Yes, Three Strikes Laws Have Unintended Consequences That Even Music Industry Execs Hate
from the surprise,-surprise dept
As noted earlier, I'm at the Midem music industry conference this week in Cannes, in the south of France. France, of course, has been at the forefront of many of the debates over copyright issues, with its Sarkozy-backed push to be one of the first countries to implement a "three accusations and you're off the internet" policy (despite Sarkozy's political party's own long history of infringing). There really hasn't been that much discussion this year about the whole three strikes thing (last year, it was one of the main topics), which seems a bit odd. However, I did randomly see a twitter message from the guy who runs a travel rental business here in Cannes, Lao Watson-Smith, pointing out that all these music industry execs are complaining about all their accommodations having locked down WiFi (even when it's offered free), and noting that the only reason why these connections need to all be locked down is because of the three strikes laws that they pushed through. And, indeed, it is rather annoying. My hotel has "free wifi" (which seems to go down regularly) but you still need a user name and password, and once you log in with one device it will not let you log in with any other device. You must use that one device exclusively. When the official WiFi went dead, I went in search of other networks, including one called "Free WiFi," but when I accessed that, it still asked me for my username and password (which I obviously don't have). It certainly is somewhat amusing to find out that the music industry execs are annoyed by the consequences of the law they so desperately claim they need.
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Filed Under: france, hadopi, three strikes, unintended consequences, wifi
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Turns out
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Re: Turns out
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Re: Turns out
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Annoyed
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can you clarify the connection
thanks,
scott
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Re: can you clarify the connection
Sure. Even though the WiFi is "free," due to the law they need a way to track back who the user is, so they end up having to limit it in order to know who you are.
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Thanks.
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http://news.zdnet.co.uk/itmanagement/0,1000000308,39238422,00.htm
Nice try, though.
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"If copyright infringement became a criminal offence then perhaps we'd see fines and punishments in line with reality. The million pound fine and 10 years in prison promised on those big signs in cinemas is a joke when you consider what people get for much more serious offences.
If the police start raiding people for things like breaking the copy protection on CDs or similar minor offences - when so many minor offences are ignored due to lack of police time and higher priorites - can you imagine how much bad press the government will get?"
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Yes, zero. What would be the point of printing bad press on a government that had already been overthrown for being collectively hated by nearly all their constituents?
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So this is entirely a result of three-strikes.
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I never figured out how the 3 strikes could keep a person off the internet. Make it a little inconvenient but keep them off when there is free wifi all over.
Maybe the next step will be to assign a user name at birth.
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Re: "At Birth"
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lol
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Typo
_your_ ought to be _you're_
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Free Wifi
It's a handy service that has made a major dent in most of the public pay for Wifi services.
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Insane.
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Three strikes?
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In all of my travels, I can say that wide open wireless is becoming less and less available. Where I do see unlocked wireless systems, they are protected by payment systems inside (boingo style). Even hotels and such that offer free wireless will activate accounts for the period that you are staying, not open ended.
I have to think that if you asked the executives which is more annoying, having to get the WEP keyword or piracy, they might say piracy.
Nice stretch Mike. Did you hire someone else to write for you while you were on the road?
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That's cool because hundreds of millions of pirates are annoyed by a handful of record executives.
I wonder who will win?
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Merde!
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Re: Merde!
It could be like:
You have to pay $1.000 in federal tax for each recorded music song you own copyright for. Or pay 10% in federal tax of the generated revenue of that song if the revenue is over $10.000
Exclusive licenses should be regarded as equivalent to ownership for the purpose of this tax.
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The problem with giving free wifi is that it breeds. You see, 'dem wifi units will reproduce, especially ones that don’t think too much further than that. We gots to get them to walk to the Maître d' and pony up a few euros for a second account and a greasy pizza recommendation.
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Connectify
http://connectify.me
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With freedom and privacy comes accountability, including legal accountability. No accountability? No freedom and privacy. Ask a guy in jail about his so-called "right" to freedom and privacy. Rights can't be taken away, only privileges can.
Pass protected wifi is a simple first step towards online accountability, to mirror the accountability in all well sorted civilizations. You wonder who will win? I'd say with accountable wifi in France and likely part of the ACTA, we are already seeing the trend toward our answer.
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Sneakernet would also be slow enough that the rights holders likely wouldn't bother with it.
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"Would you really pay fedex $25 to ship a retail $15 music CD?"
No, but you'd pay the same amount to ship a DVD containing 50 albums, or a 1Tb drive containing thousands.
"Would you spend 2 hours on the cross town express to meet someone to give them a CD?"
No, but you'd definitely meet up with friends at work and swap data for nothing.
"Sneakernet would also be slow enough that the rights holders likely wouldn't bother with it."
Yeah, they were blind to it when it was happening for 50 years before Napster. They only panicked about individual "piracy" when the internet made it more visible. Shame they don't realise that "piracy" was a factor in their success in previous eras. Yet again, piracy is there and the recording industry needs to adjust their model to address this reality. Their failure is the last 15 years, where they have tried to stop something that cannot be stopped, and tries to run its business according to realities that died in the last millennium.
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Hmmm. Except you failed to answer "WHO" holds the person accountable. Seems it's a computer. And surely human behavior been properly modeled in the computer so it can apply a uniform set of rules that take into local idiosyncrasies and culture, yet harmonized on a worldwide scale just as the robber barons desire.
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Peasant's Revolt.
Is history repeating itself all over again.
Why the U.S. independence occurred? Was it not because of perceived injustices committed?
Maybe a new imperfect system will come out of the "sharing" movement like so many other movements like the beatnik generation, punks, cynics and etc.
The funny thing is people thinking that this will go away if they can "control" it, which is fuelling even further civil disobedience.
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Re: Peasant's Revolt.
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Message to MIEs
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re: record execs
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