AfterDawn: News

Australia falling in line with music industry talking points

Anyone who read the IFPI's annual report on the state of the music industry when it was released in January would have already been aware that their stated goal for this year was to hold ISPs responsible for copyright infringement taking place on their networks. If you're not familiar with the IFPI, they're a international trade and lobbying organization representing all the major labels, plus a wide variety of smaller ones as well. If you're not familiar with their intentions to force ISPs to take responsibility for copyright enforcement all you have to do is look at the proposals in France, the U.K., and now Australia, which would do exactly that via so-called "three strikes" laws.

Chief executive of Australia's National Internet Industry Association, Peter Corones, will be meeting with Communications Minister Stephen Conroy this week to discuss ISPs' concerns over the proposed new law. While he hasn't laid out any specifics, he did say "Internet service providers are not the enforcers of copyright," calling them instead "a mere conduit" to reach the internet.



No doubt one of the issues he'll bring up has to do with liability. While it's easy to say you'd like to get rid of infringing content, it's not always all that easy to identify. It's become common to use file sharing applications like BitTorrent to deliver video to paying consumers. If such transactions are mistaken for piracy, and subscribers disconnected as a result, ISPs don't want to be held liable.

To date no label or recording industry representative has volunteered to take on this financial responsibility. This is hardly surprising since the one constant in music ongoing struggle to build a new business model is the position that the financial burden belongs to everyone except themselves.

Written by: Rich Fiscus @ 19 Feb 2008 0:22

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• 3 comments

• Blackjax

  And the last line in this article says it all about the music industry!
  
  In a nut shell it's everyone's fault but their own. Examples abound everywhere just insert an excuse when caught doing something wrong or failing miserably to reach a goal. I would say it's funny what the world has come to but that's cliche. It very simple no one wants to take responsibilty for their own actions including but not limited to CEO's of failing business models.

  19.2.2008 01:28 #1

• nobrainer

  following on from the article in the uk tiscali have silently agreed to this and have been employing it for the past year which has only just come to light.
  
  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/15/tiscali_bpi_agreement/
  
  Originally posted by link: Exclusive Tiscali, the UK's fourth largest broadband provider, implemented a "three strikes" arrangement with the record industry to disconnect illegal filesharers last summer, The Register can reveal.
  
  But over a matter of hours yesterday any deal that Tiscali thought it had made with the BPI evaporated in a row over money.
  
  Relations between the pair are in disarray as they battle over who should cover the costs of sending warning letters to peer to peer users and then disconnect persistent copyright infringers. The system the two-million-customer ISP believed it had agreed with the BPI is the same one that the government is pushing all ISPs to enforce.unlike individuals isp's can be sued for huge amounts and is obviously more lucrative for the BPI/RIAA/IFPI ect and the record industry knows there is absolutely no way they can stop the spread of information unless ppl are forced to adopt content blocking at their modems or on the pc but hackers will soon rip any methods to pieces that the gatekeepers employ in their anti freedom of speech campaign.
  

  The BPI Are: SONY, UNIVERSAL, WARNER GROUP, EMI.
  
  The RIAA Soundexchange Are: SONY, UNIVERSAL, WARNER GROUP, EMI.
  
  The IFPI Are: The same anti consumer lot as listed above!
  
  The MPAA Are: SONY, UNIVERSAL, WARNER GROUP, DISNEY, PARAMOUNT, FOX.
  
  How do you stop anti consumer = its easy purchase only second hand media and avoid their propertarian hobbled by DRM hardware! http://www.boycott-riaa.com/

  19.2.2008 11:29 #2

• borhan9

  Whatever happens in Australia i hope that it is left up to the user not the isp to take responsibilty whatever happens to freedom of information legislation we have inplace. If they do want to do something like this the new pruposed law has to be passed by parliment.

  9.4.2008 17:38 #3