Illegal Peer to Peer file sharing is attaining close a daily exposure in national media and social discourse of late, the prosecutions of websites and individuals is now a specter like presence in the collective conscience of society, a niggling itch to the concerns of the law abiding who possess rebellious children.
Outside of the fear mongering there is undoubtedly an issue at hand, addressing both the collective impact of small-scale infringements as well as larger bodies such as the successfully prosecuted Pirate Bay who assist these small but frequent illegal downloads by hosting links to servers that hold such content.
Peer to peer file sharing and its impact on the cultural industries, specifically the music industry, is having a devastating effect on revenue streams, currently estimated at a loss of £200m per annum, nearly a quarter of total income, to the music industry alone. Coming to terms with this situation is imperative. The UK is the world’s foremost exporter of cultural goods, accounting for a significant proportion of our GDP.
The debate has many facets; cultural, economic, behavioral, legislative and technological. It impacts not only business and government but also the perceptions and lifestyles of both the consumer and the creator. The zeitgeist of free content that exists, particularly among the youth of today, is at odds with that of a decade past where we were quite willing to part with money for an artist’s commitment and talent.
There are serious consequences to such infringement, and the spectrum of these consequences is as diverse and complicated as the problem itself. Peer to Peer file sharing works on a simple premise, the files on your computer are available to those using the software or website, as are theirs available to you.
By making your data available you put yourself in a vulnerable position to the theft of personal information potentially leading to that data being put to use in various unsavory forms; identity theft, the personal information of children being shared amongst pedophile rings, confidential business information being shared amongst the internet’s ether.
And what for? Usually low quality, pirated copies of material readily available through means that do not endanger the privacy of individuals, children and business.
The potential issues are not only limited to the violation of personal information though, forthcoming legislation laid out in the Digital Britain report will for the first time allow a tiered system of warnings, fines and ultimately prosecution for individuals in place.
The Government has the bit between it’s teeth and is putting enormous pressure on the ISP’s, Internet Service Providers, to co-operate with themselves and Rights Holders such as record labels and production houses to bring infringers to justice.
Any individual who believes it is impossible to be caught due to the sheer number of participants, a common belief amongst not only Britain’s young but general population, is fundamentally misguided.
The necessary steps to integrate the complexities of the 21st century with existing, admittedly outdated, intellectual property law will soon be in place. This will rapidly open the door to the aforementioned measures aimed to curb he tide of illegal use of copyrighted material on the Internet.
The debate of how to put in place a system to monitor usage of the Internet is futile. This already exists, ISP’s already monitor an individual’s usage of the Internet, and the question of when and why that data can justifiably be brought into the public domain and used as evidence has now been answered.
This truly is a situation where the possible cons outweigh the pros, the High Court recently ruled that 10 ISP’s, including Telewest, NTL, Virgin and BT, had to hand over data on over 150 customers in a case brought by ‘The Federation Against Software Theft’.
This resulted in the prosecution of many individuals and is not alone, Civil proceedings have been launched against hundreds of individuals by the BPI, The County Patents Court as well as the Central London County Court. This has led to numerous cases, the majority of which are settled out of court, however those that are heard have always ended in a guilty verdict.
To quote David Gore, a Partner at Davenport Lyons, who successfully prosecuted a case for the CLCC ‘the damages and costs ordered by the court are significant and should act as a deterrent, this shows that taking direct steps against infringers is an important step in the battle against online piracy’.
This is the line of prosecution Rights Holders will take, taking the June ’09 case in America when Jammie Thomas-Rasset was ordered to pay $1.92 Million to the 4 major labels, EMI, Warner, Universal and Sony, the damages awarded are disproportionate to the actual cost of the music but the such a case will be the first of many ‘shock and awe’ verdicts to come with time.
As aforementioned cases of such severity have been successfully prosecuted in the UK, however as parents and bill payers you must be vigilant. It is commonly understood that p2p file sharing contravenes copyright law although many children believe in ‘a safety in numbers’ ideal that is flawed but constitutes an absolution of responsibility and conscience.
It is generally understood that continually monitoring a child is next to impossible, however there are measures you can take to limit and prevent the consequences of copyright infringement.
Creating dialogue on the general use of computers, websites and the implications of p2p file sharing. Encourage vigilance and foresight and embody what you say, regularly check your browser history and desktop for unusual websites and icons.
Securing sensitive information on separate hard drives and accessing them when necessary will drastically alter the chances of information falling into the wrong hands, similarly regularly updating spyware detection software will go a long way to internal damage limitation.
As for illegal downloads, communication on the consequences is imperative and not only about being sued personally. The effects such activity is having on the UK’s cultural industries and it’s economics.
This has had a significant impact on the productivity and freedom of the firms in these industries. Less money is available to bring on new artists and, due to the inevitably protectionism that this creates, the energy and attention needed to fully develop new, highly interactive web-based business models is being diverted to combating piracy.
As a direct result of this, a generation of new artists has lost significant earnings. The best way to combat this is to lead by example – subscribe to a music service and give your children access to this.
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