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Illegal file-sharing policy criticised by BT boss

binarymax 17y ago
Interesting...although it is obvious that if BT were required to terminate the contract of anyone who ever downloaded a song or movie, they'd be out a large stack of cash. Livingston would much rather keep the contracts (and the money). And the gov should be happier with another tax. But can you imagine how jammed up the courts would be if everyone fought it (which they would)?
- yungchin 17y ago
  > Livingston would much rather keep the contracts Sure, but regardless of his motives, his line of reasoning can stand on its own very well: to continue the speeding-fine parallel, you would need very direct evidence of someone speeding before you could take their driver's license away. Many people depend on net-connectivity for their income, in the same way that many depend on their driver's license - thus it shouldn't be too easy to cut anyone off. > But can you imagine how jammed up the courts would be if everyone fought it (which they would)? It depends - as long as the amount fined is reasonable, the cost and effort of appealing would stop people in most cases. On the other hand, if the rights-holders would be unreasonable about it, by pushing the fines too far or disregarding fair-use, they'd find themselves in court all the time - which is arguably a good thing.
  - binarymax 17y ago
    Good points. In retrospect I think it would be pretty easy to beat a fine. Imagine the following scenario: - I download the song 'Happy Birthday' illegally - I get caught and get a fine, which I have the option of appealing in court (lets say the fine is something outrageous like £500) - I option to appeal but before the court date I go to HMV and buy a single of 'Happy Birthday' for £5, and scratch it up a bit so it doesnt look shiny new. - I get to court with my CD and say "I already legally owned a copy of the song, but its all scratched so I downloaded it" Strange thing is, you beat the fine but the record company still gets your £5 for the purchase (and you keep your copy)...so minus the hassle, everyone wins.
patio11 17y ago
This is not too surprising, since piracy is the killer app for broadband. (Similar to Apple's promotion of "Mix, rip, burn" -- Apple has iTunes to be able to pretend that their hipster twenty-somethings are filling those gigabytes with tens of thousands of dollars of legitimately purchased music -- and Youtube.)
- rimantas 17y ago
  Pretend or not iTunes is #1 music store in US.
  - rmc 17y ago
    Just because iTunes is the most popular music store in the USA does not mean that most of the music on iPods in the USA comes from iTunes.
- ZeroGravitas 17y ago
  Rip, Mix, Burn implies ripping the CD (and burning your "mixtape" to a 70 minute, 700MB of uncompressed WAV, physical disc which dates it nicely). I thought it was only out of touch RIAA executives that interpreted "Rip" to mean "Rip-off". You could get technical and point out that making mix-tapes or CDs is illegal in the UK and some other countries, or suggest that people could rip borrowed CDs, but it's plainly wrong historically to interpret the intention of this slogan as being the promotion of mass online piracy of the post-napster type.

Interesting...although it is obvious that if BT were required to terminate the contract of anyone who ever downloaded a song or movie, they'd be out a large stack of cash. Livingston would much rather keep the contracts (and the money). And the gov should be happier with another tax. But can you imagine how jammed up the courts would be if everyone fought it (which they would)?

yungchin 17y ago
> Livingston would much rather keep the contracts Sure, but regardless of his motives, his line of reasoning can stand on its own very well: to continue the speeding-fine parallel, you would need very direct evidence of someone speeding before you could take their driver's license away. Many people depend on net-connectivity for their income, in the same way that many depend on their driver's license - thus it shouldn't be too easy to cut anyone off. > But can you imagine how jammed up the courts would be if everyone fought it (which they would)? It depends - as long as the amount fined is reasonable, the cost and effort of appealing would stop people in most cases. On the other hand, if the rights-holders would be unreasonable about it, by pushing the fines too far or disregarding fair-use, they'd find themselves in court all the time - which is arguably a good thing.
- binarymax 17y ago
  Good points. In retrospect I think it would be pretty easy to beat a fine. Imagine the following scenario: - I download the song 'Happy Birthday' illegally - I get caught and get a fine, which I have the option of appealing in court (lets say the fine is something outrageous like £500) - I option to appeal but before the court date I go to HMV and buy a single of 'Happy Birthday' for £5, and scratch it up a bit so it doesnt look shiny new. - I get to court with my CD and say "I already legally owned a copy of the song, but its all scratched so I downloaded it" Strange thing is, you beat the fine but the record company still gets your £5 for the purchase (and you keep your copy)...so minus the hassle, everyone wins.

patio11 17y ago

This is not too surprising, since piracy is the killer app for broadband. (Similar to Apple's promotion of "Mix, rip, burn" -- Apple has iTunes to be able to pretend that their hipster twenty-somethings are filling those gigabytes with tens of thousands of dollars of legitimately purchased music -- and Youtube.)

rimantas 17y ago
Pretend or not iTunes is #1 music store in US.
- rmc 17y ago
  Just because iTunes is the most popular music store in the USA does not mean that most of the music on iPods in the USA comes from iTunes.
ZeroGravitas 17y ago
Rip, Mix, Burn implies ripping the CD (and burning your "mixtape" to a 70 minute, 700MB of uncompressed WAV, physical disc which dates it nicely). I thought it was only out of touch RIAA executives that interpreted "Rip" to mean "Rip-off". You could get technical and point out that making mix-tapes or CDs is illegal in the UK and some other countries, or suggest that people could rip borrowed CDs, but it's plainly wrong historically to interpret the intention of this slogan as being the promotion of mass online piracy of the post-napster type.