UK May Ban Internet Users For Illegal Downloading
In an article from Ultimate-guitar.com, a proposal is in the works to ban illegal down-loaders in the UK from internet access. It’s a pretty good concept and you should really read what stupid comments this can bring out of people. One guy even went on to say that $1.00 a song is too much and he’d be willing to pay $.50 as long as he can get it back when he gets bored with the song and deletes it. So I suppose he’s going to go to a car dealership and offer them half the price of the car and is going to want them to pay him back the full sale price when he gets tired of the car and wants to trade it in?
The problem with tracking down illegal down-loaders is that it takes a lot of work to track down each and every individual who is doing it. If they tried tracking down each and every person who is currently doing it and has done it in the past they would be swamped with work and it would be financially impossible. That’s why they pick key individuals and make examples out of them. It’s a scare tactic because they know it’s probably not worth the money trying to track and prosecute each and every one. That’s not a subliminal message to keep doing it, either.
Will this work? It may, but there are some things that need to be put into place so the user can not just sign up for internet access through a different provider or under a different name. I don’t think there will ever be an end to Illegal downloading. There will always be someone out there doing it some way and there will always be someone to provide the people downloading illegally, a product.
Some even go on to say that the bands make plenty of money and them downloading a few songs doesn’t hurt the band any. Maybe if it was just one person doing it and not 6 million people. Do the math. The bands don’t make that much money from the tours and they certainly don’t make much from CD sales. There are bills that have to be paid by the bands. Between legal fees, agency fees, label fees, everything adds up. Especially if it’s a small band starting out these days in some shitty RV just trying to make the next show without breaking down on the side of some desolate highway between Bumfuk Egypt and Hells Half Acres.
In conclusion, look at it this way. Lets say you make $2000 month. Everyday 8 people steal $1.00 out of your checking account. Multiply that by 365 days and you get $2920. So out of $24,000 dollars a year people are stealing $2,920. Now pay all your bills, taxes, etc. and see what is left. Now Take all the earnings from CD sales and imagine how a band feels after all the bills are paid, the mouths are fed, and the label takes their share. Two things are left over. Jack and Sh*t.
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3 opinions for UK May Ban Internet Users For Illegal Downloading
Dwayne Charrington
Feb 12, 2008 at 7:10 pm
I read about this yesterday actually on another website I think it was Techcrunch.com. Although I live in Brisbane, Australia and this doesn’t affect me I still would like to voice my opinion about it.
I think that they don’t know anything about file-sharing. There has been no actual proper proof that file-sharing hurts the artists and in-fact file-sharing does help an artist by getting more people to their shows and buying merchandise.
Record labels influencing a bill like this comes of no surprise to me. They couldn’t win by suing people so now they’re going to the courts instead. Let’s hope the UK justice system isn’t as corrupt as it is in other places.
As we have all seen that every time something like this is proposed or something happens, somebody get’s hacked or DoS’d. How many times has the RIAA website been hacked again? I’ve lost count.
Basically what I am saying is, this is suicide for the UK government if they approve such a bill. Hackers will be going for their sites, so I hope they’re secure.
There are far too many downloaders on the Internet to stop such a problem. Another problem is how are they going to tell what content being downloaded is illegal? Not everything on The Pirate Bay or What.cd or STmusic is illegal.
Artists are actually uploading their own music to these torrent tracker websites because they know it’s the best form of promotion. So what if I was in the UK and I downloaded a legit album off The Pirate Bay? Do I get a warning and my Internet usage cut off for doing nothing illegal?
- Dwayne Charrington.
Scott
Feb 12, 2008 at 7:25 pm
perhaps file sharing has helped get some people interested and to shows buying merchandise but it is also a fact that CD sales have reduced greatly since internet music was born and file sharing came into the picture. All the small record stores in the US are closed, the only ones holding up are the bigger ones selling CDs for outrageous prices because they know they can because there is not really any big competition. Not everyone has Highspeed to download legally from itunes and such and some just don’t have the means to download legally from the internet. So they turn to the easy.
Paul Raven
Feb 13, 2008 at 5:42 am
The fact is that economics can’t be fought; if there’s a cheaper option, people will always take it. The record labels are acting like horse-buggy makers trying to prosecute Henry Ford for inventing the car - what they should be doing instead is ploughing those resources they’re pissing away on legal fees into reinvigorating their business model and working out a new way to turn a profit.
In the last ten years, recorded music has moved from being a commodity governed by scarcity to a commodity governed by abundance. You can’t easily charge for music for the same reason you can’t easily charge for oxygen - people can just go out and get it without paying you.
This is where your analogy at the end of your post falls down; it’s not like someone stealing a dollar a day from the band’s bank account, it’s like the value of their job dropping and them having to take a pay-cut to the tune of a dollar a day. You can’t steal something that can be copied infinitely without the original being destroyed in the process.
Now I’m not claiming that this is entirely the best thing for musicians, but the inevitability is inescapable. As a failed musician, a friend of many working musicians and a music journalist, I want to see musicians make a living at their work. The sad reality of the situation is that selling CDs through a major label isn’t an effective way of doing that any more - big moribund businesses like that can’t respond to the new market because their overheads are too high, and so the big labels are suffering, and taking it out on their creatives rather than the suits in the middle.
It’s tough times for artists now, I agree. But in the long run, it’s going to work out better for them, as a lot of musicians have already had the sense to see. So while I disagree with the tactics of your post, I am totally on board with the strategy - put money in the artist’s pocket as directly as possible. In the next year we’ll see ways of doing that appearing much more frequently.
The RIAA and all the labels need to remember that all King Canute achieved was getting his feet wet. You can’t fight the tide; you have to learn to sail with it.
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