Now this is just a thought. But would it be possible to turn the greed of copyright infringes against themselves and use that, where enforcement (or lack thereof) methods have failed?
Think about this; P2P file sharing can only work if enough of the people who download the files also make them available for uploading - ie sharing - as well.
What if everyone only downloaded files, and there was no, or very little resource dedicated to uploading, and resharing the file? I think in a very short time, the novelty of getting the latest movie or TV program 'for free' would wear off, particularly if that programs download time were to be measured in months rather than days.
How much P2P copyright infringement went on when everyone only had dial-up speed? (well plenty apparently, but that was music files @ 3Mbyte size, not movie files @ 700Mbyte size). Even so, mp3 sharing would not have worked if it wasn't for the 10:1 compression of the music format in the first place, and the relative speed of 56k modems compared to, say, 9.6k modems.
The question is, who is going to wait a month or more to get a movie file? A couple of days maybe. But even then, those couple of days better not cross $1 Tuesday at the local video store - which will represent a much better return for time/effort/'I want it now'.
Ok, so a scarcity of upload resource which consequently leads to very slow downloads may well put an end to illegal sharing. But how do you convince all the 'community minded' (it cost me nothing to make, or get, so why don't I make it available to you as well) sharers (thieves) to not on-share what they have downloaded?
I can imagine a straightforward way to do just that.
Make it known that there is no penalty to download - only to upload. That is; a campaign of clear public statements that downloaders are simply 'victims' of unscrupulous people who are preying on them, and banking on them, to propagate their crime. The downloading of a copyright file is not a crime - or if it is, will not be pursued, only the re-sharing and uploading of it will be.
And inform everyone, via the many, many public forums available to do that, of just how to set their P2P clients to 0 or 1kbps upload, while maintaining full download speeds.
It seems to me that would accomplish a number of things:
1. Illegal P2P would die a natural death in a few months, and the sites like Piratebay that profit from that
2. Legitimate P2P would be unaffected
3. It would have to reduce the vilification the recording and movie industry comes in for for targeting home users
4. It would make is much easier to identify the people that are making commercial gain from the copyright theft, because they would be the only IP addresses still seeding
Anyway, just a thought.
How many tapes did people record, and how many singles did it save you from buying (ie how many would you REALLY have bought?).
Uploading is the main problem here - that is effectively "public broadcasting without permission" which is illegal (from a copyright point of view).
But even if they were, the data volume is trivial - a few kbytes only. Even some totally outrageous charge, like $5 per Mbyte, would only cost the spammer a few cents.
- DRM was/is an arms race, "hackers" vs old business models. apple realised they could not win this battle and now sells itunes-plus.
- everytime a method is devised to stop a way of pirating, a different way of pirating pops-up. "whack-a-mole" style.
**cough** rapidshare **cough**
i'm not saying you should stop trying with a reactive style of management, i'm saying maybe online music/movie sale and delivery need to think outside the box and overhaul their business model.
if you'll allow me analogy, i don't believe steve is actually that concerned with the "ILLEGAL!1!!11 W4R3Z" nature of downloading, but being an ISP, the "bus driver" of the internet world if you will; carrying people to where they want to go and not discriminating on what they've got in their pockets... a cost of his might be the size of data through the "tubes" exetel doesn't own, and because the majority of large data files are illegal he is using the "STOP FILE SHARING" argument as a platform to reduce his costs. Where, probably, his main concern should be providing a reliable connection to the internet for his customers, and then building up his customer base.
don’t get me wrong, it's ok if his overall plan is to reduce his cost. AS LONG AS HE COPS TO IT... that way he can continue his holier than thou "if you download a movie you are drink driving and killing children" bent with a clear conscience.
If you have based them on your own ethics, they are deplorable. If you have based them on what you imagine a business owners ethics to be, your view of the world is very naive.
My assumption would be that you are not a property owner yourself, and therefore are unable to understand the view a property owner has that they have the right to protect what is theirs.
Whatever the case may be, only a low life criminal could think that it is ok to steal, or that if they have certain knowledge theft is taking place, do nothing about it.
-fair enough, they are assumptions after all, I guess I came to that conclusion because I thought business people such as yourself are looking for ways to be more profitable... and for that, you also say i am naive.
"property owner" is a fairly generic term given the scope of the conversation, but no, i am not a musician nor film producer. i won't assume either way about your good self.
the "low life criminal" comment leans towards that quote about how evil triumphs when good men do nothing, right?
so i get the impression this post is about you doing not nothing, or at least wanting to not do nothing...
Once more I am shown how poor my skill in conveying an idea via the written word is; that what I have said leads to such an impression.
"Reduce (highway) Speed" to 5kmh?; (some) people will innevitably turn to different and more efficient avenue(s) to source material (authorised/ unauthorised distributors), while they have a) means to, and, b) strong enough motive to with whatever comes from their decision.
There is no point more valid than for networks remain neutral while similarly there is no basis to construe consumer usage a technology as activity of a terrorist..Sire, ehere's the evidence?
As participants have observed recently (in Exetel/forum threads), to disuade distribution results in
a) tunneling effort/ a Falling % of provider upstream traffic as indicated increasingly by http://public.mrtg.exetel.com.au/bwsummary/total-supplier-bandwidth.html
b) positive selection effect.
Which in going practice, means
a) less 'dirt' on the company, its two key stakeholders and the various consumers of (commercial) online material, or
b) decrement in revenue stream should personal choice be percieved to be infracted by decisions brought down by 'officials'. Which, may I suggest, of the proposals currently listed, I sumbit yours (slowed, albeit not necessarily removed - Bittorment and or its system users) would be a most civil course of leadership to take at this juncture of proceeding in business.
The current paradigm of monthly download quotas generates a mindset that a customer "needs" to download a bunch of crap they probably don't even want or will ever use just to "get what they pay for" (i.e. use all of that allocated quota). It's silly, but that's the mindset of many. Unlimited uploads offered by many ISPs today just makes the situation worse.
Exetel are the only ISP in Australia that I'm aware of that even offer PAYU plans. Have you looked to see how much P2P traffic as a % goes across these plans compared to non-PAYU plans? I'd say it'd be vastly less, probably close to non-existent.