Music Biz Hopes To End Piracy By Tempting ISPs With Millions
Written by enigmax on March 08, 2010A new study commissioned on behalf of Universal Music reports that if ISPs got involved in the digital music market, they could make millions in the years to come. But one can’t help wondering that this is less about the music biz helping ISPs to make more profit, but more about giving them an incentive to do something about piracy.
Around seven years ago when pressure was first starting to form against the then-fledgling BitTorrent scene, attitudes were pretty much as they are now. “They’ll never stop it, we’ll always find a way,” cried the masses grabbing music, movies and software for free, and few disagreed.
Of course, there will always be a way to acquire media free of charge, the last few decades have shown us that. But the media industries are now having to find new ways to defend their corner. There has always been talk of Big Movies or Big Music ‘owning’ politicians and lawmakers, but while this is true to the extent that their immense lobbying power allows, there has also been another more serious threat on the back-burner.
If the RIAA or MPAA owned – literally – all the major ISPs, they could affect the piracy landscape quicker than ever before. A simple rewrite or tweaking of subscriber’s Terms of Service would ensure that anyone proven to be a pirate could be ejected from the Internet in an instant, no laws needed. While this is unfeasible right now, there are easier ways of encouraging the same, like business partnerships and promises of profit.
According to a new study titled “Is There A Commercial Argument For ISP Music Services” commissioned by the BPI on behalf of Universal Music and carried out by industry analyst Ovum, if the UK’s most prominent ISPs all more or less immediately launched subscriber packages that included bundled music, they could generate new revenues of £103 million by 2013.
The BPI say this figure is based on a ‘medium adoption scenario’ and is an amount equal to 41% of the total 2009 digital music market. In an ‘accelerated adoption scenario’ the study says that the revenues could nearly double to £203m.
Aside from the profitability implied by these revenues, the report seems keen to offer other incentives to the major ISPs – Virgin Media, Sky, BT, O2, Orange and TalkTalk – to get involved in the music business. The study suggests that the inclusion of a music element to bundles would reduce subscriber ‘churn’ – the rate at which customers cancel their contracts. The example given is that an ISP with 3.5m customers could save £20m if the bundling of music cut churn by 10%, although there is no information to show that it actually would.
While suggesting good business is to be had in getting a little involved in the music business, the BPI is keen to point out that for ISPs, the more involved they get, the more they can make.
“The revenue prospects for bundled ISP music services would be substantially increased if services were offered to consumers in tandem with meaningful action to tackle illegal music downloading,” say the BPI.
We approached TalkTalk, an ISP referred to in the study, for a comment.
“TalkTalk thanks the BPI for its strategic business advice. Though some may question the value of such insight from an industry which has failed to acknowledge the impact of new technology on its own business models and is pressing the Government to criminalise its biggest customers,” a spokesperson told TorrentFreak.
Clearly TalkTalk doesn’t want to do the music industry’s dirty work for them, but if other ISPs got heavily involved in the music distribution business it might be considered natural for them to try and protect their revenues. That said, the leap from simple common carrier to having a vested interest could complicate their position.
Nevertheless, another issue the report highlights is that heavy competition is driving down the price of broadband services while consumer desire for bandwidth continues to increase. In any business working in plain commodities, the desire to bring in more profitable “added-value” products is strong.
“It’s increasingly clear that it isn’t smart to be a ‘dumb pipe’. This report shows that the revenue potential of digital music services alone makes sound economic sense for ISPs,” said BPI Chief Executive, Geoff Taylor.
So let’s imagine that the ISPs want to get involved in this market, offering bundled music for an extra £6.49 (the price level suggested in the report) – what would be so wrong with that? It’s pretty affordable after all, so why not give it a chance?
“With the right service platform, user experience and merchandising strategy, ISPs have an opportunity to reach a green-field digital music market that mainstream download-to-own services such as iTunes do not reach today,” explains report co-author and Ovum’s principal analyst, Adrian Drury.
So these suggested services aren’t of the “fill up your iPod” type, but of the “can only be used sitting-at-your-computer streaming services with limited download allocation” type. Surprised? Us neither.
Trying to convert those currently using file-sharing services over to paid models is already a big challenge. Trying to switch them to an inferior product whilst being hounded by their ISP on behalf of the music industry is a different matter altogether, and something TalkTalk refuses to be drawn into.
“Perhaps there is a goldmine for ISPs in legal downloads but that will not alter the fact that the copyright protection proposals being proposed threaten human rights,” their spokesperson told us. “They will penalise innocent broadband customers. They are expensive, unwieldy and utterly futile.”
If the record labels really did own your ISP, this is the type of environment subscribers would be pushed into. And you’d still have to fill up your iPod elsewhere at additional cost.
Previously: Top 10 Most Pirated Movies on BitTorrent
Next: Dutch Pirate Party Joins Election Race
76 Responses
“It’s increasingly clear that it isn’t smart to be a ‘dumb pipe’. This report shows that the revenue potential of digital music services alone makes sound economic sense for ISPs,” said BPI Chief Executive, Geoff Taylor.
If they are not a dumb pipe they get sued up the wazoo, if they are.. they have to play by the industries rules…
Tricky….
Whats that old saying?
Same sh!t, new day.
#1 that’s:
same sh!t, different pile
Notice in this article there is a very careful step-around about what this will cost the subscriber of the net service. Not nary a peep about the associated costs that the customer will bare.
The IPSs are not going to police the net for the entertainment industry for free. It costs labor, programs which are not free, and time to tend to those that will have to be found and then issued all the proper steps.
The entertainment industry wants this for free.
So guess who is going to pay for it? Why you the customer are going to foot the bill. Some of the estimates I saw in the past say it could come to as much as $30 extra on your bill a month to do so.
I’m not willing to pay that as my net connection is already too expensive for what I get.
Well it seems like the iceberg is starting to break, they are looking for new ways to bilk funds from customers. How many of you actually only listen to music sitting in front of your computer? Do you really want to have your choices limited by agreements with big companies? Just watched ‘endgame’ and wonder what would have happened if deKlerk had continued Botha’s outdated policies. The revolution will continue until the Big Companies follow suit and open it all up. Doesn’t seem like much progress, but isn’t a bit better than none?
Get a VPN and keep sharing!
lol.
40% of internet traffic = p2p
80% of the money that record labels make = analogic devices (cd, dvd)
90% of all shared music and films online = pirated (for free)
decrase of the profit rate for major labels from 1999 to 2009 = more than 60%
AND IT´S DROPPING
guess what? incredible but they´re running OUT OF MONEY, so they´ll fire all they´re guns now but look at how WE see them and how INTELECTUALS see them and how outside organisations (i.e: TalkTalk) see them: LIKE MONSTERS
SUE US, CHANGE LAWS, CHANGE THE HOLE CYBERSPACE TO IT FITS YOUR INTERESTS but PUBLIC OPINION is AGAINST YOU NOW
and things change
2nd
it’s amazing how the industry refuses to change any single thing at their end.
pathetic.
@ #2,
thanks, got a bit confused with that saying… there was another saying that ends with “different day” or “new day” any idea what it is?
“Clearly TalkTalk doesn’t want to do the music industry’s dirty work for them, but if other ISPs got heavily involved in the music distribution business it might be considered natural for them to try and protect their revenues.”
Are you kidding? If an ISP decides to sell out, people will simply flock to another ISP that didn’t!!
It’s common sense that pirates are the users who’ll pay for the most expensive internet package they can get, and are the ISP’s best-paying customers. If an ISP loses the pirates, they’ll be stuck with old people with dial-up modems who get the cheapest package available.
Basically, either the record biz get all the ISPs 100% on board, or poad.
If RIAA and MPAA spent as much money improving the user experience as they did on these worthless schemes, they wouldn’t have to worry about pirates in the first place. Look at the money they’ve spent from the very beginning and it would have kept them in their limos and cigars for years to come.
You see, I would probably pay for an all you can eat service and I actually think 6 pounds is cheap for that (10 would be reasonable and 15 expensive). Even if it had restrictions like having to stay with them for at least an year or so. But I’d want the songs in my computer/ipod/mobile to listen whenever I wanted regardless of internet access without DRM crap.
Whatever we say here is useless anyway since we don’t know details about the study. What premises they used, how they got to the figures… You know, the process they used to reach the results. In the end it smells like another über biased misleading study by MAFIAA trying to make money without adapting their business….
People don’t leave their ISP so easily. Virgin is spying on filesharers right now and isnt leaking users
Good article.
“Clearly TalkTalk doesn’t want to do the music industry’s dirty work for them, but if other ISPs got heavily involved in the music distribution business it might be considered natural for them to try and protect their revenues.”
Agreed but even if other ISP’s are pressured into adopting such a scheme once a major ISP signs on, they might quickly realize that it’s not a money maker.
A few years ago, a U.K. ISP called PlayLouder tries a similar scheme. They offered customers the ability to share files with each other (only playlouder customers). The fee was included into their monthly cost and there was no way of opting out.
It was a flop. http://playlouder.com/
The main reason why ISP’s won’t benefit from such a scheme is because the offer is crap… expensive crap.
Dammit, I don’t *want* any “value-added extras” with my broadband connection like AV software/online storage/music download service since I already have my own. A dumb pipe is EXACTLY what I want, nothing more.
No ISP is going to want to go first for fear of losing customers resulting in a huge loss of profit.
Another failed idea… god bless them for trying though… :D
No I will not pay for another “service” offered by my ISP, I pay them too much already. Don’t bother me.
Say an ISP leaks info on thousands of monthly paying customers… after said customers are taken to court do you think they’ll continue paying monthly? Hell no. How stupid do they think ISP owners really are?
I hate how TF starts posts by talking about the past instead of telling me what the fuck is going on.
“So these suggested services aren’t of the “fill up your iPod” type, but of the “can only be used sitting-at-your-computer streaming services with limited download allocation” type. Surprised? Us neither.”
Um, you may want to do your research before writing such ill informed commentary.
AAPT in Australia are offering “Music Bundles” as they call them with some plans – you’d have to research it yourselves if your interested in the details.
The “Bundle”, as it is currently, offers a huge download allowance of 320 kbit MP3 – comprising as I understand 3 of the Big 5 labels libraries, completely DRM free. Also th eentire library can be streamed with no limits placed on streaming.
What TorrentFreak forgot about is the other advantages to the ISP beyonf extra direct profits. By hosting the library of (legitimate) tracks on the own servers the ISP no longer has to supply that bandwidth to customers who go for a pirated – or for that matter legitimate – download or streaming.
Frankly for this reason over any other cost ISP will need little encouragement to go to this model – it’s a win – win. If the library covers enough content in this DRM free manner it’s unlikely they’ll have much of a piracy problem to worry about asthe content is as good as the illegal alternative.
Also it should be noted that teh above package is not offered with an extra cost associated with it – it comes with the particular plan and cannot be bought seperately AFAIK – could be wrong, check the AAPT site.
Probably some ISPs will accept the deal and will make more money (e.g. more loss for the MAFIAA), thinking they’ll make up for the loss of customers with the MAFIAA’s money, but of course ISP’s customers will find some other way to get around any technical trick the ISPs can think of.
When the MAFIAA will realize they’re just throwing away more money (like they’re doing right now with their pointless lawsuits), it’ll be too late (no more money), or so I hope. And this will be the end of the copyright era.
The right solution for the MAFIAA is just to find another business model. It’s impossible that a tangible good and a downloaded song both cost more or less the same amount of money. I mean heck, there’s no plastic, no shippping&handling, just bandwidth, and this could work well for MP3s.
About movies, blue-ray are expensive, and blue-ray movies are rather big, meaning higher bandwidth costs. But something similar to what Hand Pandeya tried to realize could be feasible.
Users can be incentivated to share their songs for a fee, and other users can be just use their bandwidth to download everything.
A new bittorrent software could be invented for purchasing songs, for everybody’s economic benefit.
So what do you think, MAFIAA?
@3 Anonymous.
Naturally the isp will bill the customer for the added costs for surveillance of infringement. It’s the same customer now doing the infringing that is making all this in a fair marketplace necessary in the first place.
A similar parallel exists in IRL shoplifting. The costs of the additional guards and cameras, scanners and hidden anti-theft devices are ALL borne by the same consumers that are ripping them off. It’s all in the cost of the goods for sale. If shoplifting never happened in the first place, that security would have never been necessary and the added costs would not have been added to the cost of goods being sold.
Simple economics.
“Probably some ISPs will accept the deal and will make more money (e.g. more loss for the MAFIAA), thinking they’ll make up for the loss of customers with the MAFIAA’s money, but of course ISP’s customers will find some other way to get around any technical trick the ISPs can think of.”
ISPs as I pointed out will NOT have to be pushed and pressured into this – even if they’re making no profit whatsoever the savings in bandwidth (to backbones) they no longer have to provide is more than enough incentive.
“When the MAFIAA will realize they’re just throwing away more money (like they’re doing right now with their pointless lawsuits), it’ll be too late (no more money), or so I hope. And this will be the end of the copyright era.”
You seem remarkably uninformed about copyright law – the end of the MPAA will not bring about an end to copyright law. Actually they have little to do with each other – the MPAA is an industry organisation that deals with more than just copyright.
“The right solution for the MAFIAA is just to find another business model.”
Um, in case you hadn’t noticed that is exactly what this is…
“It’s impossible that a tangible good and a downloaded song both cost more or less the same amount of money. I mean heck, there’s no plastic, no shippping&handling, just bandwidth, and this could work well for MP3s.
About movies, blue-ray are expensive, and blue-ray movies are rather big, meaning higher bandwidth costs. But something similar to what Hand Pandeya tried to realize could be feasible.”
You’re failing to grasp what this means for ISP. Since the ISP hosts the content, legally, they no longer have to pay for customer bandwidth for the download of these blurays or any other hosted file. The proposed idea only gets better as file sizes get larger. If the content is as good as common pirate formats are there is no reason for a majority of customers to illegally download the content anymore.
“Users can be incentivated to share their songs for a fee, and other users can be just use their bandwidth to download everything.”
This idea will not work – it adds a completely unneccessay layer of complexity if it’s even feasible – God knows a system like that would be open to abuse. ISPs would rather host the content and serve it themselves due to the enormous bandwidth savings they make.
“A new bittorrent software could be invented for purchasing songs, for everybody’s economic benefit.”
No it would not – as I said such a system would be open to rampant abuse being as the software would have to be client side based.
“So what do you think, MAFIAA?”
They won’t be answering some random blog comment I hope you realise.
The bottom line is that artists are the only one who should decide how their work is distributed. Not ISPs or the RIAA.
The recording industry could never own every major ISP. That sounds more like a conspiracy theory. “The RIAA is trying to buy out all the ISPs, so they can spy on us” or something. Just because they want to track down people who have no regard for copyright, doesn’t mean they want to spy on everyone for the sake of it. Believe me, they have better things to do with their time then go through your list of google searches or something.
And why shouldn’t a pirate be ejected from the internet? Should they be allowed to continue defrauding copyright holders simply because enforcing is inconvenient for people who don’t care about it?
@Fellatio
The fact that AAPT offers those bundles does not contradict the article.
“piracy problem” – which was brought on the MAFIAA by itself and itself alone. It’s their fault, I don’t see why anyone else should suffer for it.
@Whoever posted “if it’s even feasible”
It’s not. Absolutely infeasible.
Pretty amazing that the music industry just keeps coming up with new ways for people to hate them. You’d think to save their crumbling business model they’d be trying to win customers, not alienate them.
Keep digging that grave guys, it’ll be ready for you soon enough!
“It’s increasingly clear that it isn’t smart to be a ‘dumb pipe”
WTF? That is exactly what we WANT you to be. All I want is a pipe, make it as big and fat and cheap as you can and I will happily give you all my money.
Even if the ISP’s did join the music circus in order to stop filesharing they would need deep packet inspections and other expensive and invasive monitoring technologies. This would just drive customers away and raise your costs making your company less competitive. Price is what consumers care most about, so spending money on monitoring your customers thus raising your rates is stupid.
Besides, who is gonna pay for a music service that you can’t put on you Ipod?
If an anti-piracy group would own all ISPs in a country, that would create a big market niche for an independent ISP run by a strong person who wouldn’t accept a buy-out. The potential profit from customers who want total privacy is quite juicy. If the RI/MPAA would go down this road, they could make a bunch of ambitious piracy advocate´s pretty darn rich! :D
they keep pushing and pushing and greed is their driving force. Soon the masses will push back. soon
@Fellatio
You call this commentary badly informed and then go on to talk about bundled packages in Australia, when this article is about a study done in the UK, for the UK. Congrats for missing the ridiculously obvious and ruining your own point
You go on to talk about DRM free dloads when this study is about streaming services with a minor dload addon, talk about comparing apples and pears
@Fellatio
Just to add that the bundle you speak of (by your own measure) offers music from 3 of the 5 labels which directly contradicts your own statement that the offer is as good as the illegal/pirate sources. ALL music from ALL labels are available in that way
Do try to keep up, its tiresome having to keep correcting you
Recently to many problems are going to be solved by buying that problem.
Not so many people are interested in music download when you can download almost everything from youtube and other streaming sites.
not to mention torrents cyberlockers and other P2P
people who pay for music will pay in any case, and the who do not (like me) will sooner die than buy some album.
In any case if isp is providing some music distribution service it has no reason to limit piracy in any way, because this will not increase profits enough to offset loss.
oh great.. can you imagine trying to explain what the ‘internet’ is to people with this?
they will dress is up as some kind of gateway to music.. OTHER than the internet.. or just not clarify that.. and people will think its different.
sounds like it will be no different than youtube
20#
I love copyright, I would hate for someone to copy one of my paintings and say it was his original idea and profit. So copyright is good to defend the authors.
But this companies exaggerate with their intentions…
O know of many people who left a ISP because they started to use traffic shaping in P2P protocols. So if they started to monitor people because of some shady deals with this companies it would be a huge hit on theirs users base, that would move to a safer ISP.
This is highly non-viable.
The issue remains the same…. true net neutrality. Then it doesn’t matter who owns the ISP.
What we’re hearing politically is support for net neutrality except for illegal activities that are not yet defined. It sounds good to the masses: they’re thinking terrorism and child-porn. Reality is that they want to shut down everything they don’t like.
@Fellatio,
First of all, suck my d*ck (!). Your post is so full of holes you shouldn’t tell anyone they are misinformed.
A broadband tax has been proposed before. It’s a terrible idea that does more harm than good, and it’s definitely *not* a business model.
If you add £5 on the price of every internet connection, think how many households could end up without internet. Alternatively, if this is made opt-in, it simply won’t work because most people will choose to save that £60 a year.
The issue is, as the Talk Talk representative put it, with violating human rights: not ISPs, not content companies and not even governments have the right impose this completely unnecessary tax to uphold a failing industry.
The loss of customers that would ensue could be far greater than any cost-saving that will come from lower bandwidth costs — users will go to the cheaper ISP that does not push this service onto its users.
The real problem comes back to copyrights, which is what these companies are trying so hard to uphold: 100+ years of copyright are impossible to enforce, and asking internet users to foot the bill by adding a tax on internet connections is the WRONG thing to do.
If copyrights are shortened to a reasonable duration, (such as 5 to 15 years) it will be fairer for everyone, it will be far easier to enforce and all this nonsense will be unnecessary. The content companies will also have less power and won’t be able to demand changes (through RIAA, MPAA etc, which are the fronts that are actively lobbying for this stuff) in legislation that hurt human rights ever again.
Reading this I was actually pretty impressed at the suggestion. For one fleeting moment I thought they were actually going to do something very sensible and make vast amounts of music available very cheaply.
Then I read the bit that added it wouldn’t actually be *your* music to keep…
Shame. They’re close to being sensible but they’r just too scared to take that the real brave step.
So they’ll fail.
How about tempting the pirates with more stuffs for them to pirate with?
@Duane
Perfect. Well said. Thanks.
I think it would be very cool to offer a legal repository of content, that the users could enjoy on demand, but imposing obscene restrictions on that content is really a kick in the consumers balls. Their methods of combating piracy with senseless restrictions is misguided. They only need to make content inexpensive, unencumbered and easily accessible and I’m sure the majority of users will opt to buy legal copies, creating enough revenue to simply not care about those who choose not to pay or who can’t afford your content. The power is in the masses :).
rolof dumb riaa mpaa bpi ifpi
you gone too far guys no one give a hoot any more.
Audience base losing interest in your product and sales are down? Solution:
Step 1) Spend billions on lobbying, anti-piracy organizations, expensive lawyers with long drawn out trials, and ridiculous advertising campaigns to persecute the people who didn’t deem your products worth paying for in to begin with.
Step 2) ???
Step 3) Profit!
I think a good idea for the ISP and music industry both would add a extra fee you can pay onto your internet bill that ALLOWS you to pirate as much as you want, maybe $100 more, and they send it out to all of the labels and such, $100 may sound like a lot but with the ability to download unlimited content it’s a good deal in my opinion.
fail
Kick people off the internet because they downloaded a song or movie. Yeah, great idea.. take the entire world of free useful information away from someone because they wouldnt pay for your song/movie about breaking up with with your ex-girl/boy friend.
*facepalm*
jerk.
If ISPs start to give personnal information and really block file-sharing, I’m going back to basic high speed (170bytes/s) or even dial-up. Really, what would be the point of having a 13mbps connection?
@ 1,2,7, It’s “Same sh!t, different flies”, that’s how we always said it.
The music biz has enough money to start its own ISP, then let the market decide. But lawyers only think about making other people take the risks.
Lord knows we could use the competition. Deregulation hasn’t worked…if you want internet you get to choose between one cable company, and one phone company. And they charge the same. We’re screwed!
Given that most ‘pirates’ are willing to pay around a fiver a month on VPN, it would be really sensible for the industry to offer them freedom to continue for that money instead.
I can see a lot of parents paying this to side-step whatever their kids are up to (and that they don’t understand). I would in a flash.
Better still if it was helped by a safe site for downloads/torrents so you get less of the lime(ware) disease on Joe Average’s PC, and of course an opportunity for merchandising, etc.
For a moment I thought they had…but then realised they are basically continuing the whack-a-mole game and not looking to get the best deal that is practical, rather than their market-fixed ideal.
@17 Fellatio
“What TorrentFreak forgot about is the other advantages to the ISP beyonf extra direct profits. By hosting the library of (legitimate) tracks on the own servers the ISP no longer has to supply that bandwidth to customers who go for a pirated – or for that matter legitimate – download or streaming.”
Well it looks like everyone else corrected several mistakes, but left out the big one.
Most ISP’s are experiencing bandwidth issues in the middle & last mile. Their peering points and tier 1 points have no real problems.
Since you obviously don’t know what these are, I will explain. Middle Mile is from the CO to the DSLAM/DAC Node, Last Mile is from there to your home.
So locating a server at the CO does *nothing* but compounds their bandwidth problems.
Why? Steaming services will take up more bandwidth. Downloading 20 4 MB MP3′s takes virtually no bandwidth. I somehow doubt people are downloading 1k tracks each day.
Now streaming takes a constant connection between the server and client while the stream is going. Now lets compare that to fetching 1-4 tracks a once or twice a day.
People also use streaming services longer resulting in higher bandwidth use than the download format.
So the upgrades in the MM & LM that they are putting off doing now, they would not be able to put off. The high cost of running fiber and the costs of trying to keep piracy off the pipes, in addition to losing safe harbor protections afforded them, would not be worth the pennies they would get out of their share of the revenue.
This is only considering the Music end of it. Movie streaming would virtually force upgrades to the MM & LM of the network.
The percentage of subscribers who would leave would depend on the situation. If the fee was mandatory a higher portion would. If they will disconnect the subscribers for any accusation an even larger percentage would leave. If it was optional it would most likely not generate any real revenue.
Also it would depend upon the number of included downloads. Less than 30 a month at £7 would probably not see many people signing up.
Additionally not everyone would understand it. They would assume they could now download what they want since they are paying for music each month. Once they realize this is not the case they would be very upset, this would cause even more problems as these now pissed off subscribers would be calling to complain.
Overall the value to the ISP and the people in general would be in a unlimited, DRM free plan. Once the industry is completely backed into a corner we might see this happen. With the new ’360′ recording contracts this may be further away than many have hoped.
Told you so:
“That’s the optimistic view. The realist view would be that the entertainment companies will end up buying and owning the cables, i.e. the whole backbones of the Internet. This semi-centralized nature of the backbones is every Internet users’ heel of Achilles, and can only be temporarily counter-acted by encrypting EVERYTHING that transits through that MAFIAA-controlled backbone.”
… here:
http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-uploader-raided-by-anti-piracy-group-100215/#comment-641614
The best way to stop churn in the UK.
Provide what service you advertise, and dont get out of it with Fair use policy’s that make an”unlimited broadband connection” limited to 100GB per month, or your crippled to dial up speeds from 6pm to midnight for the next month.
Or get out of a servicde thats ran quite happily at 8Mb for 4 years, that now runs at less than 2, bu saying that you only subscribed to an up to 8Mb service, so thats fine, and be thankful cos some people dont even get that speed.
Then people might stay with you as a provider.
Also get your own equipment into all exchanges so you dont have to resell BT’s shit wholslae offering which is the main reason for my previous point.
The only provider with and unlimited service and no Fair Use Policy is Sky, and they havent unbundled my exchange,
@30 Stoned
Spark another one buddy because copyright does nothing to prevent plagiarism – copyright protects DISTRIBUTION rights (usually the rights of the publisher/movie studio/record company – not even the author) and nothing else.
If all these file sharers were changing files to claim authorship, well then maybe you might have a point.
These douchebags have been claiming copywright infringement since the first book printing press was created copying the bible or some crap. With new advanced technology will never change.
There is one fact that is apparent to anybody who follows the business world even a tiny bit, but apparently not so for the music industry.
And that fact is that the music industry business model is very different from ISPs business model.
Coupled with the fact that the current music industry’s model doesn’t work, it’s is not a very attractive alternative for an ISP.
For this to work, the music biz has to change… but then they won’t need ISPs…
Honestly, Add $30US to my monthly internet bill and allow me to download all the movies, series, games and music that i want to, let me do whatever i want with them, and i’ll happily quit all of my torrent site memberships.
Water is a boon in the desert, but the drowning man curses it.
This disturbed me greatly.
However, IF they did try to “buyout”, the main ISPs surely the OFT (office of fair trading) would step in ?
@ fellatio:
just about everything you said was ignorant nonsense (i hope you were compensated for it none-the-less).
but i will just focus on the core of your moronic statements.
““So these suggested services aren’t of the “fill up your iPod” type, but of the “can only be used sitting-at-your-computer streaming services with limited download allocation” type. Surprised? Us neither.”
Um, you may want to do your research before writing such ill informed commentary.” end quotes..
who in their right mind prefers temporarily owning something (and only while at their PC) to permanently owning it??? Streaming anything to your PC is less than pointless… and claiming that to be equal to Downloading it or, worse still, that it is superior or preferable, is to insult the intelligence of all who reads it..
if you think anyone would buy into that then you are confused.. and clearly so.
AND limited allocation of Band?!?! pfff suuuure. dream on… and then you speak of research.
classic comedy. ie: clown shoes
The Painter kept getting sore
Whilst trying to even the score
They deleted his rhyme
Most every time
So he just kept writing some more
Big Pond in Australia has a huge revelue flow from selling digital music and movies, and they control most of the lines in Australia as a wholesaler. Internode host their own steam servers, and offer downloads of Steam Games with no bandwidth being counted.
Neither of these ISP’s have ever been forced at gunpoint to change their TOS, they have only ever gone by what the government has implemented.
@60
Those BigPond Services arent bundled into the price of the Broadband. They do offer Unmetered access to their sites if you are a customer, but you still have to pay for the downloads. They only offer the unmetered access to entice you to buy/download from their sites rather then competeters
ISPs should take the loot. Then thumb their noses. Make upgrades with the money. And lower costs.
@22, Fellatio:
“You’re failing to grasp what this means for ISP. Since the ISP hosts the content, legally, they no longer have to pay for customer bandwidth for the download of these blurays or any other hosted file. The proposed idea only gets better as file sizes get larger. If the content is as good as common pirate formats are there is no reason for a majority of customers to illegally download the content anymore.”
Nonsense, bandwidth is just bandwitdh, it’s irrilevant if it’s “taken” from the ISPs’ customers or the ISPs themself, therefore as many already pointed out, your arguments are just total nonsense.
By the way,
“They won’t be answering some random blog comment I hope you realise.”
You did, spreading misinformation. Prooves my point enough. I rest my case ;)
Hmm isn’t that called “CORRUPTION”? That’s the way the useless “movie/music industry” has always worked!
@ #21 and #23
http://memegenerator.net/Advice-Inspector-General-Alejandro-Ordoñez/ImageMacro/670395
firstly, there’s no way that the music industry could afford to ‘buy out’ the ISPs. The small ones mayeb, at a push, but you guys really have over estimated the money in music!
Secondly, the vitriol above seems to prove the point that no matter what the music industry offers, you guys wouldn’t except it – even a paltry £6.50 a month to listen to anything you wanted. That service would fail if it were in the format of playlouder, of course it would. So business sense dictates that it probably wouldn’t be in that form.
Once the creative industries (music, film, TV) do offer a service that, beyond any reasonable argument, is fair and acceptable by everyone but the most ardent P2P enthusiast, then the only option left to ensure that the wholesale ‘sharing’ is controlled, are these draconian measures. For a moment, put yourself in the shoes of anyone trying to make a living in these industries. Beyond all the paranoid conspiracy theories and ranting above, you’ll see that people are only trying to protect their interests. Politicians are not in the pockets of these industries. I for one am glad that something is finally being done to bring (a) the price point down to something that will encourage the legitimate enjoyment of music (we haven’t all got our heads stuck in the sand) and (b) make it easier to for legitimate services to triumph over the illegal ‘services’, and (c) bring an actual tangible punishment in to play if people continue to thoughtlessly pirate.
And using Talk Talk as reference in your report? Talk Talk are the most ridiculous, blatantly profit-motivated company I have ever had the displeasure of dealing with. They care not one jot about ‘human rights’. All they care about is their subscriptions. Fair enough – they are a company, there to make money. But to disconnect someone because they are using their internet connection for illegal activities is an infringement of human rights, whereas to disconnect someone because they fall behind in their subscription is perfectly reasonable. I wish they would think their language through before throwing around such grand ideals!
Cue lots of people calling me a retard – GO!
How about making a platform that is SO good, that users won’t turn to piracy anymore?
Internet access should be TOTALLY free. There should be no charge, ever.
Everyone should form a global peer to peer network!
Well both the RIAA and ISPs have broken the RULES as it is. Digital information is SUPPOSED to be cheaper and cheaper and cheaper as technology improves. However these two companies have done the OPPOSITE.Same with cell phones companies too.The towers are built, quit raising the damn prices! Its DIGITAL information guys, its INTENTION was to LOWER costs.Now all thats left is for the NEW superpowers to unite and sock it to the consumers. Screw all of them, and shame on them!
And by the way people, the mpaa/riaa whatever you call it, is NOT a failing industry, in fact its growing massivley. Everyone keeps saying that as if your starting to believe thier lies.
#66 Paul Harris: “firstly, there’s no way that the music industry could afford to ‘buy out’ the ISPs. The small ones mayeb, at a push, but you guys really have over estimated the money in music!”
Well, with the trillions of dollars they got out of AllOfMp3 and so called “stealing” music “pirates”, they could span the globe with many layers of single-mode fiber glass cables. Oh, wait, those were just fantasy dollars that they couldn’t collect. ;-)
But on a more serious note: what do you think do a couple of transcontinental cables cost? What’s the cost of buying out and operating something like Level-3 or similar Tier-1 networks?
Compared to the loads of cash RIAA and MPAA affiliates make out of brainwashed relatively well-off young buyers, and from the revenues of their new business model (widespread carpet-bombing-style litigation), they could very well team up and buy a big network provider… or two, or three, and then it’s “bye-bye free Internet.” and “welcome back, 1:N cable-style distribution network.”
Granted, ISPs are small change, compared to backbone providers…
“If the RIAA or MPAA owned – literally – all the major ISPs, they could affect the piracy landscape quicker than ever before. A simple rewrite or tweaking of subscriber’s Terms of Service would ensure that anyone proven to be a pirate could be ejected from the Internet in an instant, no laws needed. While this is unfeasible right now, there are easier ways of encouraging the same, like business partnerships and promises of profit.”
Please check the T&Cs of all the big UK ISPs and you will find that your service can be terminated for copyright infringement, and all sorts of other things.
However, the terms and condition say copyright infringement, not “suspected copyright infringement” – or “a notification from a rights holder who bought the evidence from some doggy outfit in Switzerland”.
The termination of service will not hold up in court on the basis of suspected copyright infringement.
The Virgin Music deal is likely to include a “bi-lateral” business deal to the effect that customers of the music service face technical measures on the basis of suspected copyright infringement – http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8101050.stm . plus there is Detica…
Vivendi, which owns Universal, also owns a French ISP – Neuf Cegetel.
Both Sky, remember who owns them, and Virgin Media are media companies that happen to also be ISPs.
into psytrance, something I suspect the music companies not deal in very much, mostly independent labels
to tempt me, needs to be stuff that is DRM free and can use on my mp3 player, that is not an apple :)
In the immortal words of Comic Book Guy, “Worst idea ever!”
@reasoned mind
you are so ridiculous I cant even respond. A store keeper paying for theft prevention and an ISP having to pay for this bullshit is two entirely different things. Only if your bosses can pay enough flack politicians enough to make them will this happen. And it wont. The networks should be neutral. You would have us be China.
get premium account here:
http://razordox.darkbb.com/forum.htm
invitation code to join: mcpain
we share premium accounts everyday and scene releases as well
and one more thing we also provide high speed direct links to games and movies
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