on 31 July 2009So Stephen Fry has admitted to downloading the series finale of House over BitTorrent because it was quicker than finding a legal copy. Lord Stephen of Twitter made his confession during July’s iTunes Festival. At the time of writing, the full podcast of his speech hasn’t yet surfaced, but apparently he criticised the entertainment business for suing file sharers, saying that ‘making an example of ordinary people is the stupidest thing the record industry can do’. The industry appears to agree, because it’s stopped doing it, just as the British government – trying to appease the industry’s previous stance – proposes formalising the process. The currently favoured alternative, threatening to cut off users’ connections if they’re deemed to be sharing files illegally, has just been ruled unconstitutional in France, the country most gung-ho about implementing it.*
It’s all getting harder to follow than an episode of House.
The Guardian’s story on Fry’s remarks drew comments including ‘Big deal – we all do it’ and ‘This is a bit like when ministers admit smoking weed at university but have to pretend that they didn’t enjoy it’. Both of these are telling. Even if you don’t think of yourself as a file sharer, you probably are: remember, according to the British Phonographic Industry, home taping is killing music – and it’s illegal! As is buying a CD and copying it to your iPod.
The war on ‘piracy’, like the war on drugs, is arbitrary and hypocritical. Politicians and celebrities periodically admit to taking illegal drugs, and half-heartedly apologise; meanwhile, less fortunate individuals are banged up for possession. Stephen Fry admits to deliberately ripping off a few videos, shocking nobody; meanwhile, Jammie Thomas-Rasset, sued by the Recording Industry Association of America for downloading 24 songs, is ordered to pay $1.92 million.
The BPI, the RIAA’s UK counterpart, has also taken legal action against file sharers. Asked about this in 2007, spokesman Matt Phillips explained: ‘Where the BPI focuses its attentions is on people who are wilfully damaging our industry, who are generating significant amounts of money through the theft of music.’ He must have forgotten the demands issued to end users who were doing nothing more sinister with music than listening to it, a third of whom, he estimated to the Independent in 2005, were kids whose unsuspecting parents ended up losing their savings.
Even if file sharing really was killing music, it would be impossible to justify this pursuit of arbitrarily selected individuals. But file sharing isn’t killing music. A recent Harvard Business School paper notes that, while the quantity of albums sold has declined since 2000, the number of new albums released has doubled. Money, it seems, isn’t everything. It was only ever a minority of artists who made a living, let alone a fortune, out of music.
And suing file sharers doesn’t help. In December 2007, at the height of the RIAA’s highly publicised round of litigation, 42% of British 14 to 18-year-olds admitted illegally downloading music at least once a month. By January 2009, after the industry had moved to a softer approach, the figure had dropped to 26%, according to a Music Ally survey. The same period saw the abandonment of annoying copy protection on purchased downloads and the rise of free streaming services such as Spotify and We7, used regularly by 65% of teenagers. As BPI boss Geoff Taylor says, ‘the battle against illegal downloading will be won by delivering fantastic legal services’. Presumably all those tanks on lawns are just delivery vehicles.
Reading the Guardian’s story on the Music Ally report, I was struck by an item in the Google Ads panel below it, which I initially mistook for a dodgy work-from-home offer. I’ll reproduce the capitalisation and punctuation for your delectation: ‘Rewards of up to £100,000. illegal copying at work? Blow the whistle on your Boss.’
The ad was for Copywatch, part of the Copyright Licensing Association. The CLA sells blanket licences to businesses allowing them to copy small parts of books and magazines for limited purposes. (If you thought you were already allowed to copy small parts for limited purposes, you’d have been right until the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003.) With the assistance of anyone who fancies a quick buck, Copywatch pursues both companies and local authorities, most of which have now signed up for licences at the taxpayer’s expense. This is to ‘pay the authors, artists and publishers whose works are being copied.’
Notice how the authors come first. Except the funny thing is, I’ve written in magazines and books for 19 years, and I’ve never seen a penny from the CLA. I wonder if this sounds familiar to any musicians or actors?
I’m no limping genius with irresistible blue eyes, but even I can see that the patient we’re trying to save isn’t the business, it’s the creativity; and the copyright industry isn’t the cure, it’s the disease.
Adam Banks doesn’t use BitTorrent, but he did enjoy smoking weed.
*This was later reversed, and France became the first country with a ‘three strikes’ law enabling the authorities to cut off internet access to anyone persistently sharing copyright material.
adambanksdotcom @gbarl Bah, missed your Watchdog. Do they do it on iPlayer? 