Presently, the Dutch see downloading movies and music for personal use as “fair use” and not punishable by law. However, the current government is trying to find a solution to the ever-increasing piracy problem and has proposed a new bill to make it unlawful.

The topic has resulted in a heated political debate over the past several months, and yesterday opponents of the bill won the first battle as the Dutch parliament adopted a motion to keep downloading movies and music for personal use legal.

One of the main concerns of the parliament is that a download ban would go against the free and open Internet, as it restrict the free flow of information. The motion further states that enforcing such a ban via monitoring would invade the privacy of Internet users.

In addition, the parliament is worried that should downloading become unlawful, copyright holders will go after individual downloaders in court. This might result in a similar situation currently seen in countries like the United States and Germany, where hundreds of thousands of Internet subscribers are being sued by copyright trolls out to make a quick buck.

Instead of a download ban, the parliament suggests that the entertainment industry should focus more on offering authorized alternatives. At the moment, it is practically impossible to download high quality copies of recent movies and TV-shows via legal channels in the Netherlands.

The stance of the Dutch parliament is in line with an authoritative report commissioned by the government in 2009. In the report it was estimated that file-sharing has an overall positive effect on the Dutch economy. While it was recognized that the entertainment industry suffers some losses, these don’t outweigh the positive effects of file-sharing.

This report also motivated the Swiss government to keep downloading of music and movies totally legal a few weeks ago.

While the adopted motion is a win for the parties who want to keep downloading for personal use legal, State Secretary for Security and Justice Fred Teeven has already announced that he plans to bring the plan back in an altered form. Whether that will be able to address the current concerns of parliament is yet to be seen.

Source: Dutch Parliament: Downloading Movies and Music Will Stay Legal

In a response, the Swiss government has been conducting a study into the impact downloading has on society, and this week their findings were presented.

The overall conclusion of the study is that the current copyright law, under which downloading copyrighted material for personal use is permitted, doesn’t have to change.

Their report begins with noting that when it comes to copying files, the Internet has proven a game-changer. While the photocopier, audio cassette tape and VCR allowed users to make good quality copies of various media, these devices lacked a in-built distribution method. The world-wide web changed all that.

Distribution method or not, the entertainment industries have opposed all these technological inventions out of fear that their businesses would be crushed. This is not the right response according to the Swiss government, which favors the option of putting technology to good use instead of taking the repressive approach.

“Every time a new media technology has been made available, it has always been ‘abused’. This is the price we pay for progress. Winners will be those who are able to use the new technology to their advantages and losers those who missed this development and continue to follow old business models,” the report notes.

The government report further concludes that even in the current situation where piracy is rampant, the entertainment industries are not necessarily losing money. To reach this conclusion, the researchers extrapolated the findings of a study conducted by the Dutch government last year, since the countries are considered to be similar in many aspects.

The report states that around a third of Swiss citizens over 15 years old download pirated music, movies and games from the Internet. However, these people don’t spend less money as a result because the budgets they reserve for entertainment are fairly constant. This means that downloading is mostly complementary.

The other side of piracy, based on the Dutch study, is that downloaders are reported to be more frequent visitors to concerts, and game downloaders actually bought more games than those who didn’t. And in the music industry, lesser-know bands profit most from the sampling effect of file-sharing.

The Swiss report then goes on to review several of the repressive anti-piracy laws and regulations that have been implemented in other countries recently, such as the three-strikes Hadopi law in France. According to the report 12 million was spent on Hadopi in France this year, a figure the Swiss deem too high.

The report further states that it is questionable whether a three-strikes law would be legal in the first place, as the UN’s Human Rights Council labeled Internet access a human right. The Council specifically argued that Hadopi is a disproportionate law that should be repealed.

Other measures such as filtering or blocking content and websites are also rejected, because these would hurt freedom of speech and violate privacy protection laws. The report notes that even if these measures were implemented, there would be several ways to circumvent them.

The overall suggestion the Swiss government communicates to the entertainment industries is that they should adapt to the change in consumer behavior, or die. They see absolutely no need to change the law because downloading has no proven negative impact on the production of national culture.

Aside from downloading, it is also practically impossible for companies in Switzerland to go after casual uploaders. In 2010 the Supreme Court ruled that tracking companies are not allowed to log IP-addresses of file-sharers, making it impossible for rightsholders to gather evidence.

Source: Swiss Govt: Downloading Movies and Music Will Stay Legal

Through an elaborate survey the Government wanted to find out more about the views of artists on piracy, DRM, and other opportunities and challenges they face in the digital era. The questions covered in this article were answered by nearly 4,000 artists of all ages, including musicians, filmmakers, authors and photographers. The results give a unique insight into the position of artists on this controversial subject.

One of the results that stands out directly is that artists are pirates too. Not all of them of course, but a healthy percentage. Of all the respondents surveyed on the subject, 22% indicated that they had downloaded copyrighted works without the owners’ permission in the last 12 months. Another 71% told the researchers they hadn’t downloaded anything without permission during this period, and the remaining 7% didn’t know, or didn’t want to answer the question.

A follow up question among those who admitted to downloading others’ copyrighted works, found that music is by far the most downloaded media type. Over 80% of the downloaders downloaded music, and little over 40% also downloaded movies. Other categories such as E-books and games were less popular, with around 5% downloaders interested in these works.

Aside from their own ‘piracy’ habits, the survey also asked the respondents about their role as ‘victims’ of unauthorized file-sharing.

One of the questions dealt with whether the artists think they are being financially harmed by file-sharing. Interestingly, only about 12% of artists completely agree with the statement that file-sharing hurts them (~16% agree). The majority of the artists are not convinced that file-sharing is doing them any financial harm, and some actually think the opposite is true. What’s worth nothing is that higher educated artists in particular believe that file-sharing is doing them no financial harm.

Instead of hurting their wallets, the majority of the artists believe that file-sharing helps to promote their work. Little over 50% of those questioned responded affirmatively to the question of whether file-sharing helps to get their work known among the public, while only 5% completely disagreed with this statement. In particular the younger artists (< 25yo) recognized promotional benefits, as more than 80% thought file-sharing increases the popularity of their work.

Moving on to DRM, the survey found that 30% of the artists believe that DRM is hurting legitimate customers through access restrictions. Despite this negative view, 70% of all artists still believe their work should be protected by DRM. With regard to DRM there appears to be quite a large generation gap. More than 40% of the artists younger than 25 years old say DRM is hurting their relationship with the public, while none of the artists over 75 years old believes it does any harm.

Finally, the artists were also surveyed on whether individual file-sharers should be treated more harshly. Interestingly, close to 60% indicate that they should, with an even higher percentage among the older artists. Even among the people who admitted that they were downloading without permission, nearly one third said that harsher measures are needed to deter file-sharers.

All in all it can be concluded from the survey that the majority of Dutch artists don’t believe that unauthorized file-sharing is hurting them financially, and that it may actually help them to gain a larger audience. Despite these liberal views, a majority of the artists support harsher measures against unauthorized file-sharing and for DRM to ‘protect’ their works.

A mixed message, but one that’s hopeful, especially since the younger generations recognize the benefits of sharing, even when it’s without permission.

Source: Artists Don’t Think Piracy Hurts Them Financially, Study Shows

This is a bad idea, according to the consumer watchdog artists unions. Instead, they have issued a counterproposal that would eventually legalize both the uploading and downloading of movies and music entirely.

“The parties find it essential to protect the freedom of consumers on the Internet and to ensure that the rights of artists are respected. A necessary condition for the adoption of the proposal is that the technologies used will not infringe on the rights of consumers,” the press statement reads.

Legalizing ‘illicit’ file-sharing would happen in two stages. The existing levy on blank media such as CDs and DVDs will be replaced by a levy on devices that can play an record movies and music. This includes, but is not limited to mobile phones, MP3-players and TVs.

The average levy would be around 5 euros per device, and the money collected should be fairly divided among artists and other rightsholders. The proposal does not apply to other digital files such as games, software and books.

In the future, when file-sharing is even more dominant than it is now, this levy should be changed into a general Internet levy which will completely legalize the uploading and downloading of movies and music for personal use. Commercial copyright infringement will remain illegal according to the proposal.

The proposal is an interesting one, especially coming from the artists themselves, but it also raises many questions. The proposal is quite vague about how the collected money should be divided. Also, it avoids the important issue that people who are not downloading at all will end up paying more for their mobile phones and TVs.

The proposal will undoubtedly meet some resistance from music retailers such as Apple, who will lose millions in revenue if it was adopted. That said, it’s good to see that the unions and the consumer watchdog are at least thinking about alternative solutions.

Source: Dutch Artist Unions Call Government to Legalize File-Sharing

The results were presented earlier this week and they were quite remarkable. A massive 93% of the surveyed respondents said they download music, movies or games from the Internet, while only 5% of this group of downloaders actually uses a paid service like iTunes.

Downloading copyrighted music or movies for personal use is not prohibited in The Netherlands, but uploading is. In most cases this means that using BitTorrent to download copyrighted music is not the best choice, since it generally requires uploading. However, this is not holding any of the Dutch youngsters back, so it seems.

BitTorrent was by far the preferred file-sharing (download) application according to the survey. More than 45% of the downloaders said they use sites like Mininova and The Pirate Bay to download the latest music and movies. Usenet came in second with a respectable 15%.

Aside from looking into their download behavior, respondents were also asked to predict the outcome of the Mininova trial. Only 15% thought that BREIN will come out the winner, while 45% thought Mininova would strike up a victory. The remaining 39% knew too little about the case to make a useful assessment.

There are of course many flaws in this type of survey. First off, respondents were recruited through online forums and even highly tech oriented communities such as Tweakers. Among these tech savvy and active Internet users the percentage of P2P-users is undoubtedly higher than average. Secondly, the survey was promoted as a “download” survey, this will of course attract the attention of those who actually download more than those who don’t.

Polls and surveys can be very misleading, especially when they are ill constructed. What we can conclude from the Dutch survey, although carefully, is that The Netherlands has quite a few active BitTorrent users and that they are confident that Mininova will beat BREIN in court. Let’s hope that a similar survey among lawyers would reach a similar conclusion.

Source: Dutch Youth Addicted to BitTorrent

The report, which was commissioned by the government, estimates the positive effect on the Dutch economy to be around 100 million euros a year. While it is recognized that the entertainment industry suffers some losses, these don’t outweigh the positive effects of file-sharing.

File-sharing gives people access to a wide range of cultural goods and is often used to sample content that is bought later, the report concluded. Most file-sharers would have never bought the content they downloaded, but having access to such a large media library increases the welfare of Dutch citizens, the researchers note.

The researchers further found that people who download music and movies are not buying less than people who don’t. In fact, downloaders are reported to be more frequent visitors of concerts, and game downloaders actually bought more games than those who didn’t. In the music industry, lesser-know bands profit most from file-sharing, the researchers report.

The report goes on to discuss the legal situation in the Netherlands. Downloading music and movies for personal use is currently legal under Dutch law while uploading is illegal, although most file-sharers are uncertain as to what is allowed and what is not. Although anti-piracy outfits are lobbying for harsher copyright laws, this will have little effect.

The researchers think that stricter copyright laws will not have much of an effect on the income of the entertainment industry. Most reported losses can be attributed to things other than piracy, they say. One of the main reasons for the loss in sales for the music industry, is competition with other forms of entertainment.

BREIN, the anti-piracy voice of the Netherlands hasn’t commented on the conclusions of the report yet, but we’re looking forward to hearing from them.

Source: Economy Profits From File-Sharing, Report Concludes