BBC NEWS | Technology | France unveils anti-piracy plan

It looks like France is taking action against illegal downloads.

What do you make of it ?

I think its fantastic.

mac

Now if we can get china, the USa, and Russia on board lets make music again.,..... Viva La France on this one

I'd like to hear the specifics, but even then I'd be a bit lost: my knowledge of French law is limited, to put it mildly.

--Peter
[email protected]

Great news!

quote from article :

I like this action. If someone is knowingly participating in online piracy, why shouldn't they lose their privilege to be online.

IMHO if you abuse it you should lose it.

If a society believes artists, musicians, filmakers etc should be able to generate revenue or control how people have access to and can use their work, then it needs to create laws to enable this to happen.

Unfortunately, the laws in the US can not keep up with the technology and are way outdated

The reality is, not matter what law is enacted, there will be no way to enforce it in a universal way. That is, the majority of people will still be breaking it. As an example, look at speeding. The reality is 99.9% of all speeders are never caught, but it is against the law to speed. The purpose of the law is a deterrent. If you speed, and you are caught, this is what will happen to you.

I believe two things need to happen - first, there should be laws, real laws, that protect an artist

Second, this law MUST be accompanied by education. Most people don't have a clue they are even breaking the law or if they are how - for example, YouTube users synchronizing music to a moving image are clueless to the concept of mater use and synchronization licensing (let alone mechanical royalties).

For a law to be effective there has to be understanding to its value - i.e. speeding is bad because it will cause you to crash and die, waste fuel or kill someone else.

Using music in your mobile phone video clip is bad because.......(now boil the answer down into a simple short sentence)

Jeff Price
TuneCore
TuneCore: Welcome

Good points Jeff. In your opinion if proper laws are passed in the US how long would you expect it to take before the industry would feel the impact? Do you think it would stop the bleeding?

.. and most important: people should be "educated" by the consumer industry, that it's cool to pay for a record/film/game and not downloading it. that is the major problem these days in my opinion.

they suggest that music is free, everyone can make his own music, record/mix the music and throw it on the market. that causes problems..

cheers

I think its quite easy to find who's using rapid share emule and limewire.
Logs can send details of users.
Its harder to find 'speeders' as there are cameras only in a few places, on the net you have 'cameras' everywhere, the problem is menpower to deal with it, the solution is, 'softwarepower'.

There is way too much money to be lost in the US for any branch of the law to be involved in this.

The music industry used to have it really easy when you think about it. For media entertainment, prior to the introduction of video games and VHS/Beta, it was really only a choice between printed things (like books, comic books or magazines), a movie or music.

And between the three, music won - hands down! I mean how many times can you read the same book, but you could listen to the same song or album over and over. And movies, they were something to do on a Friday night. They didn't define you.

The only new media "things" introduced tended to be other ways to play music (vinyl to 8-track to cassette) or new types of TVs. Music really had nothing to compete with for the consumer's attention or dollar.

Then came Pong (and if you don't know what Pong is, I am SO FREAKIN' OLD!!! ), Beta/VHS, cable TV, "premium" channels like HBO and the first versions of the home computer (anyone remember being excited by their PET or TANDY?)

Music now had viable competition. So, in a stunning never to be repeated move, the RIAA in the early 80's - 1983 if I remember correctly - embarked on a education campaign. Slapped onto all vinyl 12" albums was a sticker that said "Music, More Value For Your Money" (or something very close to that).

The RIAA actually attempted to educate / market to the public that music was a better entertainment value than everything else. For $10 you could buy a 12" vinyl album with all of its art and liner notes etc.

A smart and good move.

This all ties into copyright laws - copyright laws are not about philanthropy, they are about commerce. They don't change until either the corporations that benefit from them need them to change (isn't it funny how the amount of time something was copyrighted seemed to always be extended right around the time Disney's "Steamboat Willie" was going to become public domain?) OR until the general population revolts and votes in new politicians that reflect and push an agenda and make new laws.

The good news for the music industry is technology saved its butt! Enter the CD. Everyone got to REBUY the things they already owned! So once again this delayed when the proverbial sh*t was going to hit the fan in regards to copyright law.

And then came the internet, compression technology, Napster, broadband proliferation, cheaper digital storage, flash memory, instant messaging, email, free ripping software, eMusic launching the first digital download store in 1998, iTunes, the iPod and more and more video games, computers, cheaper VHS and then DVDs

(on a side note, it was actually cheaper to buy Pulp Fiction on DVD when it first came out - $14.98 - then it was to buy the soundtrack to the movie - $16.98.)

The music industry was being attacked from all sides - and add to it the processed, generic crap being shoved at us by multi-national corporations trying to meet quarterly earnings that stopped artist development.

Man it was not looking good.

So they did what any organization would do (I wish I could make something I write look sarcastic), they started something called SDMI (Secure Digital Music Initiative) - the purpose of which was to create a blue print for all hardware and software manufactures . Rules that they would have to follow in order to play the music controlled by the major labels.

A staggering amount of money - over 1 BILLION dollars - was spent on SDMI. They would have the heads of Sony, BMG, Universal, Microsoft, Warner, publishers, hardware manufacturers, software manufacturers meet in high end hotels in New York, Hawaii, Los Angles and fight about the rules.

In the meantime the shift had started but they were paying attention to the wrong thing.

Then came Orin Hatch - Senator from Utah. He is responsible for the Digital Millennium Copyright act, a new set of laws pushed for by the industry to allow them to continue to make money off copyrights (so they next time you think voting does not matter, it does!)

And then I look at your question....first we need representation on Capitol Hill to explain to Orin Hatch - and the others - what is REALLY going on. Get them educated, because I highly doubt they are.

Next, we need organizations like A2IM, the RIAA, ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, Future Of Music and others to embark on a coordinated campaign to educate the public that when you steal music IT COULD KILL THE VERY THING YOU LOVE.

The general population does not don't get it. And how can they, its so complex. Mechanical royalties, public performances, non-terrestrial streaming rates, band royalties, distribution fees and so on.

It all really needs to be simplified - I don't have answers as to how to do it all. But I will say the secret of the music industry is that it is NOT the labels that control things, its the publishers. Publishers have federal law in place that GUARANTEES that the copyright holder for a song under 5 minutes gets paid $0.091 for each COPY of that song (rate to go up in January, 08).

It is a federal crime NOT to pay that rate to copyright holder or administrator. An artist's music can be played on terrestrial radio in the US and there is NO fee paid to the entity that owns or controls that master ( the label or the artist). There is a public performance royalty paid to a collection agency but this is different than a master use fee. However, NO ONE can legally reproduce (copy) the copyright protected work without paying the publisher the $0.091 UNLESS the rate is waived or reduced by the publisher or unless the reproduction falls under the Fair Use provision of US copyright law (a blurry line)

I wish they would have spent that 1 billion dollars on educating the public, not suing them, explaining how things worked while working to simplify the structure so the general population could understand why the laws exist and how they work.

But they didn't.... and boy did they screw up. With the new tech and developments, the general population struck back at a system they felt was wrong ($18.98 for a CD with one good song on it combined with artists slamming the labels as "evil"). yes, the labels got hit hard, but so did the artists as the population did not understand that artists, like labels, make money when the music sells.

I think its going to take another 3 to 5 years before this all sorts out...

Jeff Price
TuneCore
TuneCore: Welcome

Thanks Jeff. Your post was both informative and enlightening. Do you see the music industry (major labels) regaining the financial prosperity's that it has in the past? Is it possible for the system to flourish once again?

"Do you see the music industry (major labels) regaining the financial prosperity's that it has in the past? Is it possible for the system to flourish once again?"

I believe major record labels are going to move more into "media" companies. Most are owned by multi-national corporations that also own divisions that make TV shows, movies, print magazines, video game consoles, video game software, media hardware devices and websites that derive revenue from advertising.

Music will be cross-seeded into all of this sectors to help drive sales and revenue for the entire company. Artists will be compensated for the use of the music in ways to be determined.

Record Labels will also be extending what rights they require to do a deal with an artist - i.e. merchandise etc - as the label will plug the artist into mechanisms that help generate revenue and sales of those items.

The "product" they are selling will not be a 5" circular piece of plastic in a jewel box but the band itself and all the ancillary "products" around that band (web traffic monetized by advertising, t-shirts, gig income etc etc etc)

Major Labels will shift from any form of artist development (which they basically have) to only "signing" those artists that can be a mass superstar. But, I also believe they will have investments (or own) companies that cultivate these stars so the can "upstream" them into the major label environment

In other words -they will follow the money and use their existing infrastructure to produce it and participate in it (think Tia Tequila and Paris Hilton)

On the other hand, I also believe there will be a new breed of musician - one that can make a living doing what they love on without a label. A "middle class" so to speak

There will be more music, and more access to it, then ever before. And new ways to make money or succeed under you own terms without having to give up any of the money from the sale of the music.

The choice / path for the artist will be up to them to choose. You can strive to be the next" Britney" if you like and pursue the major labels OR you can choose to do what you want another way.

Jeff Price
TuneCore
TuneCore: Welcome

a very important paragraph in the article:


"The agreement between net firms, record companies, film-makers and government was drawn up by a special committee created to look at the problem of the net and cultural protection."

doesn't seem thats going on in the US.


I also think computer and tech companies are very much responsible because if they provide Illegal content (or traffic for it) then their sales of media electronics will go up. more people will buy zunes, ipods, cd recorders, sell advertisement space on illegal sites/regular sites etc.

so for example i think Sony will rather a kid steal a song from their sister company that cost $1 so they can sell that kid all the equipment to do so which probably has more ROI.

so, going full circle w/ my post i think media giants that provide hardware should also be involved in the committee (from the above quote )

Wow! Thanks Jeff. You have quite an amazing vision of the future. Would you mind elaborating a little about the artists that choose to not take the corporate route in their careers? Do you see them making a living off of promotional sites such as MySpace or will there be some sort of change in the way they are able to promote and sell themselves and their music?


(Sorry to get off topic but you seem to have some great insight into the matter.)

The specifics is that they will be monitoring the p2p and Bittorrent networks, then if you're caught downloading copyrighted stuff, they send you a warning first, then after three warnings they cut temporarely your internet access (for something like 10 days). On the fifth warning they cut the access for a much longer period (not specified).
The head of that commission says in interviews that they are aware they can't completely stop piracy, but they just want to make it as hard and frustrating enough to discourage as many people as possible.
In exchange, they will put pressure on music stores to drop DRM, and ask movie providers to shorten the time between the theatrical release of movies and their availability on VOD.

However, i've been following all this for the past few days on newspapers and forums here in France, and it is getting HUGE (to say the least) outcry, opposition and skepticism from people, as well as a from a big part of the media. It's been downright ridiculed on foreign sites like Ars Technica, and TechCrunch and the EFF. Basically the mantra is that it impedes on privacy and individual rights, and has being described as just "old fashion" instead of just letting all music free and inventing new business models.

Tha law has still to go through the senate before being adopted and effective, but unfortunately, i highly doubt it will ever pass......

Call me old fashioned, I don't want people downloading my music for free, give me a house for free, a car for free, a whole studio for free and free wine, then i might consider it. heh
Anyhow, I thought that they had radio for that (free music).
I hope France will start a wave of crackdown on illegal activity, and that the rest of the world will follow suit.