind-eye is the most common position, but when we look again the culture that gave us the worlds most exciting music scene will have vanished, and we’ll look for someone to blame.
Regarding your last point, I don’t think anyone has the stomach to continue such a discussion. So, lets build a big fire, gather round and watch our countries creative industries disappear whilst we all make remarks about how they just couldn’t adapt to technological progress and there was nothing we could do. Remember, that argument applies just the same to child porn – the people that say it can’t be stopped just don’t understand the technology or how it has been applied – we stop and control parts of the internet all the time, right now. 90% of all file sharing traffic in the UK is coming from about a dozen IP address blocks – rapidshare.com (centralised), soulseek (centralised), torrents (port block at node), megaupload (centralised), Limewire (/Gnutella, block ports at node), etc. It wouldn’t take long at all – but politicians like Nick will always kick the ball into the long grass because he just doesn’t grasp the issue, as our country suffers, preventing any substantive action.
Just because that’s the way filesharing *currently* works certainly doesn’t mean that’s how it would continue to work. There are already 100% anonymized, encrypted darknets out there just waiting for someone to ban bittorrent before they explode in popularity, and once on the darknet it’ll be impossible to track filesharing, even through entrapment methods like honeypots. I’m afraid that it is simply too easy for people to copy stuff for free to be able to stop it via technological means.
we could stop most of this problem overnight without any disconnections, court-cases, etc. We did it with child porn, terrorist materials, etc.
Wow. Child porn and terrorist materials on the net have been stopped? Excellent news. Perhaps I’d better vote Labour after all, as they’ve obviously done a tremendous job. What else could they achieve, given the chance?
Sanbikinoraion
Both Nick Clegg and yourself seem to be under the impression that the internet is lawless and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. You’ll have to prove that here, because I’ve seen no real evidence of it (and the internet is my other job). Some countries have enacted insane, draconian restrictions on the internet usage of their populous, and have been very successful at doing so – it is clearly fallacious to suggest that the internet can’t, in the most part, be controlled and regulated. If what you say were true it would of become unusable years ago. When did the Lib Dems become so negative and powerless about things?!
I remember this darknet argument from nearly a decade ago, Microsoft published a paper, I think one of the authors was a chap named Biddle – it still hasn’t happened (uptake is comparatively poor) and there are a lot of hubs now that won’t take traffic that doesn’t have proper identification (for completely different reasons). Encrypted networks usually work on a root resource, a trustable address, and therefore are partially centralised (most of the current anon P2P “darknets” have centralised key swapping mechanisms like this). If they don’t they’re usually soft methods that are really easy to track. Also, most packet identifiers work on filesizes and pattern matching – this still works fine with encrypted data (offsetting for the predetermined key length). Encrypted networks are always slower (needs overhead for encryption). For these reasons, 100% anonymous, encrypted networks are usually a myth – you honestly think Bush would of allowed the internet to carry on unhindered post 9/11 if they couldn’t access that data?! Or that paedophiles haven’t used these methods for years, only to be caught in usage? The minute you go onto those networks you’re immediately more interesting to security services, because you’re probably up to no good.
People that say you can’t stop it have never tried. Your argument hinges upon determination, and most filesharers are not that determined, for a lot of people it’s simply convenient.
So, show me which client you mean, and we’ll investigate here just how it works, how anonymous and secure it really is, and barriers to mainstream usage. “100% anonymized, encrypted darknet” was an early naughties meme, created by Microsoft, that turned out to be a myth – it comes up in one form or another every year and yet fails to materialise as a mainstream culture…and there are obvious reasons for that. This is like the folks that thought you couldn’t get busted using proxies, only to realise that the universities that had the open proxies kept records that the local police could access, they turned out to be honeytraps really. If you meant Relakks/ipredator, then you need to Google more for the answers because it’s fairly obvious why that’s doomed, the users will explain that to you, otherwise, lets take a look at it and work out where the truth really lies. If you mean Tor, then that’s a creation of the US military – you think they’re giving you this stuff to share things for free?! Nullius in verba.
I can’t see that you’re going to let a bunch of self-professed thieves directly tunnel to your computer – several of these are browser based, and I think it hilarious that people will transmit CC details over the same port they’ve got a VPN to an illegal filesharing service running. Those are the kinds of risks that meant this kind of technology has never quite taken off – I’m not too worried about it; its always been easy to make viruses/hoax files for those networks and to make them incredibly insecure to the end user. Also, most of these services require payment, via credit card – you’re going to send your details to a company in Canada, to pay a Swedish company to access pirate copyright material? Sounds like a great plan to me…wouldn’t it be easier and safer to just purchase music? At the end of your purchase you wind up on a Swedish IP address block that we can stop as quickly as any other IP address block. Unencrypted over port 80 scares me a lot more, because everyone can and will do it.
So, show me this great “100% anonymized, encrypted darknet” and we’ll see what can be done about it. The general attitude here to everything seems to be “it can’t be stopped” – why the hell would anyone vote for a party that says nothing can be done? Just write off a significant proportion of our economy now, because it’s all doomed! It is if people like that are running the show, I can’t believe that the only solution proffered by party members in this thread is “Free”; is imagination really that lacking in the party?
If you’re a Lib Dem filesharer and disagree with me, vote for the Pirate Party. If you’re a Lib Dem creative and want to protest the Lib Dems lack of authority on the issue of the demise of your industry, vote for the major opposition party in your area. This mediocrity on important issues is surely unacceptable, the party must change, the only way I can see to achieve that now is a pasting at the ballot box removing Cable/Clegg. If you want to help me next year, get in touch, I’m pretty easy to find and would like to find some collaborators.
The internet is my job, too, not that it really matters. Again, you’re confusing what’s available *now* with what could be available if the demand was created. Give me a week and I’ll write you a p2p app that encrypts traffic (although it might not be very robust or useable!). Give me another week and I’ll write you one that can defeat packet sniffing simply by adding arbitrary traffic noise. Those two elements are sufficient to defeat the currently-proposed legislation and I would bet cash money that, if such legislation was introduced (and enforced), we’d have widespread encrypted p2p use within a couple of years. Sure, then there might be more legislation, and then more technological ‘progress’. It’s an arms race that the hackers will always win.
I don’t want to deflect our debate away from the technical issues – I don’t want to seem like I’m changing the subject – but in passing I think that it’s worth saying that perhaps there are other good reasons why we might not prefer a technological solution to the problem of people sharing copyright material for free. I for one am deeply suspicious of the idea that all of my internet traffic should be monitored all of the time – no-one is arguing that we should open everyone’s mail to ensure that there is no copyright-infringing material in that, after all, but the Royal Mail is still a pretty good way to pirate music.
Malcolm Todd
As you quoted, what I said was “we could stop most of this problem overnight”. “Most” is the operative here – you’re being rather dishonest in your quoting, and to what end? Maybe a little less churlish sarcasm and a few more facts to back up your argument wouldn’t go amiss; your reply reinforces my earlier point that the Lib Dems have become the party of inaction, preferring to sneer at a problem than find a workable solution.
I thought the success of the war against internet CP was fairly self-evident and well-documented – anyone that remembers the internet in the late nineties can surely testify from personal experience that the amount of visible CP has fallen dramatically (you used to get hideous CP spam) and there have been similar advances in policing filesharing technologies. I’m not saying there are ever “acceptable levels” for this kind of material, but combating it seems to of been very effective. According to the Independant a few weeks back “98.5 per cent of ISPs already take down or block illegal sites through the Internet Watch Foundation, a self-regulation body created in 1996 that monitors content and reports obscene images to police.” and “… the Police, Crime and Private Security Bill in the Queen’s Speech would “compel domestic ISPs to implement the blocking of illegal images of child sexual abuse” and “Other countries use goverment controls to block illegal content on the internet. In Germany, the police directly monitor websites.”
I assume there are only a finite number of paedophiles, and arrests continue to rise (10% year on year for 2008), based on better detection, therefore we are combating the problem – it may not be a fait accompli yet but it seems to be getting pretty hard to get this kind of material around online without detection, and when the new law is passed it’ll get harder again. Far from providing paedophiles with a safe haven, the internet has exposed such people and our detection methods are constantly improving – that’s why we’re arresting more of them.
At least Labour have tried, they didn’t just sneer at it as you have done. Their leader hasn’t gone on record and stated that they think the internet is “uncontrollable” and “escapes conventional control”; in the meantime they’re pushing through more policy to stop the distribution of such material online. Once again, plenty of countries control and police major internet hubs – it is possible, it is realistic and it’s happening right now.
98.5 per cent of ISPs already take down or block illegal sites through the Internet Watch Foundation, a self-regulation body created in 1996 that monitors content and reports obscene images to police
Remind me, wasn’t that the same organization that blocked Wikipedia edits for a while…?
>”you’re confusing what’s available *now* with what could be available if the demand was created”
No, you’re confusing what could be with what is. Microsoft made that case nearly a decade ago and we’ve yet to see realisation. Make the app you suggest, we try to find vulnerabilities and then you have an argument. It seems unlikely that you’re going to show up here in a fortnight with this app as you’ve suggested, so this would seem to be a blind alley you’re walking us down.
>It’s an arms race that the hackers will always win.
They may win the code, but it doesn’t mean they’ll create a technology my neighbour will use.
>I for one am deeply suspicious of the idea that all of my internet traffic should be monitored all of the time
Now you’re confusing what is for what could be. I did type out a detailed response to this, and lost it , but essentially you should read this before proceeding :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_data_retention
http://www.ispai.ie/DR%20as%20published%20OJ%2013-04-06.pdf
Your fear is something that has already happened – your ISP holds a years worth of complete data on you, under European Law, and things are moving very quickly in this domain regarding access to that data. Of course, it’s not just the EU, loads of organisations all over the world store personal data on you, and many have been monitoring your internet usage for years – they’re often required by law to do so. Things started going this way post September 11th with the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 (c. 24).
Regarding the IWF, yes it was. They’re not great by any means, and Scotland Yard is hoping to replace them soon – things are only going to get tighter from here on in.
No, you’re confusing what could be with what is. … Make the app you suggest, we try to find vulnerabilities and then you have an argument. It seems unlikely that you’re going to show up here in a fortnight with this app as you’ve suggested, so this would seem to be a blind alley you’re walking us down.
I have better things to do with my time than prove obvious things to idiots. Sorry, but I was claiming to be able to connect a couple of sockets with SSL (or similar) and send some dummy messages that the other end would ignore. It’s really that simple. It is only because there is no need to encrypt that we currently don’t.
They may win the code, but it doesn’t mean they’ll create a technology my neighbour will use.
Your neighbour already uses a stack of technology they have absolutely no idea how or why it was created to get what they want. Kazaa, eMule, bittorrent, iplayer, CD and DVD ripping software… what makes you think that the next filesharing protocol will be ignored?
Krz: here’s a good example of a case from a musician who thinks that file sharing helps rather than hinders the music industry: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL9-esIM2CY
Hi Mark
That rather proves my point. Dan Bull is absolutely terrible – cheap, poor quality writing, arrangements, recording, concepts – a pastiche of “The Streets”; under normal circumstances neither of us would ever of heard of him. Because he’s “free” and having a pop at Lily Allen, you’ve brought him to our attention; whereas, like her or hate her, you have to admit Lily is talented? So, the talented girl has left music because she can’t make it pay, and Dan Bull has come to replace her, and this is progress how? You think this is going to help the UK’s creative industry? What you’ve provided is a good example of how “Free”=dramatically lower quality art; imagine if your paradigm happened across all digitally replicable mediums! That would include the BBC – I’m sure there’s a kid in his bedroom that would love to do the news – why don’t we just give him the job? People train for years to become good media presenters – the BBC is a high-quality news organisation and it would be damaging to our country to stop its primary revenue stream. You’ve provided yet another example of how your idea degrades all creative works it touches, and leaves us with cheap imitation – this is not the thinking that made us a musical pioneering nation; it encourages “Safe” (pun-intended) moves and discourages innovation, as you have shown . Without Lily Allen, Dan wouldn’t have the traffic to of made this debate happen. What do you think that’s worth? Not enough to make a living from I’ll wager – it’s not free, someone else is paying for it.
If Lib Dem’s think this is progress then it’s a good job it’ll be a while before they can get their hands on our creative industries. You really seem to be pushing for “Free”, which means you genuinely don’t mind writing off that chunk of the economy. This doesn’t make any sense to me – why would a political party push for the country to have lower revenue?! Utter insanity! Show me something new, exciting and interesting, not “Free” photocopies of a real practitioner, because you can’t get the photocopy without an original to clone. Can’t wait to hear your example of classical orchestras following the same concept! “I’ve got this idea guys, we’ll get 30 of the countries greatest players to work for free, record the results in an awesome studio, then post the album on the internet…for free. Then we’ll make loads of cash from Google Adwords!…and gigs…that we would of done anyway.” – it’s not a scenario I’m familiar with.
I’ve read a lot of your posts Mark, and I’m usually impressed by the thinking behind them, but this argument does you no favours and I’m really not sure where you’re coming from with all of this. You’ve still not demonstrated how you’re going to replace 80% of music revenue with free, and retain a vibrant creative industry; instead you’ve given us Dan Bull, the exact problem I was inferring all along. If your logic was applied to the BBC, we’d have some kind of Public Access network, paid for by ad revenues, replace our national broadcaster. There would be little to no money in the industry and we’d wind up with poor quality programming, presenters and information. All that you’re arguing towards is a two-tiered society; the free and low quality (poor) vs. the paid for high quality (rich). I thought this was the exact social divide Liberal Democrats were opposed to, yet here you are, running towards the digital apartheid as quickly as you can with arms outstretched! You offer the creative industry a nightmare vision of the future and would leave us a poorer country for it – the UK should not be a subsidised market for American advertising companies!
Mark is clear proof that Lib Dem’s are out-of-touch on these issues and need a clear, considered policy on the future of the creative arts and filesharing. There may be a really good solution, that our discussion hasn’t happened upon yet, but nobody seems very interested in finding it.
Hi sanbikinoraion,
> It’s really that simple.
No it isn’t, that’s just sending a message via SSL, not the p2p app you initially claimed. There are many flaws in what you’ve written, as I’m sure you’re aware – your cert issuer would of said in your certification agreement something like :
“The Subscriber shall not :
(ii) use the Subscription Service to transmit, receive, view or in any other way use any information which may be illegal, offensive, abusive…or which is in breach of confidence, copyright or other intellectual property rights of any third party”
…maybe you don’t have a cert issuing authority, then you have to deal with the same issues the Tor community faces :
https://blog.torproject.org/blog/debian-openssl-flaw:-what-does-it-mean-tor-clients%3F
You’re saying you can do in an afternoon what the US military failed to achieve with Tor, and that it’s simple. It clearly isn’t; until you have written the uberclient, there are still plenty of technological solutions to the issue of filesharing, that would prevent much of the current copyrighted material being transferred by mainstream users.
Regardless of all of this stuff (that won’t be resolved here and is thus pointless), I understand that you can’t stop someone determined enough, as I said earlier, but you can stop the masses and that would be a start. I’m not talking about disconnections, fines, etc, I’m just saying lets stop our major hubs routing traffic for well known sources of illegal filesharing. If people want to take their chances with secure VPNs from their browser to Pirate networks they’re taking a risk that’s completely up to them, but I can’t see it becoming mainstream any time soon. As I understand it, you don’t deal with burglary by removing all the locks from your doors and windows and decriminalising it, because people can always get in, if they really want to.
Krz: I agree with you about the quality of the BBC’s output being (often!) much higher than that of one person in their bedroom alternatives. For comedy the latter can give the former a good run at times but when it comes to, say, costume drama you do need rather more in the way of resources. But doesn’t the success of the BBC in this respect show how there is more than one model for the music industry?
After all, the BBC doesn’t make its revenue by charging each time you want to view a program. It has a mix of other income streams (selling DVDs etc) and a flat rate tax. A flat rate tax for the music industry isn’t likely to be too popular 🙂 But the BBC isn’t the only such example of raising income without charging at point of consumption., Take the example of the photocopier levy. That was introduced to deal with the problems of people using photocopiers to make illegal copies of works, and it’s a practical way of providing an income stream that doesn’t get in to spying on people each time they use a photocopier or greatly restricting the availability of photocopiers. Or take the example of the music licensing schemes available for radio stations.
There are plenty of alternatives to the current music industry financial model which still generate revenue for composers and performers. Painting the question as being either for the music industries current (well, actually not so current any more given the number of bands who are getting money in different ways) financial model or in favour of people not getting paid for their work seems to me to miss the point. There are other options.
Hi Mark
Well, you’ve stepped away from Free, which is a vast improvement.
>doesn’t the success of the BBC in this respect show how there is more than one model for the music industry?
No, not at all – it shows that decent arts funding makes good content. There are other models for the TV industry, but the flat tax on everyone has produced the best results, regarding output. Most of us have seen TV created by numerous different revenue streams, yet all of it is distorted by those requirements; the chat lines, competitions, advertising, product placement, they all degrade the quality of the product. So, you’ve really just illustrated how important primary revenue streams are to the outcome of any given source of media; and that the secondary revenue streams are just that, secondary. The sales of Doctor Who videos won’t make more Doctor Who, but making more Doctor Who will sell more Doctor Who videos; it helps, but it doesn’t replace the primary revenue stream! If your argument held water there’d be another series of Red Dwarf. 😉
There are other way to fund music, your analogy was poor because the BBC is a single company, not made up of lots of competing, different companies, and so is nothing like the music industry. However, as I acknowledged earlier, there are different ways of making money from music and has been for years, my problem is still that rewarding musicians for units sold is the most obvious model for a healthy, competitive industry that still allows risk taking. Most of the successful modern paradigms are all the old model in disguise, that’s why Apple has become so powerful.
I’m glad we’ve both ruled out the flat tax.
On your side of the argument, Library musicians have been making a living from music for about 40 years now without selling any records/CDs/physical media at all. Whilst a lot of high-quality music has been made that way, the pointed nature in which it is created (because you have shifted the authors focus) makes it hard to see how it could replace popular culture and herein lies my problem. When you change the model, you risk changing the game and this particular game has given us much of our modern culture. You seem inherently against the traditional model, whilst still being extremely unclear as to how to replace it and you’ve yet to talk about how the model changes the resulting media, yet you’ve exemplified this problem by highlighting Dan Bull. My big fear is that innovators will be replaced by clone artists like Dan.
Krz: I’m not quite sure what you mean by “Free” though can guess and I suspect you may have thought I was saying something I wasn’t 🙂
By “Free” I was referring to the book you suggested by Chris Anderson, its ideology and its bizarre reflections on the future of music, tv, etc, etc.
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