Policing Piracy 2011

Policing piracy: Assessing the impacts of national strategies to combat illegal file-sharingrobert.jewitt@sunderland.ac.uk
ESF Exploratory Workshop onConsuming the Illegal: Situating Digital Piracy in Everyday Experience
Leuven (Belgium), 17th-19th April 2011

Overview
Claims
Counter claims
Digital Economy Act (UK)
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3
2

1 - Claims
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3
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Disruptive technology

Chris Rojek, 2005
“The initial response of the recording industry was poorly judged. Instead of exploring P2P exchange as a business opportunity, they defined it as a piratical threat. In doing so, they inadvertently implied that they had the right to determine how people apply after-sales use of intellectual property by re-asserting commercial copyright in a set of relations that were effectively deregulated”

Piracy

Piracy
“a global scourge” (USTR, 2003)
“an international plague” (Jack Valenti, 2004)
“nirvana for criminals” (Dan Glickman, 2004)
“piracy is theft - pure and simple” (Estelle Morris, 2004)
“immense damage” (John Kennedy, 2009)

Today?
‘while record companies are innovating and licensing every viable form of music access for consumers, the music industry is still haemorrhaging revenue as a result of digital piracy’
- Frances Moore, IFPI, 2011: 3

Today?
‘more than one million jobs will disappear from the creative industries in Europe by 2015 if piracy is not addressed’
- Frances Moore, IFPI, 2011: 3

Investment
The lack of action against illegal downloading continues to undermine the potential for the digital music sector to expand, eroding value for investors, discouraging innovation and harming Britain’s musical culture. These effects are now felt right across the UK’s creative industries.
- BPI press release, 16/12/2010

Shift happens
“The spread of networked digital media has splintered the economies and organizational structures of the media and culture industries. In the era of new media, conventional forms of content have lost economic value and the distribution channels and revenue streams have diversified.”
(Holt, 2010: 246)

7 million file-sharers?
Sources: UK National Statistics (2010); SABIP (2009)

Lobbying
“The point in the Copyright Wars is not to point to real data—quite the opposite, the data is fake—the point is to create a sense of siege, of urgency, of a clear and present danger that must be eliminated either by Congress or the courts”
- WilliamPatry

The Statute of Anne (1710)

2 - Counter-claims
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Oberholzer-Gee & Strumpf, 2010
“Over the past 200 years, most countries evolved their copyright regimes in one direction only: lawmakers repeatedly strengthened the legal protections of authors and publishers, raising prices for the general public and discouraging consumption.”

The ‘big numbers’ game
“Assumptions, such as the rate at which consumers would substitute counterfeit goods for legitimate products, can have enormous impacts on the resulting estimates.”

Piracy as opportunity?

Tim O’Reilly, 2002
“Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy”

Live exhibition: UK music
16%
5.8%
15%

Live exhibition: UK music

Live exhibition: UK cinema
Source: UK Film Council

Surprisingly healthy?
‘downward pressure on leisure expenditure is likely to continue to increase due to rising costs of living and unemployment and drastic rises in the costs of (public) services’
Cammaertsand Meng, 2011

3 – Digital Economy Act
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1
2

Digital Economy Act
New process by which rights holders can contact ISPs regarding suspected infringements
Graduated response
‘3 strikes’
Technical measures
Web-blocking

Precursors

Public consultation
‘None of the options highlighted in the consultation won widespread support. Rather there was a marked polarisation of views between the rights holder community and consumers and the ISPs over what action should be taken.’
(BERR, 2009, p2)

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Critics of the Act

The ‘wash-up’
Lord Puttnam: legislators were subject to an ‘extraordinary degree of lobbying’ from copyright holders
MP candidate for South West Surrey, Richard Mollet, also happened to be the Director of Public Affairs for the BPI

IP reform: Hargreaves Review
‘The service they provide depends on taking a snapshot of all the content on the internet at any one time and they feel our copyright system is not as friendly to this sort of innovation as it is in the United States.
Over there, they have what are called ‘fair-use’ provisions, which some people believe gives companies more breathing space to create new products and services.’
- David Cameron, East End Tech City, 2010

In summary
Power of industry lobbyists
Hyperbolic rhetoric
Industry under threat
Insufficient evidence
Consumer rights a secondary concern?

Images
Darren Hester, 2010, CAT-5 Network Cable
Dr Stephen Dann, 2005, I stole this
sethstoll, 2009, network
Akoaraisin, 2006, Questionable DVDs
Comedy_nose, 2009, Project 365 #169: 180609 Somebody PLEASE Pick Up That Phone!
M4tik, 2010, Cinema…
(I Am), 2009, Your Participation is Requested
A. DiezHerrero, 2007, creative commons -Franz Patzig-
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Policing Piracy 2011

by Rob Jewitt

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