IRMA fail to force UPC to block illegal downloads (Court Ruling)

smokedeels

smokedeels wrote: »

I'll always support the "download, listen, buy or delete" method of discovering music.

But you can do that freely on the internet without having to "download" it.
It's odd a lot of people willingly will use the Copyright Breachers material to preview and then go and buy the album or whatever and think they've done nothing wrong, ok maybe they are not stealing from the artist if they do buy it, but they are still downloading copyrighted material and boosting the uploaders/rippers virtual willy.

Mark200

gizmo wrote: »

I did indeed read that and was quite confused to say the least. As far as I'm aware there is an EU law (Telecoms Package) which specifically prohibits the disconnection of people due to illegal downloading and when the French brought it in there was a ruckus because of this fact.

Well I assume the judge knows what he's talking about, and was quite possibly referring to copyright law in general rather than specifically a three-strikes rule enforced by law. If he is right in saying that Irish copyright law does not fall into line with European Law, then the record companies probably aren't unreasonable to seek some sort of compensation from the state. Either way, I think it's fair to say... based on the Judge's remarks... that this ruling is not the end. Although admittedly I haven't read the full judgement yet.

Dark_by_Dezign wrote: »

And as far as i know you cannot be prosecuted for downloading music ,its only if you upload and make files available for other to download is when your in trouble
but knowing me im probably wrong :rolleyes:

I think you're right yeah, but the record companies, as far as I know, are only going after torrents at the moment... and anyone who downloads a file through a torrent is automatically uploading too.

Amhran Nua wrote: »

Correct, the European Parliament has several times ruled that private companies cutting people off without recourse to the justice system was not acceptable. The judge is talking out his or her arse, which isn't out of the way for Irish judges, we had the one in Galway recommending Tesco set up its own legal system the last day.

Incorrect, the ruling made in respect to France's case was because of the fact that the three-strikes rule was law.... whereas with Eircom it is just company policy. Big difference.

Notorious97

What do record companies expect though, they over charge and rob people blind for years with prices of music, then the internet arrives and hey people can get it for free. Doesn’t take a genius to work out which route most people will go.

When they lower their prices dramatically then i will have sympathy for them, until then its tough titties

i_love_toast

smokedeels wrote: »

The record industry is no longer able to cherry-pick singles, influence what we hear via radio stations, and decide which review sites/magazines get the first copies of new releases. Music, like everything should, is being judge freely and on it's own terms, free of corporate influence. That's the issue, we all know that statistically the biggest downloaders are also the biggest spenders, if revenue is down, it might be the standard of the product.

completely agree with this!

Blogging has been so important for small bands and especially Irish bands to get their songs listened to all over the world instead of record companies cherry picking bands and choosing who gets attention and who doesn't.
IMRO (Irish music rights organisation) decided to take it upon themselves to get blogging banned as most bloggers put up a song or two from a band and say "Hey, this is a great unknown irish band listen to this!". Irish bands DO NOT want blogging bands as its their only way of getting a wider audience listening to their music.

Amhran Nua

Mark200 wrote: »

Incorrect, the ruling made in respect to France's case was because of the fact that the three-strikes rule was law.... whereas with Eircom it is just company policy. Big difference.

If you have another read of the comment there, the judge was saying that Irish law should incorporate a three strikes law or similar penalty in accordance with European law, which is so completely wrong that I'd question that judge's fitness, despite the correct decision made in this case.

shinfujiwara

gizmo wrote: »

Would you say the same thing to an artist or sculptor who worked on a piece for a number of months? Here's a £1, be happy you get it?


I'm guessing you don't play any instruments then? Or have you actually ever created something useful? I'm not trying to be smart here, both quoted posts just show a distinct lack of understanding for the value placed on something someone creates.

Do you really think that an artist should earn more than a dedicated/well studied doctor, for example? I can't see any reason why should they. That's not only artists, of course. There is a lot of professions with huge unfair profits, I know.

Now... should Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber make that much money compared to any professional around the world? I would gladly pay a small amount for bands that I consider very good, if they didn't already have more money than I probably will have in my lifetime. But I wouldn't pay thousands of euros for all my pirated songs, many of them aren't even sold in Europe, how would I buy it?

Many artists overestimate themselves, that's how I see it if you ask me. Pardon me for being honest. I just consider much more valuable in a monetary system, a person whose job saves me from agonizing death than someone painting abstract things to make me feel better. It's not about which one you or me like the most. It's about valor in this system.

Wouldn't you agree?

gizmo

shinfujiwara wrote: »

Do you really think that an artist should earn more than a dedicated/well studied doctor, for example? I can't see any reason why should they. That's not only artists, of course. There is a lot of professions with huge unfair profits, I know.

You can't compare these professions at all. These artists write material which is enjoyed by people all around the world whereas the other professions have a much smaller client base. Unless artists were paid peanuts (in a near literal sense) then once they get to a certain level of stardom they'll be earning massive amounts of money. You can't simply say "that's not fair" and cut the amount of money they earn across the board as you'd also be harming those who artists who haven't made it. It's the way the system works though and while people may complain that some massive bands make massive amounts of money there are several times the number of artists who are struggling to make ends meet.

shinfujiwara wrote: »

Now... should Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber make that much money compared to any professional around the world? I would gladly pay a small amount for bands that I consider very good, if they didn't already have more money than I probably will have in my lifetime. But I wouldn't pay thousands of euros for all my pirated songs, many of them aren't even sold in Europe, how would I buy it?

Therein lies the point, you'll pay a small amount. Now what happens when one million other people also pay a small amount?

As for all your pirated songs, nothing excuses theft, whether it's you sticking it to the man or complaining that you couldn't afford them anyway, it's still a crime.

ScumLord

I don't really consider most music to be art, a person I consider to be an artist was Da Vinci most of what he did was for his own benefit and curiosity and the rest of the world befitted from that.

I wouldn't pay for most music and find the advertising that aimed at children to be no better than propaganda that should be monitored, the fact is most music is well produced muck engineered for maximum sales. They don't deserve the money.

Amhran Nua

shinfujiwara wrote: »

Now... should Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber make that much money compared to any professional around the world? I would gladly pay a small amount for bands that I consider very good, if they didn't already have more money than I probably will have in my lifetime. But I wouldn't pay thousands of euros for all my pirated songs, many of them aren't even sold in Europe, how would I buy it?

You're running up against the monolithic record industry model there though. They act to concentrate marketing hype on a few bands and musicians, which is then where all the money flows, after a huge slice is siphoned off to pay for record industry profits.

What the internet has the potential to do, and indeed is doing, is creating a distributed model without the middleman, so the age of mega-acts getting mega-bucks may well be coming to an end, as a more natural distribution of wealth to a much wider variety of artists takes place.

The itunes store is a good example of this. Instead of purchasing albums which include one or two great tunes and ten average to poor ones, you can now buy the one great song, and spend the rest of your money on great songs from other artists, improving the average quality of music and spreading the wealth around more.

You can expect the record industry to die kicking and screeching, but die it will.

Tar.Aldarion

great news, cant see eircom maintaining much customers in the future

Trevor451

I dont know if this has been posted before but:

shinfujiwara

gizmo wrote: »

Therein lies the point, you'll pay a small amount. Now what happens when one million other people also pay a small amount?

As for all your pirated songs, nothing excuses theft, whether it's you sticking it to the man or complaining that you couldn't afford them anyway, it's still a crime.

What happens when another one million people pay a small amount? Hm... they'll be millionaires? That sounds pretty good for me...

So, you don't have any pirated song? You have thousands of songs all legally bought? If so, wow!!! I would enjoy having so much money! Unfortunately I haven't and wouldn't pay such incredible amount of money. And most people who have the knowledge to download things wouldn't/haven't also.

Even presidents download music, everyone downloads music, right? Just because someone is trying to prevent it so they can make more billions out of it, won't stop me or others. And that's the whole point! If you'll try to convince every person who thinks like me in the whole world, you'll have a hard time doing it.

I can imagine myself accessing a band's website (not a tracker) to download it LEGALLY. Then you see that you get it for free at 128kb/s MP3. But if you donate €1.00 or more you have access to the whole database with lots of different formats/bitrates like AAC/OGG/FLAC. Then I hear the thing and I say "damn! these guys are good!" So, maybe I'm so touched that I'll remember to give some money to them, and to visit some concert of theirs in my city some day.

There is lots of people who went to live shows without have bought anything from the band. Just downloaded it or heard it in another place. At least the members are having some profit with this guy right now. The reason being: They're good!

But the main point here is not the "right or wrong" thing, but the fact that the industry has changed, right? So, now they need to deal with it, adapt to it... At least on that, we agree? Because if they don't adapt themselves, well... someday almost the whole world will have access to the internet, and that day is coming relatively fast...

You see, even famous lawyers agree with that, and can argue much better than me, of course:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Q25-S7jzgs

Butterbumps

Ugh, sad to see a judge swallowing the record industry nonsense about how much piracy is hurting them instead of applying some critical thinking (even if he did make the 'correct' decision). I have yet to see any argument for piracy hurting sales that didn't rely on the "1 download = 1 lost sale" fallacy.

Here's a relevant article from an indie games developer about their analysis of how much their game was pirated, and how much they think it affected sales. Different industry, obviously, but I think the conclusions are transferable.

shinfujiwara

Amhran Nua wrote: »

You can expect the record industry to die kicking and screeching, but die it will.

Indeed it will.

blubloblu

Amhran Nua wrote: »

If you have another read of the comment there, the judge was saying that Irish law should incorporate a three strikes law or similar penalty in accordance with European law, which is so completely wrong that I'd question that judge's fitness, despite the correct decision made in this case.

Anyway, EU law is on the consumer's side.
The folllowing must be implemented into Irish law by May:

EU Directive 2009/140/EC Article 1.b wrote:

Measures taken by Member States regarding end-users access’ to, or use of, services and applications through electronic communications networks shall respect the fundamental rights and freedoms of natural persons, as guaranteed by the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms
and general principles of Community law.

Any of these measures regarding end-users’ access to, or use of, services and applications through electronic communications
networks liable to restrict those fundamental
rights or freedoms may only be imposed if they are appropriate, proportionate and necessary within a democratic society, and their implementation shall be subject to adequate procedural safeguards in conformity with the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and with general principles of Community law, including effective judicial protection and due process. Accordingly, these measures may only be taken with due respect for the principle of the presumption of innocence and the right to privacy. A prior, fair and impartial procedure shall be guaranteed, including the right to be heard of the person
or persons concerned, subject to the need for appropriate
conditions and procedural arrangements in duly substantiated cases of urgency in conformity with the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The right to effective and timely judicial review shall be guaranteed.’;

gizmo

shinfujiwara wrote: »

What happens when another one million people pay a small amount? Hm... they'll be millionaires? That sounds pretty good for me...

Well that's the thing, I see a tenner being a small amount to pay for a CD which I'll get upteen hours of entertainment from. I also don't mind paying €40 for a ticket for a gig either. You may be wondering why I pay so little and that's simply because the bulk of the music I listen to is rock/metal whose gigs are usually far cheaper than mainstream equivalents.

shinfujiwara wrote: »

So, you don't have any pirated song? You have thousands of songs all legally bought? If so, wow!!! I would enjoy having so much money! Unfortunately I haven't and wouldn't pay such incredible amount of money.

With the likes of streaming services like Spotify I don't need to. The albums that I do buy are from those artists I love and wish to see live in our country at some point.

shinfujiwara wrote: »

And most people who have the knowledge to download things wouldn't/haven't also.

Yet they can afford the PCs, internet connections, adequate storage space and probably portable media players to listen on? As I said, it's still theft.

shinfujiwara wrote: »

Even presidents download music, everyone downloads music, right? Just because someone is trying to prevent it so they can make more billions out of it, won't stop me or others. And that's the whole point! If you'll try to convince every person who thinks like me in the whole world, you'll have a hard time doing it.

Nope, but they can lock you up for it or fine the **** out of you. That should be enough to disuade most people.

As for what I'd like to happen, I'd like the industry to evolve it's distribution methods to reflect the times we live in. A couple of years ago there was a site called allofmp3 which, despite it's unfortunately dubiously legality internationally, offered one of the most amazing music services I've ever seen. It had a wide selection of music that you could browse and you then paid for each download based on the quality level and hence filesize of your download. There was a base price for each song of course but from there the price went up as you approached lossless compression. The prevalence of sites like these with affordable prices SHOULD help reduce piracy.

Of course, there remains the fact that no matter what anyone does regardless of how cheap it is, people will still download it for free if they can. As I said, these people are thieves and deserve to pay for their actions. As for your idea of getting it for free at a certain bitrate and then "maybe" donating money and "maybe" going to see them. Well that's just rubbish, you don't go to work to "maybe" get paid, do you?

I'm perfectly happy to admit the system isn't perfect but I'm also quite aware that record companies are definitely needed on some level to finance both recording and touring of bands. It's clear the industry is certainly evolving, albeit slowly, and I don't care whether it's willingly or kicking and screaming, but it's definitely happening. Services such as the streaming based Spotify and Rdio, subscription based Zune or just general stores like iTunes and Amazon are more than enough to show this.

Sherifu

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/10/11/1646231/Irish-ISP-Wins-Major-Legal-Victory-Against-Record-Companies

Eircon look stupid now. Fair balls UPC.

shinfujiwara

Nope, but they can lock you up for it or fine the **** out of you. That should be enough to disuade most people.

To be able to prevent me from doing this, they would need to totally brake my privacy. Knowing everything I do on the internet, not just that, and that's ridiculous. The majority of countries in the world won't do this, I believe. It's like having an officer watching everything you do in your house, all the time. Sounds very non-2010, non-democracy, non-Ireland for me.

I could be wrong and they could prove themselves as jerks. In that case, people who really miss this freedom would only adapt to it once more. Using VPN is one way to do that. I'm sure that if these extreme/ridiculous methods become more frequent, services like this will become better/cheaper.

In the end, it wouldn't help much. Many wouldn't start to buy lots of musics just because now they can't download it for free anymore. Ask them on the streets, you'll see... The ones that expend much money on music are usually (not always) "illegal downloaders". Because they have access to thousands of songs, appreciate many different bands and attend to their live shows. Many people would try to find another way or just won't buy it anymore. Buying only rarely, from their favorite bands, or copying CDs from people who bought it. There is no going back any more, we both know it.

It's like that case in China, lots of Chinese fans of a Japanese porn star started to follow her on Twitter. How? If they can't have access to her products and not even Twitter? Well... hehehe XD

Watch that TED video that I posted to you, maybe you'll change your mind. And ask people here on the forum or in the streets if they'll like having their private life cracked open.

ClutchIt

Gunsfortoys wrote: »

This is great. As a result of free downloads a lot more recording artists get more exposure over the big artists such as U2. Half the bands I listen to now would never have gotten a listen if i couldn't download them. I have always tried to buy some stuff of theirs if I like them.

I welcome this and it will give UPC great publicity. Eircom are a sinking ship and they have only themselves to blame.

Bullshít. Why would the fact that it's not free mean you would blindly go into a shop and buy a U2 record? People would still talk about music you'd hear a lesser known band at a friends house or similar and then proceed to buy the cd if you liked it.

Butterbumps

ClutchIt wrote: »

Bullshít. Why would the fact that it's not free mean you would blindly go into a shop and buy a U2 record? People would still talk about music you'd hear a lesser known band at a friends house or similar and then proceed to buy the cd if you liked it.

Nobody ever suggested that people should or would just blindly buy albums at random until they find one they like. The point is that the ability to easily download and listen to any music you want at any time makes it much easier to discover new music that you like than would otherwise be the case. Which is a good thing for the vast majority of artists, who don't get played on the radio or have their CDs displayed in the window of HMV.

Those artists (if they have a clue) don't care how many thousand people illegally download their album as long as one out of every thousand becomes a die-hard fan who'll go to their shows, buy their t-shirts, and recommend them to friends. And who knows, maybe even pay for future albums.

gizmo

shinfujiwara wrote: »

To be able to prevent me from doing this, they would need to totally brake my privacy. Knowing everything I do on the internet, not just that, and that's ridiculous. The majority of countries in the world won't do this, I believe. It's like having an officer watching everything you do in your house, all the time. Sounds very non-2010, non-democracy, non-Ireland for me.

I could be wrong and they could prove themselves as jerks. In that case, people who really miss this freedom would only adapt to it once more. Using VPN is one way to do that. I'm sure that if these extreme/ridiculous methods become more frequent, services like this will become better/cheaper.

This point has come up a few times and it continues to amuse me. It's basically saying it's okay if you break the law but not okay if they break the law to find out you're doing it. :pac:

As for both the rest of your post and Butterbumps' reply, there is no need to allow people to fully download a copy of the album. Simply allowing music to be streamed freely ensures that the potential customer can hear the music before they buy it and the artists IP remains intact, everyone wins so I don't see the problem with it at all.

On a final note, to disprove the notion that payment should be left in the hands of customers, one need only look at the Radiohead/In Rainbows fiasco to see that it doesn't work.

Butterbumps

gizmo wrote: »

On a final note, to disprove the notion that payment should be left in the hands of customers, one need only look at the Radiohead/In Rainbows fiasco to see that it doesn't work.

Oh yeah, that fiasco that made them more money in the two months it was available online as "pay what you like" than they made in total from their previous album. Good point. :rolleyes:

citizen_p

well most people who own an ipod have thousands of euros worth of illegal music. if you really want to stop music piracy do random scans of i Pods, an then the computers they were loaded off, itll never happen but could work

gizmo

Butterbumps wrote: »

Oh yeah, that fiasco that made them more money in the two months it was available online as "pay what you like" than they made in total from their previous album. Good point. :rolleyes:

You're unfortunately missing the point, the majority of people chose to pay nothing for the album while a small percentage paid over the odds. The average paid was £4 per download which is less than half of the regular retail price. That, for a band with a fanbase such as Radioheads, says a lot about the idea. Now imagine if that was a lesser known band, do you think many would pay over the odds or even hit that average price? I highly doubt it unfortunately, hence my use of it as an example in allowing people to pay what they want.

Butterbumps

gizmo wrote: »

You're unfortunately missing the point, the majority of people chose to pay nothing for the album while a small percentage paid over the odds. The average paid was £4 per download which is less than half of the regular retail price. That, for a band with a fanbase such as Radioheads, says a lot about the idea. Now imagine if that was a lesser known band, do you think many would pay over the odds or even hit that average price? I highly doubt it unfortunately, hence my use of it as an example in allowing people to pay what they want.

Yeah, I'm aware of the breakdown of how many people paid what, but I fail to see how the proportion of people paying nothing is more relevant than the amount of money they made. Are you sure that I'm the one missing the point? In fact, I would argue that for every album released by every artist of Radiohead's stature, the majority of people who 'acquire' the album do so without paying for it (albeit without the artists' blessing in those cases), and yet these artists still (apparently) make money.

The amount of people who download without paying is only relevant if you subscribe to the fallacy that every one of those people would have bought the album at full price if the free download was unavailable. If you have some evidence that that's the case, I would really, genuinely love to see it.

For another example of this kind of thing see the week-long "pay whatever you want" sale of the indie game World of Goo last year. Again, most people did indeed pay little to nothing, but this two-man independent team who certainly don't have a fanbase anything like the size of Radiohead's made around $100,000 in that week. Which certainly seems like a success to me.

Eire Go Brach

Does nobody else think its quite ironic, that Dick and Willie went to court to stop illegal downloads:)

Fair play to UPC it's always good to beat Dick and Willie in the courts.







Irma chairman Willie Kavanagh, Dick Doyle, director-general of the Irma

Tar.Aldarion

gizmo wrote: »

You're unfortunately missing the point, the majority of people chose to pay nothing for the album while a small percentage paid over the odds. The average paid was £4 per download which is less than half of the regular retail price. That, for a band with a fanbase such as Radioheads, says a lot about the idea. Now imagine if that was a lesser known band, do you think many would pay over the odds or even hit that average price? I highly doubt it unfortunately, hence my use of it as an example in allowing people to pay what they want.

I would be more likely to pay higher or at all if they were less known and I liked them

gizmo

Butterbumps wrote: »

Yeah, I'm aware of the breakdown of how many people paid what, but I fail to see how the proportion of people paying nothing is more relevant than the amount of money they made. Are you sure that I'm the one missing the point? In fact, I would argue that for every album released by every artist of Radiohead's stature, the majority of people who 'acquire' the album do so without paying for it (albeit without the artists' blessing in those cases), and yet these artists still (apparently) make money.

Perhaps we're just arguing two different points here. I'm not talking about overall money made as I covered that in a reply earlier in the thread. I'm specifically referring to allowing payment to be decided upon by the customer as, in the case of In Rainbows, it was seen that the majority of people didn't pay for it. While they indeed make more money in the end, this can't be used as a yardstick for other bands as a) they're the only band doing it, if every band did it then people would just download everything and only pay for a little, essentially the same situation we have now; b) Radiohead are popular enough to pull it off i.e. they have enough fans who were willing to pay for their music for it to work; c) although related to (a) it was still a novelty at the time which probably drew more attention to it.

Butterbumps wrote: »

The amount of people who download without paying is only relevant if you subscribe to the fallacy that every one of those people would have bought the album at full price if the free download was unavailable. If you have some evidence that that's the case, I would really, genuinely love to see it.

To be clear, that's not something I believe in at all. I do think there are a large percentage of those users who, faced with the option of either buying it or doing without it, would choose to buy it however.

Butterbumps wrote: »

For another example of this kind of thing see the week-long "pay whatever you want" sale of the indie game World of Goo last year. Again, most people did indeed pay little to nothing, but this two-man independent team who certainly don't have a fanbase anything like the size of Radiohead's made around $100,000 in that week. Which certainly seems like a success to me.

Again I find the 2D Boy thing quite insulting (not personally of course) in that people felt they could download a product which is worth a lot more for sweet **** all. Now I know they made their money back but again, that wouldn't work if everyone did it and again proved popular because it had not been done before.

On a related note you may remember the Humble Indie Bundle that went on-sale a couple of months ago. It was a bundle of indie games, World Of Goo included, which the person behind the deal quite vocally said would sell loads because there was no DRM and people could pay whatever they wanted and money went straight to both the developers and to charity. Despite this and indeed the total money raised, they found that over 25% of people pirated the pack via direct links from other sites. Again this shows that even when people bend over backwords to provide fantastic, DRM-free entertainment at a price of their choosing, people will still choose to download it for free.

It's on that basis that I reject the notion of bands offering their wares for free and instead point to services such as Spotify or other streaming sites as a happy medium for both customers and artists.

Gunsfortoys

ClutchIt wrote: »

Bullshít. Why would the fact that it's not free mean you would blindly go into a shop and buy a U2 record? People would still talk about music you'd hear a lesser known band at a friends house or similar and then proceed to buy the cd if you liked it.

What about unknown bands or DJs in different parts of the world? I heard a set done by a completely unknown American DJ today thanks to the power of free downloading. Unless they have a record label knocking down their door, bands and DJs don't have much of a chance nowadays. The first chance I get I will be buying this Djs stuff.

Helix

gizmo wrote: »

Well that's the thing, I see a tenner being a small amount to pay for a CD which I'll get upteen hours of entertainment from

wouldnt you rather pay a fiver, all of which going to the artist instead of them getting pennies from your tenner though?