TorrentFreak Email Update |
| ISP Proposes Piracy Mitigation, Detection and Punishment Framework Posted: 15 Mar 2011 03:59 AM PDT The ongoing dispute over how best to handle the illegal file-sharing of music, movies and TV shows prompted the now famous AFACT v iiNet legal battle. In late February the Full Bench of the Federal Court in Australia dismissed the movie industry's appeal against last year's judgment which found that ISP iiNet did not authorize the copyright infringements of its customers. However, once the detail of the ruling had been absorbed it became apparent that had the movie and TV industries done more to improve the quality of their infringement notices, the decision in the case could have tipped in their favor. Neither iiNet nor the studios want their opponent’s choice of system to be imposed on them – their prolonged legal battle showed that – but it’s fairly clear that at some point a compromise of sorts will have to be reached. Today, iiNet was the first to produce a report containing what it says are the steps forward. Titled ‘Encouraging Legitimate use of Online Content’ the report begins with the ISP’s earlier stance that in order to tackle piracy the studios have got to meet demand. Having created a product and generated desire in the market place, the report argues, the studios then limit supply with their ‘windowing’ strategy, causing frustration in the market. The message is clear – once the product is available, get it out there to the customers. The report goes on to note that despite making the product available in a timely and convenient fashion, some people will continue to pirate media. iiNet proposes a system to deal with these individuals to be overlooked by an independent body.  "iiNet has developed a model which addresses ISP concerns but one we think remains attractive to all participants, including the sustainable strategy of an impartial referee for the resolution of disputes and the issue of penalties for offenders," said iiNet chief Michael Malone, as quoted by Delimiter. While offering subscribers a level of protection and outright rejecting disconnecting them from the Internet, iiNet proposes that infringers are punished within a drivers’ licence-style penalty points system. “As with speeding fines, a low level infringement might attract a limited penalty, but then can ramp up to more serious penalties, depending on the level of infringement. The seriousness of the penalty is determined by a margin over a regulated limit,” says the report. Continuing with the traffic/infringement analogy, iiNet says that offenses could attract “demerit points and/or fines”, the former set to expire after a set time and for single infringers, back to a clean slate. The report suggests that infringements could be classified as ‘minor’ for a single instance, ‘major’ for multiple instances on different files, ‘serious’ for those on a ‘commercial level’ and all with their own level of penalties. But of course, proposals like this can be easily distorted by the entertainment industries. For example, if a subscriber seeds a single torrent containing an album with multiple tracks on and off over the course of a month, is this ‘major’, i.e multiple instances on different files? If a subscriber seeds a single track in a swarm of 1,000 peers, is this ‘commercial level’ infringement? These all-important details and the disagreements they generate are what lead to prolonged legal battles. Furthermore, iiNet suggests the establishment of a “scale of fines” could be linked to “the economic loss represented” which, in the light of some of the ridiculous and sometimes strangely mysterious reports coming out of the industry lately, is likely to make subscribers shudder with fear. Fines could also be supported by demerit points imposed against the subscriber’s account and “when a defined limit is reached, other sanctions might be deemed appropriate.” “These could involve charges being laid for treatment by the courts or possibly shaping of peer to peer traffic,” iiNet suggests. To overcome the problem of subscribers being punished for the actions of others within a household, iiNet implies that the bill payer – as with individuals whose cars have been identified by cameras as committing speeding offences where they weren’t the driver – could have the option of accepting a fine or identifying the infringer so that they may be punished instead. It will be very interesting to see what counter proposals are made by AFACT who are yet to comment on this report. The full iiNet proposal can be downloaded here. |
| Secrecy and Darkness Surround Mysterious $900m Piracy Report Posted: 14 Mar 2011 12:15 PM PDT
In late February the report in question was first mentioned in a speech by Attorney General McClelland, who was speaking at a conference on future directions in copyright law. At the time the public were not yet aware of the report’s existence. Journalists too remained in the dark. The same could be said for the Australian Content Industry Group. The copyright coalition, which doesn’t have a public website, was virtually unknown at that point also. The group consists of a variety of entertainment industry outfits, most prominently Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI), but until then had only appeared in a few recent government consultations. That’s some background on the report, now let’s fast forward two weeks. On March 6th, Australian newspaper The Age published a series of articles on Internet Piracy. Interestingly enough, the aforementioned report was at the center of the series that quickly made headlines. In particular the hit piece “Nation of unrepentant pirates costs $900m”, written by freelance journalist Neil McMahon, was picked up by dozens of other news outlets. Curious about this seemingly influential report that dominated the headlines last week, we decided to take a good look at the company that conducted the research — Sphere Analysis. However, this was easier said than done. Like the Australian Content Industry Group, Sphere Analysis doesn’t seem to have a web presence. With no website and no employees, not even a single reference to the company could be found. How could this be? Wouldn’t it be logical that such a big report would be written by a renowned company? To us it seemed a little suspicious to say the least, so the first question that came to mind was: Who are behind Sphere Analysis? With help from the Pirate Party, we found that Sphere Analysis is a business name registered to the ‘Sphere Property Corporation’. This company, which again has no web presence, appears to operate in the real-estate business. Not the type of business you’d expect to write an analysis of Internet piracy on the Australian economy. Interestingly, 'Sphere Analysis' was registered less than four months ago, which means that immediately after it was registered they got this major contract. So who are these people?  To find out more about the company, calls were made to several numbers associated with Sphere Property Corporation but again without results. All calls went to so-called ‘virtual offices‘, where either the company name didn’t ring a bell, or where the person who answered the line was not allowed to give out information. Additional research eventually led us to an alleged employee of Sphere Property Corporation, Phil Nott, who lists himself as a Real Estate Consultant on Linkedin. No other employees were found and Mr. Nott has two Linkedin profiles, each with just one connection. Aside from dealing with real estate, Sphere Property Corporation also seems to be connected to the investing company Sphere Capital Advisers and the recruitment business Sphere Associates. None of the above companies has a website of course, so that’s pretty much where our Sphere Analysis trail ended. Now that our interest in the report had been pushed even higher, we wanted to know how Sphere Analysis concluded that illicit movie, music and games downloads cost the industry $900 million a year as well as 8,000 jobs. Aside from a few key figures quoted in The Age article, the full report was unfortunately nowhere to be seen. But we were not the only ones left in the dark. The journalist who wrote the original article for The Age confirmed to TorrentFreak that he wasn’t provided with the full report either. His article was based on information he was given by ‘someone’ he didn’t want to name without permission. In an attempt to get a copy of the report, we then began emailing several outfits that fall under the Australian Content Industry Group, but without a response. In addition the Australian Pirate Party submitted a Freedom of Information request to the Attorney General’s office, but that is still being processed. So here we are. After a week of sending emails, making phone calls, and digging through all kinds of information we were unable to get our hands on the full report. On the contrary, the mystery surrounding the report is even greater because of the vagueness surrounding Sphere Analysis. This is worrying, especially when the Attorney General clearly indicates that it influences future legislation. The Pirate Party, who helped us in our quest for information, agrees. “Where such reports or studies direct the policy direction of our governments, there is a democratic imperative that the information is made available transparently, that the methodologies are sound and adequately reflect reality,” said Pirate Party’s Rodney Serkowski. “The Age article inferred that the Attorney General was basing the government’s policy direction on these research figures. This is a very, very shaky foundation for public policy — especially when there is a growing consensus that the institution of copyright requires radical structural reform, lest it becomes irrelevant,” he added. And then there’s the issue with hiring the brand new and unfindable Sphere Analysis to conduct such an important report. “This study, carried out by a virtually unknown entity with access only being granted to one journalist is highly dubious, even for the copyright lobby. Any study that gets reported as fact should be made available to the general public. The fact that it is not casts a question over its contents,” said Pirate Party’s Simon Frew. So, will Sphere Analysis step forward immediately with a full copy of this apparent policy-setting report either to us or another news outlet? Is transparency the way forward or are we to blindly accept spoon-fed ‘statistics’ from faceless groups, regurgitate them as fact, help build credibility where none has been earned and then work the whole thing into law? That can’t be the way forward. Update: Just to illustrate that we’re not the only one who question these practices, here’s a comment from researcher Guy Cranswick. “In my capacity as a researcher I requested the report from one of the organisations in the so-called copyright alliance but no reply has come which is very suspicious because normally these organisations are very happy to send their expensive studies to known researchers and other media contacts.” “As no one has see this report it goes to the core of journalistic credibility that a paper such as The Age could have published news about this uncorroborated survey.” |
To convince the government that harsher anti-piracy legislation is needed, a coalition of Australian entertainment industry outfits – under the umbrella name Australian Content Industry Group (ACIG) – commissioned a study on the economical impact of Internet piracy. Although by itself this is nothing out of the ordinary, the lack of transparency and shadiness that surrounds it is stunning.| You are subscribed to email updates from TorrentFreak To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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