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ISPs and Copyright Holders Fail to Reach Piracy Agreement

Copyright holders in Spain want ISPs to help offset the cost of piracy by imposing a surcharge on customers’ accounts. They also want ISPs to disconnect copyright infringers from the Internet. After many months in government mandated talks, no agreement has been reached.

After many months of negotiations, government mandated talks between copyright holders and ISPs to find a mutually acceptable solution to the illicit file-sharing “problem”, have ended with no agreement.

The copyright holders, the Coalition of Creators represented by the General Society of Authors and Publishers (SGAE), wanted the ISPs to charge their customers extra to cover alleged losses from their activities on P2P networks. Eduardo Bautista, SGAE’s president, recently said that it is the ISPs “civic duty” to cooperate. Unsurprisingly, he also wants repeat infringers to be disconnected from the web.

The mobile operators on the receiving end of these demands – Ono, Orange, Telefónica, Vodafone – can’t reach an agreement with the copyright holders on how to move forward, which is hardly a surprise considering what is being asked of them.

Bautista said he wants to find a solution to the online piracy problem so it remains profitable for authors and publishers to carry on their work. He called on the government to respond “smarter” to the problem. “You can not create a business leaving out the first link,” he said.

The two groups will now present separate proposals to the government. Internet users or consumer groups were not represented in these discussions.

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  • Ralonto

    “Eduardo Bautista, SGAE’s president, recently said that it is the ISPs “civic duty” to cooperate.”

    LOL. It’s their civic duty to gtfo and let technology out of their dinosaur claws.

    “He called on the government to respond “smarter” to the problem. “You can not create a business leaving out the first link,” he said.”

    First link? The only link threathened by piracy is the middle man, which has been leeching off of culture far too long if you ask me..

  • Peter

    “Civic duty” my A**. Creators make up some number that they feel is fair and try and make another set of companies customers pay it because its their duty?? What are these guys smoking. They want to punish the innocent and the guilty for something thats not even a crime?

    Also if customers are being charged on their bill for piracy anyway surely it would only incourage them to download? I mean if my bill showed up with say an extra €20 charge for piracy i sure would feel like im owed €20′s worth of media? this will turn non-sharers into sharers surely?

  • Anonymous

    Also if customers are being charged on their bill for piracy anyway surely it would only incourage them to download? I mean if my bill showed up with say an extra €20 charge for piracy i sure would feel like im owed €20’s worth of media? this will turn non-sharers into sharers surely?

    totally

  • Zush

    You know, some prominent members of the SGAE are second- or third- rate artists: “Teddy” Bautista was an obscure musician from the 70s, Ana Diosdado a failed playwright, Luis Cobos a Ray Conniff clone…

    I guess they decided to take their revenge on the public, whose taste was too good to pay attention to them.

  • Rabbit80

    So they want to charge everybody for the piracy AND disconnect the pirates who have already paid…

    In other words – they want everybody to give them money for nothing! – and still disconnect those who share!

  • cosy
  • logic voter

    lmao the ISP’s dont have any duties in that respect, filesharing is a civil crime in spain, and in most countries.
    and if the purported ‘crime’ does not merit a criminal infraction, the ISP’s are in NO WAY obliged to hand over details.
    its as simple as that.
    asking a fellow corporation to have ‘morals’ on a topic that certainly affects their business, is ridiculous

  • SNR

    Right so they want raise ISP fees to cover any copyright infringements and kick off any repeat infringers…. so what are you paying for?

    Surely this is just like raising taxes to help cover the additional medical costs from obesity and then refusing to treat obese people if they eat fast food three times!

    Nobody but the people collecting the revenue benefits from this arrangement.

  • John

    Man… it seems like our liberties and right to a neutral internet lies solely in the hands of the ISPs. The same ISPs who not long ago where against net neutrality… wanting to charge people who use certain services more than others.

    Well fuck that to be hounest with you. The only way you can make a fair internet where expression is ubiquitus and control is non-existant is to build your own damn internet.

    Last night, after reading an article here on TF i thought how it might be possible to make your own internet.
    The only option i can see is some sort of Wireless LAN which is made by people connecting thier wireless routers together… followed by some extreamly decent QoS and load balancing act.

    If your whole block of flats or street made up a network, you could have filesharing between each client and cut out the internet (and thus ISPs) from recording / limiting it.

    The whole issue stems back to the fact that the internet is broken.
    It was never designed to be as wide spread as it is, and as such it is lacking three majour things:
    Anoninimity,
    Encryption,
    and de-centralization.

    Why isn’t 90% of all data i send out automatically encrypted at both ends?

    Why isn’t my idle bandwidth put to use to hide my identity and interests?

    Why don’t we see a host of p2p services other than filesharing?

    p2p forums, p2p chatrooms, p2p websites?

    Fuck the pirate party – i think people who make works of art are entitled to say they own it and charge whatever they like for it – after all it wouldn’t exist without them.
    If they charge to much, they won’t sell it. Simple as that.

    What i would like to see is an Anonomous Party.
    Everything the Pirate Party wants, just not the piracy.

  • Zammy.

    Exactly SNR. its rather disgusting and just another way for corporate greed to make more money to suposedly raise the taxes.

    But not only that, I find it disgusting that they will not allow the idea of internet users or consumer groups to have their voice heard, only because they know this voice is stronger then their own fucked up agenda.

  • neonfish

    > ISPs and Copyright Holders Fail to Reach Piracy Agreement

    Good.

  • SteelWolf

    It’s good to know that the people most affected by any “agreement,” the customers, are being fully represented at the table.

    /sarcasm

  • P-Rated

    Another sign that the “intellectual property” is drastically overproduced. Rather than leave it to the market to ascertain the demand and devise profitable distribution methods, the bureaucrats will end up imposing tax-like schemes to let the “content creators” profit and keep the “content consumers” consuming the largely worthless information.

  • Darth_Tater

    When ACTA is completely enacted in the US, who do you think the ISP’s are going to charge for the extra fees they incur to comply?

    After the governments own the internet will a free press exsist?
    The newspapers are all failing.

    Wake up, Rage against this horseshit.
    When the internet becomes unusable and we all disconnect, the mpaa and the ifpi will at last have what they really want. Instead of making use of the extrordinary marketing tool it could be.

  • streetstyle

    say by by to your internet connections. the end of the last known freedom is coming.

  • Ralonto

    I’m now going to tell you a little story. There once was this kid called Timmy. Each summer he would sell lemonade to thirsty passersby for a high price from water he got from the nearby pond. He had the only lemonade stand in town so he certainly scored a buck or two and got rich pretty fast! Then suddenly, a new kid came into the neighborhood. His name was Peter. Peter found out how to make Timmy’s lemonade recipe and made a stand where he would give the people lemonade for free. He didn’t care about money or anything, he just wanted to give people a refreshment and have a talk with them. His lemonade stand quickly became a popular place where people would come by and enjoy a cold drink once in a while. Timmy didn’t like Peter one bit. So on one cold night, Timmy went to his father which was a rich government official. Seeing that his father usually gives Timmy everything he wants, he asks ‘Daddy, I hate this new kid, could you please make it so that I’m the only one who can sell lemonade?’. ‘Sure kid’, his father told him without further thought, and made a law that enabled Timmy to ask any price he wanted for his lemonade because Peter would be a criminal if he gave people free lemonade. Peter did not care however and continued helping people and creating a meeting place for the neighborhood. Timmy was raged when he saw this. ‘I wanna make money, now some kid gives away free lemonade? How can I make money!?!’. He kept on raging, screaming and yelling and eventually he called his father, who then sent the police to pick up Peter and throw him in jail. He had them take away all Peter’s posessions and gave them to Timmy.

  • Hacker/pirates of the world UNITE

    THINK whats happening in sweden
    NO MPAA this is what we shall do world wide , one step , one country at a time.

    THe more you PUSH the more parties get formed and like your neo conservatives we shall be brothers and help one another. meet at golf when we’re old ( of course we’ll drink and party and have more fun then you ) and unlike YOU we shall listen to the people.

    We shall mandate NO bribing of politicians, they are elected by the people for what they stood for and not for some lobby group to bribe them off.

  • Rabbit80

    I thought file sharing was legal for non-commercial use in Spain… As such this copyright tax & the 3 strikes rule must surely be illegal?

    Thats like me charging you because you “might” read this post – then banning you from TF if you actually read it!

  • Anonymous

    that doesn’t make sense. charge an extra levy to offset the cost of ‘piracy’? this would imply that all internet users are file sharing. which is blindly obvious is wrong. there are people who use the internet solely for online banking, checking their email and general surfing of the net. i’m glad that the isp’s have more sense. tho’ this kinna reminds me of the time the wanted to charge a levy on cd-r’s. or has that happen already?

  • William

    Just because their business model is failing brutally due to their extreme lack of will to adapt to the market, they now want other business to pay for their failure? lol

  • basement dweller

    This shows how incredibly stupid the content industry greedy bastards are. Not only do they ask for compensation for filesharing, but they also want them disconnected. That’s like getting both your money back AND a new product in its place!

  • Control of the net

    Amazing that some artists along with the RIAA/MPAA are intent on making money from nothing, this is like a internet tax, it’s pure extortion, something I’d expect from the real MAFIA, royalties on isp traffic is every corporations dream, look at how the EU HAD TO mandate a fixed price for mobile calls, same shit different bunch of corporate suits. They are really really fucking trying their best to have all and sundry pay digital isp royalties. We might just have to resort to swapping flash cards via the post to get away from isp royalties…Fvck them all…

  • sam

    haha, so SGAE is arguing for a compensation of projected lost revenue from file sharing to be levied on ISP’s customers.

    I believe this is one of the many layers of misconceptions showing these sort of groups have no idea.

    almost like a network stack …but of misconception :-)

    1. all users are pirates.
    2. actually only some are.
    3. of the ones who are pirates only a small number would not actually buy the product anyway.
    4. of the ones who are pirates a large number are avid consumers and downloading the content helps them decide on a later purchase.
    5. your industry has a history of projecting profit (in this case loss) far beyond what is actually correct.
    6. fundamentally your products are actually too expensive.
    7. even more fundamentally your product isn’t that good.
    8. As you are essentially running an organization which uses a model of profit and advantage in the same way a predatory criminal network operates.

    moral resolution:
    pirate the content and send some money to the author… *shock horror*. Doing this may even give the author a bigger share of the profit than the publisher would have provided.

  • Ben Hurr

    I facepalm’d.

    They can’t come to an agreement like that, the SGAE is essentially saying “we think all your users are pirates, so sacrifice the entire future of your business to appease us.”

    And expect them to comply purely on allegation.

    Where do we legally punch these guys in the face, I want to know.

  • Dave

    If they kick all the pirates off, then why the surcharge?

    Talk about disorganized governments!

  • Quasit

    35€??? Wouldn’t that double/triple the broadband cost? That’s sick.

  • yo

    Think it’s bad right now? Check this out: http://www.laquadrature.net/en/telecoms-package-when-rapporteurs-betray-eu-citizens and see how the European Comission is trying right now to kill off net neutrality and digital rights at the request of AT&T & co.

    Right now, all we can hope for is that the European Parliament will make a stand for the citizens’ rights. If it was ever a time to call your MP and tell him your opinion, now’s that time.

  • revolution

    And guess where will this money end up? In corporate pockets, NOT creators’.

    They managed to impose a tax on blank copy medias such as discs and so on in many countries regardless of the use you can have for them (i.e. totally unrelated to piracy) what should it be different with this project of an internet connection tax?

    They want to tax internet access but still disconnect file sharers? How does this make sense? They just are greedy bastards.

    There is hope though. I remember when I used to live in France and mobile phones operators were imposed to charge talk time by the second not the minute.

    @ 23 who says their products are overpriced : well, not really. Especially when it comes down to music. You can download albums for next to nothing now. The real problem is you get a lossy version crippled by DRM, and the library available is just pathetic.

    Now, why should we pay for something of lower quality than a product we can have for free?

    I mostly download music from before 1970, preferably in FLAC. Why should I pay for 250kbps versions of those albums I can’t play on the music player of my choice? Why should I pay for music created by dead artists? The costs involved in making this music available has already been covered many times.

    In the case of remasters, the engineer involved should get compensation but 1. remastered albums generally suck 2. it doesn’t cost that much to do.

  • Jimmy

    #19 said “there are people who use the internet solely for online banking, checking their email and general surfing of the net.”

    Yep, that was me until about a year ago, heh heh heh.

  • Anonymous

    wtf its either ban from internet or pay extra [preferably neither] you cant have both

  • Wolfy

    this is just plain wrong. a tax on a service to “help” a company whose products/services you don’t use? And what if you do pay for their movies/books/music/games anyway? I’m a pirate, not ashamed to admit it. Yet I also have a HUGE collection of legally purchased media. About two hundred books, plus one of my bedroom windows is completely filled with DVDs and games, none of them are pirated. I even paid over a hundred quid for Smallville Season 1-7, because its easier for me to watch on DVD. And yet, these greedy copyright holders want me to continue paying? I will pay once for your product, ONCE, anything more than that is extortion and theft in my opinion.

  • revolution

    @31

    This kind of attitude from copyright holders will turn users like you into full-fledged pirates.

  • UltraleetJ

    yup, but then they said it is “pirates” who “steal”. I really hope the ISPS can represent the voices of the REAL PEOPLE.

  • Wolfy

    Mr. Law-Abiding gets mail, reads it, its his internet bill.

    “Hmmm…thirty euro monthly…right…hang on…what’s this…surcharge to help offset piracy? Money goes to copyright holders? But I don’t even watch movies or anything? I’m paying extra because OTHER PEOPLE are illegally downloading? Surely they should chase down these pirates with hard evidence that will stand up in a courtroom (something more than a screenshot and a pretty graph) and fine them! Not take my hard-earned money!”

  • Wolfy

    so basically, if I say, write a song, record it, licence it with a record label, and then sneakily make a torrent for it, does that mean I get my share of this surcharge? So even if my product doesn’t sell and my music is crap, I can still claim money?
    Let me guess, NO!!

  • djnforce9

    This whole concept of having to pay to compensate (probably non-existant) losses by the industries remind me of how gangs will sometimes force a business to pay X amount of money or else be severely vandalized. MAFIAA certainly is a suitable term for these distributors in that regard.

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  • Wolfy

    Can a car manufacturer claim money from legal motorists because some people steal cars? No! So why should somebody with a copyright get money off law-abiding people because there are pirates? Do they even have to prove their stuff was stolen (and if they could prove that, why not take the pirate to court instead?)

  • .:.

    Ok then Charge use your “surcharge” BUT don’t expect us to pay for a service that you then wont allow us to use.IE P2P.

    EPIC FAIL.

    This is like Canada where all blank media has a TAX but then they expect you NOT to .torrent.

    Oh please GTFO the internet you greedy MOFO`s

  • Anonymous

    This would be my negotiation tactic with these entairtainment parasites:

    Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! and Boom!

    7 enemies objectifs Destroyed. Over.

    End of execution.

  • Anonymous

    This would be my negotiation tactic with these entairtainment parasites:

    Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! and Boom!

    7 enemies objectives Destroyed. Over.

    End of execution.

  • Anonymous

    The MAFIAA is funny.

    Sure they can get some money out of taxes but probably will be screwd by the government and
    cry wolf after LoL

    This is a historical moment when old models agonize in terrible pain.

    Entertaiment is a commodity is viewed as a commodity and the people behind it are just pissing their sponsors.

    Have been years since I download a music file let alone buy something from this people. I’m looking for alternatives and even those horrible horrible LoLCats(but funny) are better entertaiment for me right now.

    How is revision3 making money? They distribute their content over torrents, how are they getting paid for? and for now at least I don’t see them crying about piracy because they already distribute in a way people want no need to go to other places to catch another version.

    And then there is the “Sanctuary” series that started as a WEB series and was bought by some network.

    Well slowly but surely new models will evolve and dinosaurs will die out.

    People are just waiting for something new and when it happens and in droves they abandon the MAFIAA and theirs precious contente it will be the death blow to an entire industry of morons LoL

  • littlefishy

    How about someone make a movie where using the internet they gather resources(money) to make a film and when its all done if there is any proceedings distribute it to all that supported that?

    Wow! God forbid sharing the proceedings with the pirates LoL

  • Telefonica

    “If we disconnected people on your terms, we’d have no customers by the end of the week.”

  • Rainydays

    This is nutz! They want the ISP to keep customer data, turn over there paying customers to the hounds if illegal sharing was involved. Then they want ISP to surcharge the innocent people. Someone will have to collect the money. It just leaves room for another entity to make life more complicated, privacy out the door, and miss-use of money.

    A poll in America showed that more then 50% people wants a smaller government. I can only assume this to be more so in those foreign countries where people have less freedom then we do. Companies need to be weakened in power along with the government. A primary example is the “Three Strikes Law”. I doubt the people voted that one to get it passed.

    Countries need to be ran by the people. Not corporations and government. The government should act as the reflection of the peoples will. I just don’t see that anymore.

  • ar31an

    > ISPs and Copyright Holders Fail to Reach Piracy Agreement http://www.tech3d.net/2009/05/01/isps-and-copyright-holders-fail-to-reach-piracy-agreement/

    Good.

  • riaarard

    The motor vehicle manufacturers are in serious financial . They should get taxpayers to pay the police to bust people that car pool. They should also sue all people that take public transportation. They should sue people for allowing others to use their cars. They should also just sue everyone, even if they don’t own a car, because everyone is guilty of stealing their profits. Sue everyone for your losses because surely everyone who doesnt buy a car iis complicite in causing you financial losses. Accuse everyone of being a criminal and throw them in jail because they won’t buy your car.

    Yeah. That makes perfect sense.

  • Pingback: ISPs and Copyright Holders Fail to Reach Piracy Agreement | News Inventory

  • Dennis
  • Dennis

    35 euros a year for broadband is not all they want. The full list is below:

    - ADSL or cable: 35 euros
    - Multifunction Printer: $ 10
    - Camera: 9 euros
    - CD or DVD recorder: 16 euros

    Seeing as I have multiple printers, cameras and DVD recorders. I would have to pay around 150 euros a year and I don’t even pirate. Guess what if I have to pay then I get to play!

  • Pingback: ISPs and Copyright Holders Fail to Reach Piracy Agreement … « Copyright

  • SteveO

    Just seems to me that everyone is trying to charge for everything all the time. MORE MORE MORE. thats the mentalitay of everyone. Even the pirates. Im gettin everything i can because they are coming for us. To hell with them. They will have their way at any cost. SO i will give up the internet, and go back to having a life. But im taking EVERYTHING I can until then.

  • Joel

    If the actually do start charging customers for that doesn’t that give them carte blanch to download stuff owned by the companies that are receiving the fees? You would have already “paid” for the use of their products.

  • Anonymous

    PUTA SGAE partida de ladrones mafiosos
    Well done in Spain.

    Spain is one of the few countries, were copying for non-profit purposes is still technically legal, something which the major labels are desperate to change.

  • john

    89.149.242.120<<<<site ip

  • john

    91.121.150.63<<<< VIP sever box

  • DJ

    LMAO, this is hilarious. History repeats itself on so many occasions, governement intervention on civil liberties never works. Notice:

    “Internet users or consumer groups were not represented in these discussions”.

    Just like when England refused to let the taxpayers be represented before the Revolutionary War, and we all know what happened there.

  • Anonymous

    Honestly, This entire war against piracy seems so stupid. The main reason this is such an issue is because people think Piracy is the reason why studio execs and musical artists are losing money with releases of their pieces of media. The real problem is people making shitty pieces of media, and expecting US to buy them.

    Put some damn work into your projects u damn studio executives, and stop blaming ISPs and the average ISP user for downloading things off the internet.I reserve the right to download whatever the hell i want to download, WITHOUT your authorization, oh great piracy overlord.Be less money grubbing, and more about QUALITY, and less about the quick dollar. Then lets see how that affects their profits. That means GREAT profits.

    Take for example, Iron Man, by marvel.

    Movie was great,funny, action packed, and had a great script. On screen it came together witht he work of the hardworking crew and directors.
    Did they complain about losing money?
    no.

    Checkmate. Any other points these people wanna make? Same goes for musical artists and game creators.

  • Anonymous

    Im the same poster as above:

    Also wanted to add that this entire piracy war is just a way for people to blame their losses on the consumer for not buying their shitty product/service.

    This blame game doesnt play well with the people. We BUY your shit, so please dont blame us for every other piece of shit movie or game or musical CD you make.

    If you make something well enough, It WILL make money, i guarantee it.

  • FairnessFairy

    Give them a mile and they want 10 miles.

    They want to TAX people for piracy but then they want to ban piracy. Which means, ultimately, if they succeed and no one is pirating, they will still be charging a tax.

    I swear. Time for extreme measures.

    All-you-can eat TV/Movies through torrents is fine with me. If they tax my connection, I’ll just hook up 2 cups to a string and see how data modulation works on it.

  • Orlusha

    In the days of Soviet socialism the approach of Bautista was called “uravnilovka”, that is “levelling”. It lead USSR to crash.

    “The source of piracy is the unleashed greediness of labels”, — said Mick Box in Moscow 2006 at Rock Against the Piracy festival. The whole world heard him. You see, talentless people are becoming as greedy as labels. It intimidates greatly. :(

  • Wayne

    An author with a good web presence do can do ok out of Piracy.
    Lawrence Watt Evans publishes his books on line and for 5 dollars he sends you the chapter as soon as it is written(thats not 5 a chapter thats for the whole book) the thing is most of his books are available unoffically on P2P people pick up on it and send the 5 dollars anyway.
    and some put in a bit extra for the books they didnt “pay for” I hope more people would operate like this

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