Submit Response is a weblog by Jack Mottram, a More on Music Piracy and Filesharing
After Dr. Kim Howells made some rather ill-advised comments on internet filesharing (see below) I fired off an email to his department (thanks to Tom Coates et al for unearthing a suitable address.) I didn’t really expect a reply, but I got one, and it was quite a surprise. The DCMS has a rather more reasoned view of the filesharing issue than you might think:
Mr Mottram,
Dr Howells has asked me to thank you for your e mail of 21 January concerning his recent remarks on music piracy.
Piracy is a key problem for the music industry. Almost 40% of all CDs and cassettes sold around the world last year were pirated copies and this poses a major threat to the industry’s long term economic health. Furthermore, there is evidence that this type of piracy sometimes funds organised crime.
The Government accepts that the problems associated with downloading music are somewhat different but they have serious implications nevertheless. Even though the material that is being taken illegally is intellectual rather than physical property, it is being used without permission and without payment. We understand that many people enjoy listening to new music in this way and not all illegal downloads equate with a lost sale of a CD. But it is important to remember that music still needs to be paid for if the music industry is going to be able to invest in the future. Some of the people who share music may, indeed, one day hope that their bands are nurtured and supported by the industry as they try to make a career in this area.
We certainly do not want to brand as a criminal everyone who infringes copyright when downloading music. However, we do believe that some of those who provide the mechanisms specifically designed to encourage illegal transmission of copyright material over the internet on a massive scale are involved in an activity that perhaps ought to be considered equivalent to theft or fraud.
The Government believes that the best way forward is for the industry to continue to develop attractively priced and user friendly means of delivering legitimate on line services and we therefore welcome the positive moves being made by industry in this area.
NB - I’ve made two changes to the DMCS spokesperson’s original email, as per this request in a later email:
Thank you for your useful comments and for pointing out our misleading reference to young people. We will ensure that future correspondence does not include this comment. We would be happy for you to post our reply on your website (would appreciate it if you could change ‘young people’ to ‘people’).
A NOTE FROM A CONCERNED YOUNGSTER:
alright… it’s like this…
i dont know where to begin.
alright - i lived in an apartment that had a computer with over a thoussand mp3s downloaded from various fileshare sites. we loved it. we shared it. i bet that if you look at the bands we had downloaded… who in almost all cases were NOT well supported by the oh-so-important-music-industry… underground bands… indie stuff… no-one that would EVER show their face on popular radio or eMpTyV. i bet if you asked ANY of the bands we fileshared, they would say they were all FOR the idea. I myself play in a gigging rock band and the idea that someone wanted to download my track from someone else is flattering and cool to me… if enough people hear it without paying the RIDICULOUS price that the ‘music industry’ charges (I KNOW FROM EXPERIENCE HOW MUCH THOSE CDs ACTUALLY COST TO PRODUCE) then so much the better. more chance of people showing at our gigs.
FACT: the money made by CD sales for the ‘intellectual property’ that logically belongs to the creators of said ‘property’ (i.e. the BANDS) goes more to a slick consumer-oriented bunch of musically-talentless buisnessmen and marketing experts. Most money that the BANDS make… especially the ones who arent just corporate constructs from the getgo… comes from playing shows and touring… which can only be done with publicity. filesharing is a free way to get that publicity without selling your soul to some contract to this leech that calls itself the “music industry”. The “music industry” doesnt consider that isolated and individual bands in the thousands and proabably the tens of thousands benefit from this format… at the bottom of the issue… the music industry is worried that it will lose its stranglehold on public taste and that people will start to hear alternatives to the industry ordained pop-stars and MIGHT JUST LIKE THE OTHER STUFF BETTER rather than just go after the market-research-results the ‘industry’ vomits out every few months under the guise of music.
The REAL Music Industry is a bunch of musicians in basements and garages and home studios and wherever else playing gigs for small crowds every week at local clubs and doing it because they love it. and probably contains very few lawyers.
Wouldnt it be nice if a band could make it because they were GOOD and people LIKED them instead of because they had the ONLY large scale exposure available… an exposure that is controlled by those very same leeches. I find it funny that the ‘music industry’ contains more non-musicians… businessmen, analysts, lawyers, borings… than it contains musicians. whose industry is it anyway?
bottom line…
no-file-sharing = more monopoly, less origionality, less exposure for new bands, more bands with record-label restrictions. MORE exposure for the already ludicrously rich Canon of our modern music scene, and those occasional ‘scouted’ bands that the industry considers to fit the image and nature of the next market-researched load of dung they want to shovel down people’s throats.
yes filesharing = free exchange of tastes and ideas
too bad if metallica loses a few bux in the exchange. i never downloaded them anyway so it aint my fault.
FACT #2: you cannot stop the internet. it IS above the law. the only thing the law can do about any activity on the internet in the long run is to restrict people’s access to it… gee, that would be great for a ‘free’ country wouldnt it? if filesharing sites are outlawed in the U.S., they’d just be opened in another country where they aren’t outlawed. what are you gonna do, Sue Taiwan under the american legal system over a breach of american law?? somehow i dont think they’d listen. and somehow i dont imagine many countries in the world give two hoots about the american ‘music industry’
-jme
Posted by james kallend at 6am on 01.05.03
I really agree with your comment, but right now no matter the perspective its ‘against the law’ to buy a CD and make copies for your friends, and some songs you get from certain net sources should not be available for download, meaning your breaking the law as well by dl’ing them, what can you do? your point needs to be enforced and proven to people who arrest kids in the NY hood for file sharing, its a rough approach for someone like that to understand. Its as if your point only gets through to your age group, like me, i’m 19, and I can relate to what your saying.
Posted by J at 6pm on 01.08.04
I really agree with your comment, but right now no matter the perspective its ‘against the law’ to buy a CD and make copies for your friends, and some songs you get from certain net sources should not be available for download, meaning your breaking the law as well by dl’ing them, what can you do? your point needs to be enforced and proven to people who arrest kids in the NY hood for file sharing, its a rough approach for someone like that to understand. Its as if your point only gets through to your age group, like me, i’m 19, and I can relate to what your saying.
Posted by J at 6pm on 01.08.04