The self-proclaimed “music industry champion”, the UK culture secretary Andy Burnham, recently said that he is determined to bring results to the creative industries. What this means is that Burnham is putting his foot down on a number of issues, including filesharing.
Filesharing is under the spotlight in the UK with ISPs and record labels trying to iron out a way to deal with filesharing and the sharing of copyrighted material. Burnham said that a voluntary solution to the issue of filesharing would be the ideal solution.
From the sounds of it, there are some serious talks going on with regards to filesharing and some decisions look set to be made in the very near future. This isn’t good news for UK filesharing fans.
Burnham added that he is in a rush to deal with such issues as filesharing because of the number of other issues on the table. The real winners here will likely be the record companies.
According to Microsoft, school children are the UK’s worst filesharing offenders for downloading copyrighted material such as free music. A new study by Microsoft of 270 kids and 1,200 adults reveals that 54% of children from 11 to 16 years old partake in filesharing. This compares with only 15% of adults.
While we don’t want to discredit Microsoft’s survey, 15% is clearly nowhere near the real figure. Microsoft also said that 61% of kids have bought illegal goods online, while about a quarter of the kids are keen on fake items.
The real kicker is that 60% of the kids said that regular music and movies are too expensive. When you’re young a carefree and can easily get away with downloading copyrighted material, what’s to stop you when companies all around are touting the latest MP3 players, DVD burners and whatnot? The kids are just doing what seems natural to them.
A European parliamentary committee this week gave the thumbs up for a set of laws that could lead to some Internet users being cut off from the Web for using filesharing networks to get free music downloads.
The laws have raised concerns that ISPs will soon be in bed with record labels in an attempt to control how people access the Internet. The big fear in Europe is that a three-strikes-and-your-out law will be implemented to target people using filesharing services.
Such a law would mean that ISPs would cut off from the Internet filesharing users caught out for a third violation of copyright laws.
The laws must be voted on by European Parliament before they can be enforced.
The three-strikes law has been making filesharing headlines for some time now, but it’s never been clear if such a rule could ever be enforced by law because of the pressure it would put on ISPs. Could that all be about to change?
Filesharing was the cause of a major security breach that led to the personal details of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer being exposed recently.
Names, birth dates and social security numbers of 2,000 Wagner Resource Group clients, including Breyer, were exposed over the filesharing network of Limewire. For almost six month, the security breach went unnoticed.
It was, amazingly, a Washington Post reader who discovered the breach while using the filesharing service Limewire. Limewire gives users access to other people’s files. Believe it or not, 40% to 60% of all security breaches are the result of employees using filesharing services and leaving files vulnerable to exposure.
The risk of filesharing attacks poses a real risk for companies around the world, as company secrets can be leaked over the Internet. This isn’t the first of such filesharing cases and it will no doubt not be the last. It’s dumbfounding that large firms don’t have measures in place to prevent such things from happening.
While filesharing news mostly focuses on music and movies, one area that is often overlooked is videogames. Videogames often appear on filesharing networks for free downloads. You can get everything from old Dreamcast games to the latest Nintendo DS roms through filesharing and BitTorrent.
The latest videogame news is that four people who shared the game Dream Pinball 3D on a filesharing website have been ordered to pay fines of £2,750 each.
Not only that, but the legal team for the people behind the game have said that they are going after 1,000 more people who shared the game over filesharing networks. If you have a copy of the game, you’d better watch your back.
The four are accused of violating copyright laws. The game itself sells for £16. It’s not even that good of a game, so those filesharing four must really be kicking themselves for this whole debacle.
Guns n Roses’ long-awaited new album has been 14 years in the making. We aren’t all that excited about the album because we can’t remember who Guns n Roses are. Ha! The youth of today. Anyway, the surprise of their new album has been somewhat spoiled after tracks were leaked onto filesharing networks before the official release date.
The nine tracks first appeared on little-known rock website www.antiquiet.com. They then made its way onto filesharing networks and onto peoples’ computers and iPods.
The album reportedly cost the ridiculous sum of $13 million to produce. Must have been a lot of hairspray.
After 14 years of making an album, it’s no surprise that it ended up being leaked before it was due for release. If there are any Guns n Roses fans left, they will likely have got the album through filesharing networks first before they buy the CD, so it’s unlikely that sales will be affected too much.
Foxy singer Joss Stone is the latest celeb to come out and say that she supports filesharing. Joss Stones allegedly said that piracy is brilliant.
In a bit of a twist, Joss Stone said that she loves music, but she hates the whole music industry. Don’t we all! When asked after a show what she thinks about people who download her music, she said, “I think it’s great,” which raised a few eyebrows.
Joss Stone went on to say that music should be shared and it should be free. So filesharing is a good thing.
She may come under flack for saying that people should buy music, burn it, share it on filesharing networks and so on. It’s rare for a singer in her position to come out and speak so openly about this subject.
Record labels have brainwashed artists into thinking that filesharing and priacy is bad, she added.
After hearing these comments, we went and downloaded Joss Stone’s latest album using Limewire. Thanks Joss!
Miles Doughty, the frontman of Slightly Stoopid, a band we’ve never heard of, has gone on record and said that filesharing is good because it gives people who would not have otherwise heard your music a chance to listen to it.
This is in line with many bands and artists who have sung the praises of filesharing for making music available to the masses in a way that was, until recently, virtually impossible.
Filesharing is said to give artists direct access to fans and would-be fans while putting record labels in the precarious position of not really having any point. Miles Doughty has praised filesharing for the exposure it has given his band, although that exposure wasn’t enough to make it to our iPods. Or perhaps it was, given this news report. The mind boggles.
Anyway, Miles Doughty says that filesharing increases a band’s ability to tour and play live shows, giving a band the opportunity to do what it’s supposed to: play music.
Despite music pundits insisting that CD sales are dead and that filesharing is the only way people are getting their music, Lil Wayne’s new album Tha Carter III has sold by the bucketload since its release on June 10.
CD sales in the US have dipped by about 11% in the past year, thanks to filesharing and other ways of getting music, but that didn’t stop Lil Wayne shifting 423,000 units in a few days.
Predicted figures for the album put CD sales at anything up to and above one million. So people are still buying CDs and filesharing has yet to kill the music industry. Interesting.
Lil Wayne’s new album is more popular than the likes of Mariah Carey and Usher. This kind of reception to a hit album is rare and is perhaps something that the music biz can learn from. Despite Lil Wayne’s new album finding its way onto filesharing networks before its release, sales of Tha Carter III appear to have not been affected at all.
Rogers Cable, Canada’s largest ISP, recently held a press conference to dispel a few myths about how it shapes its bandwidth with regards to people using filesharing networks.
A spokesperson from Rogers said that the ISP does not block filesharing traffic. Rather, it controls the traffic when it is uploading data. Apparently, many people are unaware that when they download material through filesharing networks, they are also uploading data.
Rogers limits the rate at which users can upload material. The idea behind this is that filesharing users then do not then overwhelm all other Internet traffic. Apparently, expanding the network would not solve the problem, so limits must be installed.
Filesharing traffic is designed to overwhelm other traffic. With filesharing traffic expected to triple by the year 2012, ISPs such as Rogers will have their work cut out for them to control the traffic.
