Press Statement
UK political group, the Pirate Party insists it will continue to fight for digital rights despite being threatened with legal action by the UK’s music industry body over links to the Pirate Bay website.
Elected members of the parties National Executive Committee, along with the head of IT, received letters from lawyers acting for British Phonographic Industry (BPI), threatening them personally with High Court legal action.
A proxy server was initially provided in solidarity with other parties in Europe, but soon became an anti-censorship resource for UK users after the ‘Big Six’ ISPs were forced by court order to begin blocking The Pirate Bay. Access to the proxy server has been removed.
Frances Nash, IP Lawyer at Manchester solicitors, Ralli, commented on behalf of the Pirate Party:
“Despite attempts by elected members to resolve this situation, the law at present is clear and makes any decision to continue hosting the proxy untenable.
This is not the outcome the party wanted however, any challenge to this proposed action would make it financially impossible for the party to deal with other issues for which they actively campaign on a daily basis.
The Pirate Party strongly believe that site blocking is both disproportionate and ineffective and will continue to lobby for digital rights and their wider manifesto.”
December 20th, 2012 - 4:35 am
This is a very simple issue. The issuers of copyrighted materials must do so in a copy-proof manner. End of story. Copies for personal use have traditionally fallen under ‘fair usage’ and the only difference here is that sharing can now be done on a large scale. When a development in technology financially benefited industries (like the music business with the switch to digital (much cheaper manufacture than vinyl) cd’s or the film industry with a 2nd life for films on VHS, DVD, etc) no one ever complained about the extra profits at the expense of consumers. If the issuers of copyrighted material cannot do so in a copy-proof manner then it they who have failed to keep up with the changing times as the onus is on them to do so. That said, the list of cd’s I have purchased after first finding the music online for free is very long is extensive. None of which I would have ever even known about had it not been for p2p, so it works this way as well.
December 20th, 2012 - 10:00 am
This whole issue is about “ease of access”. That’s ease of access to content.
The previous comment hits the right notes about the technology moving at such a rapid pace although I don’t necessarily agree with copy-proof material – if they can lock it in somehow with Digital Rights then there will always be a way to reverse that.
No, this is about making the material more accessible. The music and movie industry are just greedy.
Take a current CD – Now 83 for example.
It’s £15 in the high street but online its about the same cost. Some online stores have discounted it but its still around £12-£13 to buy. If I download the whole albumn on Spotify, it will cost me £26!!!! WTF!
What about a DVD? Homeland Season One. £30 on the high street but how much do I save by not having the industry produce the physical media? About £5!
And I really wonder how much of that money really goes to the creator?? I don’t really know but my perception is they get very little of the actual sale. And most comments regarding this issue online state the record label swallows up most of the profit!
So come on guys, keep up. You don’t have to produce any material in terms of a CD/DVD, no packaging, no delivery costs (or minimal I would say) and your sales and marketing must be minimal too (as the hosts will usually do most of that).
My view is that if a CD in the shops costs anywhere between £10-£15 say, then an online download should be a lot less, maybe aven as much as 50% or more off!
Its just absurd pricing that is driving the industry underground. There is a need for it because most people feel they are being ripped off. And the labels are just greedy! They are using the artists royalties as an excuse to fight their own corner!
December 20th, 2012 - 2:35 pm
Donald i dont think you could of put that any better, The price of music, films ect is astonishing we live in an age where you can just download anything you want someone just forgot to mention to the industry that it doesnt cost to download so reflect the price accordingly and people wouldnt need to look elsewhere
December 20th, 2012 - 9:41 pm
Anyone seen MTV Cribs & they say we are putting them out of business !! They are having a laugh but like everything else in this country , oil , gas , petrol , Tax etc etc we let them get away with it so I’m afraid to say we will all continue to be Shafted for the foreseeable future !!!!
December 20th, 2012 - 11:18 pm
Mark, I think your view that “it doesn’t cost to download so reflect the price accordingly” is rather short sighted..
You MUST take into account the costs associated with the development of media today. Lets use a Record Company such as Universal as an example: Not only must they pay costs for signing fees, recording, post-mixing, mastering, marketing and distribution but they must treat each artist as an investment. Is the price 79p for one track ‘Astonishing’? I really don’t think so. In fact, I think its incredibly good value for money when you consider the investment that has gone into creating said media.
However, your argument does have some credit: We do live in a world where we expect quality media for free. Take newspapers as an example, the amount of good quality journalism available online is simply incredible with websites such as Yahoo, BBC (license fee I know) and other publications. However it all has to be payed for somehow; in this example, by advertizing and subscriptions. Its no different with other media sectors.
Record companies need the big artists to supplement the lesser artists that aren’t as commercially viable as your U2s and your Coldplays.
Donald is very correct: it is a matter of access however with services such as Love Film, Netflix, Spotify and iTunes, can things really get more simple? I mean, you can pay 4.99 a month and have UNLIMITED access to literally thousands of films and albums. I’d be interested to know if you think that is value for money or not?
December 20th, 2012 - 11:20 pm
In real terms there is little that can be done to resolve this from a legal stand point. However, a boycott at a time when these media corporations histroically make large profits, and the threat of further boycotts could force a change of thinking at a corporate level.
One should consider that these corporations work on the basis that the consumer base will comply with their marketing plan because they can continue to force the a system of copyright that was flawed from its inception a couple of hundred years ago. Which has further been erroded by corporations vicariously passing legislation in their favour.
However, starving corporations of income can effect a change, the problem is persuading the customer base to take unified action.
December 21st, 2012 - 1:28 am
Incidentally, it is not possible to copy-proof music or video. You can get software that will record directly off the signals from the video or sound card to the monitor and speakers. In any case, the monitor can be filmed and speakers miked.
Pricing is another matter as just 5% goes to the artist. Musicians make 95% of their earning from live performances, and we all know it costs pence not pounds to produce and distribute CDs on a large scale. Even I as a non-audio engineer can make recordings studio quality very easily and in just a few minutes at the most per track. Music CDs should cost £2 – £3 at the very most, and the same with films on DVD.
December 21st, 2012 - 11:46 am
I agree with donald about cd prices. At least give us a discount online. Phil, The music industry is a joke, I have worked with artists all over the wolrd. The money mainly goes on putting on concerts, Advertising, paying the artists. As i dj I have to pay a subscription to recieve royalty free music cds, only a few tracks on them are good enough. Artists are being rushed and the music quality is going down. I now work with several artists who now promote themselves a different way. For starters they have no label, they use good old fashiond advertising. they send their tracks to local radio stations for them to play freely, Post them on itunes and in the past 4 years half of them have got into the charts. Any money they make, they keep to buy better equipment etc and not pay label and record companies to market them. All the labels are, are a 3rd party there to screw people over. Without them we would see real talent start emerging
December 22nd, 2012 - 1:24 am
I don’t remember all this fuss when they started making record players with built in tape machines, which is the same thing really, I do remember the copying is killing music on the inside of record sleeves, but as far as I can see, it didn’t, and by the looks of it that’s not what’s happening now.
December 22nd, 2012 - 10:33 am
The Gross figures for new film releases clmbs ever higher … an industry crippled by piracy ? you decide
December 22nd, 2012 - 10:48 am
@chris, I agree completely with your comments regarding the declining standard of music and its root cause.. looking back at the SOPA debacle raised some very interesting questions, for example,the proponents of the now ( temporarily?) dead SOPA claimed to be representing the artists interests, when it turned out that the people who they where allegedly representing where not even asked for their views on the proposals. ok back on topic..the reason why music is declining in quality is that artists are being pressured to act as props for the label rather than being allowed to do what they do best, make music etc. is it any wonder artists are now gradually turning to self promotion? look at deadmau5!! he produces his own stuff from the ground up and connects with his fans why? because he acknowledges that it is they that are paying for his music.the sooner the “entertainment” industry realize that you cannot turn creativity on and off like a water tap the better for all concerned.the output will be better, fans would be more willing to pay the little extra. and maybe, just maybe, the industry might regain some of its credibility, …. ok i better stop or i will be ranting forever.
December 22nd, 2012 - 2:57 pm
Throughout history, musicians have earned their money by performing. Only for the past 100 years has it been possible to duplicate their performances, with the copies having close to zero cost.
That “free” money spawned what we now know as the music “industry”, consisting of a large number of middlemen, and a few artists earning obscenely large amounts of money. The vast majority of musicians are, as ever, barely scraping by.
The music industry was able to control the process because the equipment required for duplication was prohibitively expensive.
Now that technology allows almost anyone to record and duplicate anything that can be seen or heard, at next to zero cost, this “music industry” has found it unacceptable that we revert to the situation where artists must perform live in order to profit from their work.
Yet this is the inevitable future. Society benefits from the fact that information is freely distributed. And, as both concert- and cinema-goers have shown, there is still a very lucrative market for authentic experience. Neither the music industry nor the film industry will die because of copying. It may well be that the huge population of middlemen can no longer be supported, and that actors and musicians might not be able to earn quite such grotesque amounts of money, but maybe even that’s not such a bad thing…
For the bulk of musicians, the free distribution of recorded copies of their music what they have always wanted – to become known, and to generate demand for performances. I can think of no way in which society will become significantly poorer by free copying and sharing.
December 23rd, 2012 - 4:23 am
Phil:
“Not only must they pay costs for signing fees, recording, post-mixing, mastering, marketing and distribution”
Nonsense. “Hollywood accounting” takes care of all that. Things like signing-on fees and advances will be “recoupable against royalties”, meaning that the artist will have to pay them back no matter what. The label may also force the artist to use the label’s own studios at their own expense, for which they will be charged well above the market rate. The successful artists who make money are the exception – it’s surprisingly common to find the artist owing the label money, even when the label have made a tidy profit out of the artist.
December 25th, 2012 - 2:00 pm
@Phil…
Technically, the ARTIST pays for all production and marketing costs. The labels only advance them the money, then pocket everything until they can’t push anymore expenses to the artist, THEN they begin paying money to the artist. You are correct in saying that the big artists fund the unsuccessful ones.
Getting exposure for unknowns to make them big is where the risk is…and a business model that took advantage of the low(er) costs of digital distribution and social/viral aspects of sharing aren’t utilised nearly enough because they are concerned that if they sell an unknowns content for too little to spur demand, they can’t rake in the millions when/if they finally go big.
Anyway, your question on the value of NETFLIX, LOVEFILM, Spotify, etc. I use video more than music and would pay a monthly fee to get access to all video content…but you cant. You only get the dreck that passes for Netflix content here in the UK…thousands of films that you didn’t want to watch when they came out 10 years ago. Very little top-line content, and the access to TV series is minimal. SO not worth any money, let alone what they are charging.
Give me all first run movies when they launch on DVD, all TV series from all channels (or a package of channels) and it’s worth it.
Unfortunatly, what you get is what THEY (content providers, not Netflix) want to give you, not what YOU want. So, no, it’s not worth it.
I can’t speak for music (spotify, pandora, etc), as i don’t listen to much.
Your point on
December 27th, 2012 - 2:29 am
— Is the price 79p for one track ‘Astonishing’? —
Yes, its astonishing someone is still using that rhetoric — ohhh, its cheaper than a cup of coffee.
79p for a track, wow great value. But hang on, if there’s ten tracks then how much would that be?
Checked some retailers. Picked an album to use as an example:
Olly Murs – Right Place Right Time (2012). There’s a few versions (standard, deluxe, signed). Missed out the signed version.
Standard (physical) : £8.99 (Play.com), £10.00 (HMV)
Standard (digital) : £10.99 (Play.com), £8.99 (HMV/7digital)
Deluxe (physical) £11.97 (Play.com), £13.00 (HMV)
Deluxe (digital) £10.99 (Play.com), £10.99 (HMV/7digital)
Some retailers do reduce the price when its bought as a full album, and it should be noted, not all retailers sell individual tracks for 79p, some charge as much as 99p – and in the case of lossless as much as £1.99 per track.
If you take into consideration the cost difference between physical [manufacturing, distribution, storage] and digital, your point is very much moot.
— I mean, you can pay 4.99 a month and have UNLIMITED access to literally thousands of films and albums. —
If you’re referring to Love Film, they don’t do albums.
January 1st, 2013 - 7:42 pm
I want my pirate bay back
January 2nd, 2013 - 4:01 am
When I first got into PC gaming there were demos everywhere no I can never find them, I illegally downloaded l.a noire, piece of crap won’t buy it, did the same with assassins creed 1 played 10 minutes loved it so I bought it same goes for GTA 4 (although I haven’t got that yet but I will) if game producers released demos I more often I wouldn’t download the games illegally just to try them out!
January 3rd, 2013 - 1:18 am
Steve Albini gave an illuminating breakdown of the distribution on wealth in the music industry, it’s a good article:
January 7th, 2013 - 1:08 am
allow me to inform you that once you place a file on the internet it’s official the ownership is no longer yours it belongs to the world wide web ergo no one owns the web because its free, therefore any info/files/ etc. second scenario when the people decide to shear there information, maybe the both the cd, maybe they elaborated a program and he wish to shear with his fellow men…. where is the harm in that….but its all about money…. the wolds biggest disease… there will come a time where transactions will no longer have value… when humanity has no need for money… soon
January 13th, 2013 - 12:52 am
Great news! Anything that stops theft of my and other people’s copyrighted material is to be commended. It means that I might be able to carry on producing material, and get paid for it in order to earn a living, rather than getting it stolen.
The court judgement should be applied to all torrent sites, and it would be good to think the Law Society might start investigating any apologists amongst its number who seem to think that copyright theft is a victimless crime. Theft is theft.
January 16th, 2013 - 1:44 am
Frances, yes. Theft is theft. Piracy is piracy. Learn the difference.
Your claim of “all torrent sites should be banned” is ludicrous. There is plenty of free content that people share (freeware, that means no copyright infringement) that people want to download. Think about it, if you block all “torrent sites” you’re taking away people’s ability to share what they have created.
Piracy is a touchy subject where I’m concerned. People are either on one side of the fence or the other. I’m in the middle. It’s damaging the industries, but so is the greed. As stated many times here, digital distribution is ridiculously priced. If I want a physical copy of a PC game, I’d have to pay £30 in a shop for a new release, so why then, when there’s no manufacturing of any physical items, do digital distributing platforms charge the same price to copy a game’s files from their servers. Server maintenance, storage etc doesn’t cost nearly as much as mass producing one single title.
As previously mentioned, lack of demo’s. I’ve pirated games for the simple fact I want to play 20-40 mins of a game and make a decision if I want to carry on playing it or get rid of it. I use it as a demo. More often than not, I’ll buy the title, if I don’t want to buy it, I’ll uninstall and delete the files. Is there actually any harm in that? I don’t know. Maybe developers (or more so publishers) need to realise that for gamer’s to throw down hard earned cash, it really should be a game worthy of it.
I’d assume the same goes for music and films, though I don’t download either. I use Spotify for my music and Netflix for any films I want to watch. Paying for both of these seems reasonable to me because I don’t have to fork out cash on things that I might not like.
The consumer is the reason why business’ are still in tact, it’d be foolish for the content creators, publishers, record labels, to put us on their bad side due to greed.
April 18th, 2013 - 11:41 am
Here’s how I look at it. Suppose I want to hear a music album or see a movie. Like most people, I only play/watch it once. What is the difference between my borrowing a bought CD/DVD from a friend and getting a “pirate” copy online, when I wouldn’t buy it anyway? If no friend had a copy, and it wasn’t available online, I wouldn’t buy a copy, so no-one is the loser.
Of course, if a movie or a music album is top notch (e.g. Miles Davis), I DO buy it.