Playlouder & Isle Of Man In P2p Discussions

[Confirmed]

Seems this isn't just pie in the sky:

 

http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/content_dis...869654c9c96ab2c

 

http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2009/02/...-music-plan.ars

[immortalpuppet]

I find it strange that they plan to charge people per device that connects to the internet, how can they raise the bill on a mobile user to cover p2p traffic when people dont use mobiles as a p2p link. If people are daft enough to download music files onto mobile devices directly from the web then i dont think its through p2p but rather directly from a host server.

 

If the person wants to download music straight to mobile then if they had any sense then it would be through a wifi connection which they would already be paying an additional charge for anyway.

 

I would say make p2p/torrent traffic an additional ISP service so that those people who use p2p pay rather than those that dont use it also pay, but there would be no revenue in that (in comparrison to charging every internet and mobile user.)

[joeyconcrete]

The whole situation confuses me. You have the Government telling the industry they are going to introduce a blanket music license for all ISPs on the Island. You have the music industry saying any deal would be strictly commercial, optional and not with the government, there's a distinct lack of consultation with said ISPs and then, as someone pointed out on el'Reg, the music industry is worth billions and the fee would have to be fairly substantial to make up for lost revenue. Then there's the people who buy their music from iTunes and Amazon - what about them? With all that in mind, I'm still lost as to how this generates revenue.

 

I'm not aware of any consultation with the `ISPs` apart from maybe one..

 

Berry has since had dozens of meetings with the music and tech industry. The island's main telecoms provider Manx Telecom, owned by O2, is set to be the lead ISP partner.

 

As for this;

http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2009/02/...-music-plan.ars

 

The subject has been explored so many times and the same issues have been raised, you only have to look at how Virgin binned it off.

 

ISPs will be required to install hardware that scans network traffic for fingerprints of shared music files—representatives

 

I'm sure this will go down well with people.. Some BitTorrent traffic is encrypted, Binary newsgroups support SSL, other services are encrypted - it's not quite as simple as sticking a magic box in looking for files, the other issue, is it right for an ISP to actively scan the content people are downloading? The other important question, who pays for this additional ISP hardware?

 

In principal - I agree that a flat fee is the way forward. It shouldn't be compulsory and the Government should stay well out of the equation, it must be a commercial deal. With that in mind, it won't happen anytime soon because the figures speak for themselves. The Government would be far better off attracting content-delivery companies to the Island and someone making money from their presence and sales - the downside to that, bandwidth is magnitudes more expensive on the Island than in the US (despite all the 0.001% utilisation).

[immortalpuppet]

Suppose some geek decides cilla black needs a bit of cash and starts flooding through files onto the p2p network containing the "fingerprint" of her music but marked up as someone else?

 

I dont suppose it makes a difference to joe public as they are charged a fee regardless but if there is a way of adjusting the "fingerprint" then those people who up and share music to stick it to the music companies will alter the fingerprint or just get rid of it (If there is a way of getting it on there will be a way of getting it off.)

 

If the magic box scans certain traffic then will the the p2p people move over to the scene and use more conventional means of sharing files, but how can you have a legal way of downloading files for one type of traffic and not the other. would this mean servers would start to pop up on the Island that host copyright music for people to legally download?

 

The mind boggles

[joeyconcrete]

It's like anything related to P2P or File-Sharing. As soon as the industry introduces a new system to detect or block P2P - developers simply introduce a new protocol, application or mechanism to get around the issue, an endless cycle. The technology is one issue, the other debate is whether ISPs should be responsible for policing the Internet?

 

I don't see this as simply a debate about P2P or controlling Privacy, I think it's part of a bigger issue regarding the Record Industry and the concept of owning music as a whole. This is the important step that appears to have been missed.

 

I think a possible model would be someone like iTunes amending their model to incorporate some kind of optional subscription system. Whatever happens, I'm sure of two things - the Record Industry will want a lot of cash for the subscription system OR DRM would play a big part in the equation.

 

Introducing a compulsary tax for something like this is madness and completely unworkable if you ask me. A innovative, good value commercial operation would be a far better option - the big issue with that is, I don't see how this prevents file sharing.

[immortalpuppet]

I suppose it might be a test bed to see how much money they can make out of people, I would like to see how they measure the results (how many files are being picked up as copyrighted music.) and if said results are made public.

 

Then the problem is rolling the kit out to a wider audience based on figures from the Island, what happens when the geeks get hold of this and change the way either music is shared or the way it is signed, would we still have to pay the extra to support kit that is redundant?

 

The whole things stinks to me, but i think thats largley to do with not knowing how the fudge its going to work.

[pongo]

The recording industry is lobbying hard all over the world to get governments to defend their failed and old fashioned business models. Just as recording artists are beginning to abandon the labels and increasingly look towards selling directly - or giving away their recordings as a form of marketing.

 

It's ironic that Sony is so much behind so much of this via its funding of the various lobbying groups. Since they once made their money producing many of the tape recorders and playback devices which were once said to be responsible for the piracy which was "killing music". And many of the vcrs which the movie industry tried for a while to get banned.

 

Although - as someone pointed out on one of the podcasts I am subscribed to, the other day - the recording industry began by effectively ripping off the sheet music industry. Then they became respectable. Then the jukebox and radio people ripped off the recording industry for awhile - until they too became respectable and licenses were introduced. And then Sony bought much of the music industry and suddenly got bothered about piracy.

 

So the moral is that every generation of pirates become respectable ultimately.

[joeyconcrete]

The recording industry is lobbying hard all over the world to get governments to defend their failed and old fashioned business models.

 

That's just it. It is, in essence, a government sanctioned, obligatory revenue stream for their old fashioned models. Subscription perhaps, Government involvement, no.

 

Just as recording artists are beginning to abandon the labels and increasingly look towards selling directly - or giving away their recordings as a form of marketing.

 

Interesting. That could mean more of the steps are handled by the artist or some other intermediary, whether that intermediary is some kind of cut-down record company remains to be seen. The industry is reaching a point where some kind of re-think or transition is needed though.

[Slim]

It's bollocks. Ron Berry doesn't have a clue about the tech, and the more in detail this plan goes, the more stupid it looks. It's a few of his chums making an easy sale to the government.

 

I'd like to see him 'fingerprint' an ssl torrent of a flac lossless rip for the sake of a £1 a month tax to record companies. Bunch of arse.

 

We pay a license for audio and visual entertainment as it is, if the record industry wants a slice of that, they need to talk to the bbc, bit instead they sell to gullible government consultants and this is what they come up with.

 

Pogo is right, labels are no longer required. There's nothing to stick a bloody label too!

 

Conc, I think subscription is probably the way to go. Look at spotify, very impressive.

[pongo]

The industry is reaching a point where some kind of re-think or transition is needed though.

 

If govts manage to resist the ridiculous lobbying then I think that the new models will evolve naturally. Try to over-plan it and it won't work. There will be some other factor that nobody thought of. Someone lucky / genius will invent some new model.

 

Lots of people are recording their own stuff. Or using independent producers. The recording is digital. The obvious thing is to upload it directly. That's the way the stock photography business has gone. How long before it is the norm for artists to upload their music directly to a site which handles the payments and helps them build a presence? No need for the old labels pressing discs etc. And the biggest artists make their big money playing live after building an audience online. And via commercial licensing etc. It is potentially an incredibly democratic model.

 

I see that iStockphoto which is the budget end of Getty Images just introduced Royalty Free audio clips, loops etc. iStockphoto (and before that Getty) were hated by the industry when RF first came along. Now their model more or less is the stock photography business. Because it was economically inevitable once someone thought of it. And a new generation of photographers are doing very nicely out of it too.

 

Replacing the old brick and mortar agencies with all digital online catalogues was possibly because most people now have an entirely digital workflow. This has had the effect of making it potentially much easier for people to join the industry. I'm not drawing a direct comparison between the recording industry and stock photography btw - but there are definite parallels. The best models will only evolve if govt stays out.

[joeyconcrete]

It's bollocks. Ron Berry doesn't have a clue about the tech, and the more in detail this plan goes, the more stupid it looks. It's a few of his chums making an easy sale to the government.

I'd like to see him 'fingerprint' an ssl torrent of a flac lossless rip for the sake of a £1 a month tax to record companies. Bunch of arse.

 

That's exactly it. The tech side is seriously flawed, most people in the ISP business who understand and aren't taken in by all the bollocks would know that. I'd be surprised if this isn't one of the reasons Virgin bailed. It appears that their model "works" with the ISP installing an appliance in their network that detects the traffic, identifies the file\artist and generates figures that can be used to reimburse the labels. With native encryption and tunnelling, it's not going to be finding much going forward.

 

Taking into account any costs to the ISP, any performance issues, issues relating to privacy and the fact I'd be doubtful it would detect any significant amount of traffic gives me doubts. Then trying to charge ISPs (+ their customers) a fee because they assume their customers are downloading music is plain wrong if you ask me.

 

P2P\NNTP aside, iTunes is very popular, in terms of traffic, that means people are paying for their music downloads. The answer as I see it is the industry needs to introduce more innovative, easy-to-use and competitively priced solutions that attract a larger number of users. This is already happening, but without all this hype and pie-in-the-sky ideas. Whatever happens, I see this as a commercial, market-orientated development and certainly not one imposed by the Government.

 

EDIT

It appears Virgin may have pulled the plug because the record companies didn't play ball

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/23/vi...gal_p2p_on_ice/

[Slim]

Lots of people are recording their own stuff. Or using independent producers. The recording is digital. The obvious thing is to upload it directly. That's the way the stock photography business has gone. How long before it is the norm for artists to upload their music directly to a site which handles the payments and helps them build a presence? No need for the old labels pressing discs etc. And the biggest artists make their big money playing live after building an audience online. And via commercial licensing etc. It is potentially an incredibly democratic model.

 

With games it seems to be going three ways. You still need publishers, because big games are expensive. If your'e going to spend two years and several hundred staff creating something, you need someone to bankroll. So there's still 40 quid boxed games.

 

But there's a second level of small team games, that are quick to create, quick to download, and really don't require big publishers, stuff like the games on xbox live arcade, steam and psn.

 

The third level is rising, a model where loads of games are created, much of it dross, all of it cheap. It's created for virtually naff all cost, it's hosted on websites, itunes app store, xbox community games, and it's pretty much driven by how good your game is and nothing else. If it's good people download it, other people notice and more download it. If it's dross, it'll get ignored.

 

Problem is, there's a lot of dross, without money men doing quality control. I like the quick and fun community stuff, but I also like blockbusters, and with blockbusters, you have to have publishers.

 

The record industry has a similar problem, how do you create an album like In Rainbows, that's released without a label if you're a new band? You've not got old album sales to bankroll your new album. How do you get started?

[pongo]

The record industry has a similar problem, how do you create an album like In Rainbows, that's released without a label if you're a new band? You've not got old album sales to bankroll your new album. How do you get started?

 

Start with something less ambitious?

Work with a genius geek producer who is also starting out?

Build something from the ground up?

 

Actually - I'm just not convinced that great recording needs to necessarily cost a fortune. I also believe that many artists do their best work before they make any money now. More and more great production is also semi DIY these days anyhow.

 

Many bands - they make two good albums. If they're lucky. Many end up owing the label money and hating each other. It's often the relationship with the accounting which ends up messing it up.

 

Bands think they want a deal because getting a deal has traditionally been such a big deal. They get an advance and think they have made it. I hope the next generation of bands will measure their initial progress in terms of how many hits or downloads they get. Or how much buzz they can create on some social / distribution network. I hope they will already be successful long before they start making money. That's how it works for nearly all other artists / creatives. And now that recording and production is so much more accessible - well there really is not any reason why such big money would need to be involved.

 

I would not want to debate the relative merits of a Radiohead recording. However they obviously aren't just building on the money earned from previous work. They would also be building on the actual skills and techniques which the have developed over the years and on their maturity as artists.

[Slim]

Actually - I'm just not convinced that great recording needs to necessarily cost a fortune. I also believe that many artists do their best work before they make any money now. More and more great production is also semi DIY these days anyhow.

 

I think your right like, it's really just moving the threshold anyway. Currently there's millions of unsigned bands that haven't got deals, so it's not as if there's not struggling artists now trying to get noticed.

 

Thought this was an interesting observation from the pirate bay:

[tiger lily]

who radio persons that giv up job to be ful time pade tynwald person, an later hav 2 job !!!!

 

this horribl - if public person takin up 2 job, when other benefitt persons needin 1 job