'Pieces of Eight' : Parts 2 and 3

Pirate Empathy

Some artists understand copyright and have long protected their works others know little and clearly get confused.

NME covered an interesting article on Lily Allen’s views on Digital downloads. Lilly used to have an anti-file-sharing blog which was supported by a host of artists such as Mark Ronson and Gary Barlow.

She now claims in the article that she doesn’t oppose people purchasing burned copies of her CDs as long as they pay for them, "If someone comes up with a burnt copy of my CD and offers it to you for £4 I haven't a problem with that as long as the person buying it places some kind of value on my music,"



We Will Govern You

We now have the potential of the UK Digital Economy Bill which proposes to give the unelected UK Business Secretary Lord Mandelson the power to change copyright laws. It has won support of some but has now been strongly criticised by ISPs (Internet Service Providers Association).

The law will force ISPs to write to customers accused of infringing copyright on peer-to-peer networks by rights holders. Three strikes and you are disconnected and the ISP has to hand over address information if rights holders wish to take court action.

ISPA boss Nicholas Lansman claims the bill will do little to address the underlying problem and any such power should rest with an independent body. He says in a article published in The Register, ‘Rather than focusing blindly on enforcement, the Government should be asking rights holders to reform the licensing framework so that legal content can be distributed online to consumers in a way that they are clearly demanding.’

Importantly the ISPA is also opposed to suspending users' accounts as it presumes guilt and also provides powers to seize the control of domain name body Nominet.
The bill also is to included change for copyright contracts, licensing, and creating an "extended" system which would make it "simpler and quicker for licensing societies to make content available online to consumers and to support innovative commercial services that rely on copyright material". Those orphan works would be "unlocked" for public and commercial use.

As with most of the current UK government policies this tries to fix all with a single swipe and will cause many problems if it ends up being at odds with the global world we now all live in. But there again Gordon Brown did claim to save the global economy.

French Three Strikes Makes the Statute

The media world has been quietly watching the French attempts to implement a ‘three strikes and you are out’ law for punishing people who download music and films illegally by cutting off their Internet connections. First it was happening then no one turned up and it didn’t get passed now the first government agency to punish online pirates has been created in France.

The vote has cleared both chambers and is to be French law, or is it?

Critics say the law misses the point, targeting traditional downloads at a time when online streaming is taking off and others claim that users using public WiFi hotspots or using masked IP addresses might make them impossible to trace.

Last week the European Parliament prohibited any EU governments from cutting off a user's Internet connection without first passing through a court of law. This still needs ratification by the European Council but would impact the new French law before the ink has even dried.

Critics say the law misses the point, targeting traditional downloads at a time when online streaming is taking off and others claim that users using public WiFi hotspots or using masked IP addresses might make them impossible to trace.