So, the Times is reporting that the government is currently putting together a green paper which could put the music and movie industries' proposals that internet service providers have to take a more proactive role in policing the unlicensed distribution of content onto the statute book. The proposals even include the 'three strikes then you're out' system proposed by some in the record industry where persistent file sharers get their internet connections cut off.
Record label trade body the BPI used the reports to again state its position on this issue - that while it would rather reach a voluntary agreement with the ISPs regarding increasing their role in policing file sharing, long running attempts to reach that agreement have been unsuccessful, so perhaps statutory measures are the only solution. Basically repeating comments they made following U2 manager Paul McGuinness' loud calls for more action on the part of the ISPs at MIDEM last month, the BPI said this morning: "For years, ISPs have built a business on other people's music. Yet they have paid nothing to the creators of that music, and done little or nothing to address illegal downloading via their networks. This costs the music business hundreds of millions of pounds a year and will have serious consequences for investment in British culture in the long-term if it is allowed to continue".
They add: "For well over a year, the BPI has been trying to encourage ISPs to introduce reasonable measures that could remove the need to bring legal action against the 6-million British broadband customers that regularly use peer-to-peer networks to download music unlawfully. This is the number one issue for the creative industries in the digital age, and the government's willingness to tackle it should be applauded. Now is not the time for ISPs to hide behind bogus privacy arguments, or claim the problem is too complicated or difficult to tackle. It is time they started showing some corporate responsibility and partner with us to allow our digital creative economy to grow".
All of which seems to make now as good a time as any to have the previously promised Top Bit ponder on the next stage of the music industry's P2P war - the ISP stage.
The conspiracy theory with regard to all this is that the ISPs have generally resisted calls to monitor and stop illegal file sharing because, for years, illegal file sharing services were the main motivating factor for consumers to upgrade to broadband internet, and therefore the ISPs had a commercial interest in turning a blind eye to copyright infringement undertaken by their consumers on their servers. But as the number of licensed rich media services increases - with things like the BBC iPlayer and Last.fm's music preview service and YouTube (which is at least partly licenced) - presumably the existence (and therefore toleration) of illegal services become less important in selling broadband services.
But ISPs continue to resist taking a more proactive role in monitoring and stopping file sharing. Of course they'd deny the conspiracy theory was ever true and say their reasoning for not monitoring file sharing remains consistent - primarily privacy issues, perhaps coupled with concerns of the practicality (and may be cost) of introducing monitoring systems. The privacy issues are very debatable, and depend very much on your interpretation of both national and European laws. As that BPI statement clearly shows, the music industry believes the privacy excuse is just that, a lame excuse.
Are the BPI right to call on the ISPs to take this more proactive role and should government force the ISPs to do so if they won't do it voluntarily?
Of course, CMU has been very critical of the record industry's handling of P2P over the years, mainly because a lot of that anti-P2P strategy has been stupid.
But then again, that's not to say we've ever disagreed with the concept of rights owners - whether they be record labels or music publishers or artists - from trying to protect their rights. You either have a society where the law recognises copyrights, and the rights of creative people and creative companies to profit from those copyrights, or you don't. But it's a bit screwy to have a society where you recognise copyrights, but then do not provide the legal tools for the rights owners to protect those copyrights.
Though, of course, logistics dictate that rights owners will always only be able to protect their copyrights to a certain point, and the big question is always at what point should rights owners give up protecting their rights - ie, when is it just not commercially viable to bother? I'd argue that once you're in the realm of suing thousands of individual music fans on a weekly basis - ie the realm the US record industry operates in - then you have passed that viability point. I think there is an argument, however, that making the ISPs put some checks in place, is on the right side of the commercial viability border line.
That said, there is still the ISPs other argument against file sharing monitoring - is the technology really available that could do this job? Of course there is lots of monitoring technology out there, like that already used by the record labels to track file sharing, and by those trying to establish licenced P2P networks, and by the ISPs when monitoring online crime. Would it work? Realistically, probably not - the file sharing community will quickly develop ways to share content that isn't picked up by the monitoring systems (my techie friends tell me they already have) and anyone who is really keen on their file sharing will be able to sidestep the filters. But it might make file sharing slightly more tricky, or slightly less attractive, and that, the record companies may argue, may be enough, to stop the growth of P2P if nothing else.
As the rather excessive length of this Top Bit suggests, I'm in two minds on this one. I think there is an argument for forcing the ISPs to do some monitoring of file sharing. Though whether it will really make any major impact on the core file sharing community, or provide a boost to the growth of legit music services, well, I'm not so convinced.
Anyway, enough of this over long Top Bit, let's get on with an overlong report on GCap.