Piracy in the UK

[CartoonHead]

Taken from the BBC News website today:

"Customers who illegally share music will get warning letters.
Six of the UK's biggest net providers are believed to be backing a government plan to tackle music piracy online.
The plan commits the firms to working towards a "significant reduction" in the illegal sharing of music.

The first stage of the campaign will involve hundreds of thousands of letters being sent to net users suspected of illegally sharing music.

The BBC has been told that the memorandum commits the net firms to develop legal music services.

Official confirmation of the deal is expected later.

The six firms, which will be named early on Thursday, are understood to have signed a Memorandum of Understanding drawn up by the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (BERR).

The BBC has been told that the firms have agreed to ensure their customers know it is illegal to share copyrighted music.

It is believed that the memorandum also requires net firms to go further in their attempts to tackle illegal file-sharing.

At the same time the government is also expected to start a consultation exercise that could result in laws that force net firms to tackle music piracy.

In the past few weeks net firms Virgin and BT have sent letters to some customers identified by the BPI, which represents the UK record industry, as persistent music pirates.

Before now the BPI has called for a "three-strikes" system which would see net connections of persistent pirates terminated if three warnings went ignored.

Many net firms have resisted the call from the BPI and have said it was not their job to act as policemen."

Now, I was just wondering what people's thoughts are on this issue.
Do you 'pirate' music files over p2p networks?
Do you think it is just to do so, or do you live with a guilty conscience?
Do people who 'pirate' music files really, err, get your goat?
Do you think it is right to send letters to suspected pirates?
Do you think this latest anti-piracy drive will have the desired effect?
Would a law forcing firms to oblige the music industry be too much?
etc. etc.

I am interested to see the opinions of the Escapist readers voiced on this issue, regardless of geographical location.

 

[John Galt]

1. Yes I do.
2. Don't think it's just but I don't care too much for morality.
3. Nope, couldn't hate myself could I?
4. No, I don't think that the government should spend resources to bail out corporations when no one wants to pay their jacked up prices.
5. No, these things never work. People will probably just hold off from pirating temporarily or even switch ISP.
6. Yes it would, handing over download histories is a violation of privacy in my opinion. The last thing I want is some corporate goons knowing what I'm doing, it's too Orwellian for me.

I just don't think any government is prepared to expend enough resources to seriously tackle internet piracy. It hasn't reached the critical mass where it threatens the industry yet and therefore, governments will most likely approach the issue with the traditional halfheartedness of most actions brought about by corporate lobbyists.

 

[CartoonHead]

Please don't answer the questions in a list, they are just there as examples to ask yourself. I would prefer the opinions in paragraph form.

That aside, I find myself agreeing with you almost entirely, Mr. Galt, especially over the Orwellian nature of this legislation. There appears to be little we can do to stop it however.

 

[Eyclonus]

I don't know much about the issue of piracy in the UK, except they use to run the most ridiculous of Ads, the "Don't get branded by the pirates" one.
The moment it started with a fat guy's burning eyes I knew it was a joke, when it said "Piracy supports Terrorism!" I ROFLMAOed like never before.

 

[Churchman]

Man, The UK is becoming quite the police state nowadays.

 

[CartoonHead]

Yes, it's getting very 1984 on us right now.
The thing is, no matter who you vote for, the Government always wins.

 

[John Galt]

There appears to be little we can do to stop it however.

Can I has mailbombz?

 

[dreamofobscurity]

I think that with rising gas prices, no.... prices in general in the US and maybe even worldwide, spending my hard earned dollars on a cd i may or may not like isnt my top priority, and i have the opinion that many artists (I.E. Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead, The Flashbulb, and many smaller bands) like as many people as possible to listen to their music, paying for it or not.
That being said, if i really like something after i "pirate" it, i will usually buy the album or go support the band by seeing them live... buying a t shirt.... etc.
To my understanding with a large record label the sales of the albums themselves dont really support the band, they get most of their money from merch and ticket sales.

and...... there is my stance on that.

 

[zirnitra]

what I don't understand is how the music company's can take a double standard on these things. they allow users to upload their music videos onto video sharing sites and don't ask youtube to take it down (firefox has a few add ons now that'll rip music right off of youtube videos for you know) but if you download that video you can get sued. they make it so confusing I think you could get out of most court cases simply by that. especially because of the fact that watching a film uploaded on a video site is counted as copyright infringement.

and yeah the UK really is going down the big brother road. highest rate of CCTV cameras. allowing special police forces to wave the freedoms act, I have a feeling in a few years I'm going to have to buy myself a Guy Fawkes mask and start blowing up important buildings. Ironically the very thing they claim to be preventing by infringing on our rights!

 

[Alias_Raz0r]

I personally download film, games, music and full applications,
But personally i think that the government can try as much as they like to crackdown on piracy
But the pirates will always be on step ahead

 

[cleverlymadeup]

Man, The UK is becoming quite the police state nowadays.

america is just as bad, if not worse

scary part is no one is doing anything about it

 

[Furrama]

I think any business has the right to protect their assets, even if the consumer feels 'ripped off'. Don't buy if you don't like it, that's how you protest- not by stealing and justifying it. And not all musicians have their music sold by giant corporations either- small time bands are trying to make their money too.

I think if businesses can't protect themselves from mass theft the government should step in. Denying internet service after 3 ignored warnings sounds completely fair. America should be doing the same thing.

On a similar note, ripped images from hard working artist should also be as vigorously protected in my opinion, but that's coming from an artist standpoint.

 

[Dommyboy]

The best anti piracy campaign is the clip from The IT Crowd. That really gets to ya.

Though I believe in the theory of everything on the internets should be free.

 

[afrophysics]

CartoonHead would at least have the protection of Triad lawyers if he was faced with action from his ISP, what defense do we have?

Jokes aside, I was reading a report in the technology supplement in the Guardian that new Piracy laws are like "putting your finger against the river" (something like that) of a general movement towards free content. People cite the HD-DVD Digg uprising as evidence of resistance to oppression on the World Wide Web, but people who pirate) are generally not as vocal as the Digg crowd, and I think if offered a cheap, viable legal alternative people would switch over. Which has been shown somewhat by the success of iTunes (which I despise, for locking out competitors, a lot of who produce superior players).

I do pirate music, not so much anymore because I decided want entire albums, with album art and full track information with high quality sound, so I prefer mooching CD's of friends. Other than that I have no gripes with piracy past the closeness of filesharing/warez with malware. I think the ISP's are fully within their rights to attempt to restrict Illegal filesharing, especially considering how much bandwidth it uses up, but perhaps this could be solved if they all switched over to (and I'm in no way a computer expert so I could be completely off the mark) fibre obtic cables. I really wan't to say how this newest assault on filesharers plays out- they (I was too young at the time) recovered from Napster's loss with something more efficient, so fingers crossed.

 

[Daedalus_UK]

The best anti piracy campaign is the clip from The IT Crowd. That really gets to ya.

Though I believe in the theory of everything on the internets should be free.

Yeah that ad would be pretty effective. Has anyone seen those annoying Knock off Nigel ads in the UK. It tries to pass pirates off as a bunch of scroungers who don't pay for anything. They ought to do some research...

 

[afrophysics]

Yeah the Knock-Off Nigel ads completely miss the point, nobody but Mrs Bucket will think any less of you for pirating, at all.