Sign in / up

back to article A user's timetable to the Digital Economy Act

Now that the Digital Economy Act has been passed by both Houses, what can internet users expect, and when? Quick answer: nothing much soon. The outgoing government says it introduced the measures because in the 20 months since the MoU between ISPs and copyright businesses, little progress has been made. So the P2P part of the …

COMMENTS

House rules Send corrections
This topic is closed for new posts.

Page:

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      RE: what revenue loss?

      That is one argument. The usual response from the big industry players is typically along the lines of...

      "Who gives a shit, if you can't afford to watch it, we're sure as hell not going to let you watch it for free! What do you think this is? A fucking charity? Have you got any money on you, eh? Have you? give it here, gimme."

      Personally, I view piracy with the same view as getting to watch the footy match for free because you live in a block of flats next to the stadium, except the block of flats is on the internet and an unlimited number of people can upload themselves to your balcony to the point where your balcony can hold more people than the stadium...or something.

      0 0
  2. Mark Eaton-Park

    The answer is obvious

    Stop giving them the money to buy the corrupt, in all senses

    No rentals, no media purchases whatsoever, drop SKY and Virgin, get rid of the TV hit them where it hurts.

    If an artist is selling directly by all means buy from them by preference but no more money for the "industry"

    They want to use "our politicians" against us, fine, let see how long they can afford to buy them without our regular tithe.

    We are their customers and their first rule of business needs to be changed to DO NO UPSET THE PUNTERS, we can after all live without them.

    0 0
  3. steve 9
    Alert

    OMG shut up about Spotify

    Jesus!! all these MP's and the industry never shut up about "Spotify" being a legal free alternative

    now people here are saying Spotify a legal free alternative please just shut up about it!

    1. IT IS NOT FREE it is Invite ONLY this means you have to already have a friend on the inside who's bought or paid a subscription to the service can only invite you since they get 1 or 2 free invites per term they re-new the subscription.

    This service is completely useless to me and millions of others who do not all ready have a friend on the inside to invite you.

    but MP's and all the legal idiots keep going on about well there should be no need for illigal music sharing we have a great free service available spotify..

    they know as much about digital media as they know about IP and not Interlectual Property addresses which made me laugh so hard and cry so much knowing these guys are the ones trying to put down laws on things they don't even have the first clue about.

    2 0
    1. Peter Mylward
      Reply Icon
      FAIL

      RE: OMG shut up about Spotify

      Steve,

      I think you might be getting a bit confused here, Spotify is a pretty good legal alternative to torrenting, and is available right now for the premium membership (which is what they are talking about after all, legal, paid for large choice services as an alternative to freeloading.) Now the streaming service, which is equally cool was open for ages with no need for an invite, so if you didnt get in there while the whole world was banging on about it, then maybe you should have let your torrents go for a bit and given it a try!.

      Thanks

      0 3
      1. Semihere
        Reply Icon
        Megaphone

        Spotify not free...

        I tried to get in while it was a 'free streaming service' and everyone was banging on about how good it was, but the doors were closed and you already needed an invite, so it seems the 'party' didn't last that long once word got out.

        Am I seriously expected to pay for a service when I can't even LOOK AT to demo? You'd think they'd at least let you have a time-limited trial (maybe a day or a couple of hours - that'd be enough to assess it) to get a feel for their catalogue before you commit to paying them. After all, they may not even have half of the music you normally buy, especially not from the indie labels.

        Seems to me the majors all shoved a paltry sum of money into Spotify so they could point at it and say "see, we made a legal alternative, but they're STILL downloading - now give us some new laws to go after our customers".

        Unfortunately, Spotify has become the internet equivalent of having to pay for a membership to a music shop before they'll let you go in and browse through their music, which is stupid. If I go to a music shop I can listen to as much music as I want for free without having to buy anything, and if I like certain tracks enough I'll make a purchase to take them home with me - I thought that's how Spotify was supposed to work (only with the 'take them home' option being a high quality download version). This a crazy business model which actually PUSHES PEOPLE to casually download - it's much less hassle and isn't going to cost you an annual subscription to get that one track. At least iTunes has a 'one click buying' option to take the annoyance out of checkouts when buying casually.

        Personally I'm with the 'stop buying this shit unless you're paying the artist direct' crowd and I'm no longer interested in what the labels are offering. Wise artists won't want to sign up to them if our numbers increase (and I see more and more people thinking this way all the time), or risk being ostracised from their paying customers.

        I bought and paid for my entire music collection, but they can screw themselves if they think they're getting a penny more. I've had it with buying music from labels, they treat you like a criminal when you DO buy stuff - and they must've had about 30 grand off me in my lifetime. So from now on if the artist's selling it direct I'll buy it from them, if they're not then I won't buy it. I can live without it, I probably have enough music already anyway.

        0 0
  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Boycott

    It seems the only way to make these companies realise that just because they have the cash to pay Mandelson's fee, it doesn't mean the public will not fight back eventually. When enough parents are hit by this legislation (due to the actions of their teenagers), then the people will react with one voice.

    http://www.bpiboycott.org.uk/

    0 0
  5. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    iplayer vs torrent

    I'm a license payer.

    iplayer: Low quality, time limits.

    torrent: HD, more available and no time limits.

    A while a go I had trouble playing a leagally purchased DVD on my legally "purchased" copy of CyberLinkDVD just because my video card had an S-Video output. Solution: Crack the DVD drive so it would play any DVD.

    The 'illegal' options are better

    10 0
  6. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    VPN

    The winners will be VPN providers, not the content providers. Services like The Pirate Bay's IPREDator will grow and natural competition will lower the cost of these services.

    1 0
    1. Danny 14
      Reply Icon
      Thumb Up

      aye

      Good old usenet will probably see a resurgence too so usenet providers will profit.

      0 0
  7. Blubster

    Perhaps a better idea

    is to start charging the music industry a fee to have their records aired on radio and TV. As it stands, radio stations, shops, cafes etc. have to be licensed to play music for public consumption. If that were reversed and the industry had to pay for the privilege of having their records played on air as advertising?

    2 0
    1. SleepyJohn
      Reply Icon
      Go

      As in the Payola Scandal you mean?

      Probably still goes on. Perhaps Mandy should produce a bill to legalise it; then all those penniless teenagers who currently rip off struggling media moguls could earn a living wandering round the streets with boomboxes, like quadrophonic sandwich boards. Happy times for us all.

      Some government idiot might even imagine said gainfully employed teenagers then being tempted to rush into record shops to buy obscenely over-priced CDs full of songs they don't want. At least with vinyl singles you only got one B-side.

      I don't think even Timothy Leary could have made all this up.

      0 0
    2. Danny 14
      Reply Icon
      Thumb Down

      indeed

      I used to listen and watch all sorts on iplayer via XBMC iplayer scripts. That was until the beeb pulled all support. Looks like its back to finding the shows differently.

      0 0
  8. Mostor Astrakan

    The last CD I purchased... let me see.

    I think it was Robb Johnson's "all that way for this". I bought it from the man himself when he was playing at the folk club. My tenner straight from my wallet into his calloused fingers. That's about the only way I'll purchase music these days.

    I'll never enter a "free" record shop again. I don't download music either, legally or otherwise. I don't have iTunes. I wouldn't know where to download illegal music because I cannot be arsed to google for it. What these recording industry types need to understand is that first, it's very easy to do without their products, and second, my buying any of them depends on my liking them.

    I don't like them anymore.

    0 0
  9. Lee Dowling Silver badge
    Flame

    Encryption

    I just posted a comment on here that was "too long", so I thought I'd share my thoughts with people: http://ledow.blogspot.com/2010/04/copyright-and-uks-digital-bills-to.html ... basically, I hope the Digital Bills die a death, despite the fact that I pump thousands of pounds into the music/TV/movie industries every year whether by design or accident.

    Please, please get real. Come into the land of the sane. It's nice there, honestly. Stop pissing all the money I'm giving you away on trying to criminalise my quite reasonable actions to watch YOUR content that I enjoy. It's a nonsense, and the sooner you force me to make a decision between ignoring those laws and not consuming your content the better - Neither option is good for the industry and artists.

    0 0
  10. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    Theres always a way around this...

    Time to dust off the Tape recorder!

    0 0
  11. M man

    Sneaker net

    sneakernet ftw!

    the uk translation trainernet fails the taste test :(

    0 0
  12. LawAbidingCitizen

    Litigation not mentioned in the timetable

    You forgot to mention litigation on the timetable. Effective immediately, the BPI will resume it's former practise of volume (bulk) litigation:

    http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/content_display/industry/e3i33e34f97cdbeee3e393bbf3300f0bb5c

    The BPI are claiming that the government have forced them down this road by not acting sooner to curb piracy.

    What does this mean? It means that when the firm hired to gather "evidence" from a P2P swarm (that is, IP addresses and torrent transfer logs), the law firm will be handed the IP addresses, they will seek a court order to obtain the identification of the broadband connection owner and will subsequently send the connection owner a letter along the lines of:

    "You have been infringing the copyright owned by our client. Pay us £800 (or so) or we will take you to court where you will have to pay much more".

    Thousands, probably millions, of parents who have teenage children will be the demographic hit hardest. The parents, many of whom will have already been hit hard by the recession, will be held responsible and will be (financially) punished for the actions of their children.

    As I have already said, technical measures and litigation are not mutually exclusive. The UK is about to encountered a wave of litigation on an unprecedented scale.

    0 0
    1. Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)
      Reply Icon

      Re: Litigation not mentioned in the timetable

      A letter that has no legal validity is junk mail. We're about to see a blizzard of letters with no legal validity. Whether you want to call them junk mail is up to you: the people sending them prefer to say they will be educational.

      Hopefully you will eventually learn the difference between an empty threat and a valid legal threat before you are too badly scammed. The unscrupulous tend to target individuals who are ignorant or mentally infirm, who can't tell the difference.

      0 0

Page:

This topic is closed for new posts.