Royalty Collection Agency SABAM Sues Belgian ISPs In Pursuit Of Its Fantasy 'Piracy License'
from the clutching-at-straws dept
Back in November 2011, we wrote about the Belgian music royalty collection agency SABAM's demand for 3.4% of Internet subscriber fees as "compensation" for online piracy in Belgium. As Tim Cushing explained back then, this was ridiculous on just about every level. But SABAM doesn't let little things like that get in the way of its desperate attempt to avoid moving with the times and coming up with new business models. So after failing dismally to convince Europe's highest court that it could force ISPs to spy on their customers, SABAM has now moved on to suing ISPs instead, as TorrentFreak reports:
This week SABAM sued the Belgian ISPs Belgacom, Telenet and Voo, claiming a 3.4 percent cut of Internet subscriber fees as compensation for the rampant piracy they enable through their networks.
One of the ISPs being sued, Belgacom, has a better analogy for what's going on here:
SABAM argues that authors should be paid for any "public broadcast" of a song. Pirated downloads and streams on the Internet are such public broadcasts according to the group, and they are therefore entitled to proper compensation."A postman doesn't open letters he delivers. We are also just transporting data, and we are not responsible for the contents," Belgacom says.
That's the "mere conduit" principle, and as TorrentFreak points out, if that defense is overturned here, and the "piracy license" is imposed, the cost will inevitably be passed on to users, which means that people who buy music legally will be paying twice for the privilege. And of course, it wouldn't just be SABAM: the other copyright industries -- films, books, photos, software, games -- will doubtless all line up for their free handout, making online access prohibitively expensive in Belgium.
But along with all the other problems mentioned by Tim back in his 2011 post, there's another major flaw in SABAM's logic. According to recent work carried out by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre, it's not even clear that the recorded music industry is being hurt by unauthorized downloads:
Perhaps surprisingly, our results present no evidence of digital music sales displacement. While we find important cross country differences in the effects of downloading on music purchases, our findings suggest a rather small complementarity between these two music consumption channels. It seems that the majority of the music that is consumed illegally by the individuals in our sample would not have been purchased if illegal downloading websites were not available to them. The complementarity effect of online streaming is found to be somewhat larger, suggesting a stimulating effect of this activity on the sales of digital music.
That is, streaming sites might even promote digital music sales; so maybe SABAM should be giving money to the ISPs, not asking for it....
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Filed Under: belgium, copyright, isps, lawsuit, piracy license, royalties
Companies: belgacom, sabam, telenet, voo
Reader Comments
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He's consistent here.
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I've been hoodwinked.
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eh, I'd just file an exact counter suit for 3.4 percent cut for the 'rampant commercial success they enable through their networks'
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As one who never "pirates" copyrighted content (I boycott them), I'd consider suing for slander. How dare they assume the right to judge me? My ISP connection is used to infringe copyright? Nuh uhh!
Chutzpah.
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me o/
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Actually, the most trafficked thing on the internet is porn. It makes up 30% of the bandwidth that is exchanged. just think about that, You have a site that traffics in just porn that is even bigger than Netflix while Youtube has much more traffic than both combined.
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For the record collection agencies aren't businesses. Well, they're not supposed to be anyway.
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Last paragraph conflates piracy and streaming:
Therefore, that "streaming sites might even promote digital music sales" isn't even in question (if it's just like radio, you know, LEGAL), making your conclusion "so maybe SABAM should be giving money to the ISPs, not asking for it...." just plain wrong and stupid because slyly switches the object to imply that piracy helps sales.
^^^ Heh, heh. Clones again stealing my valuable screen name. You kids are SO feeble. No matter how often I state the obvious, that you're helping ME, not Mike, you keep at it. -- And again, the name is valuable precisely because copied!
Take a loopy tour of Techdirt.com! You always end up same place!
http://techdirt.com/
If you like yapping ankle-biters, you'll love Techdirt!
04:12:42[ -145-6]
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Re: Last paragraph conflates piracy and streaming:
That is what would happen, ISPs would pass the cost on to the consumer.
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Re: Last paragraph conflates piracy and streaming:
And I would apply the same logic to music, movies, books etc
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Re: Last paragraph conflates piracy and streaming:
Assuming that is out_of_the_Blue, I cannot believe he/she has finally seen the logic behind something is valuable because it is copied, which goes against all the rhetoric about stopping any coping at all costs - it only leads to doom, doom, doom!
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Re: Last paragraph conflates piracy and streaming:
You make me feel smart.
Watching you grasp at straws is both entertaining and reassuring.
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Re: Last paragraph conflates piracy and streaming:
O good, so you condone, support and practice piracy. Good to know!
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Re: Re: Last paragraph conflates piracy and streaming:
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Why should a levy be placed on all sales of blank media even when that media is not used for illegal content?
Why should a levy be included on all Internet subscriptions even if that person does not pirate?
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ISPs to demand Payola
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Re: ISPs to demand Payola
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OOTB, drop dead.
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True Value
The other thought was that it puts an actual value...err price on world content output at roughly $20.40 per year times the number of folks on earth, lets call it 7 billion, or $142.6 billion dollars per year, for ALL books, movies, music, videos, 3D printer codes, games, textbooks, software, etc., AKA anything one can download. How does that relate to current 'entertainment/information' costs? Would they actually accept such a limitation?
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Re: True Value
I found a source for 2,405,518,376 internet users (in 2012). Adjusting for families and businesses sharing connections I think a more reasonable (and simple) figure to use would be 1 billion paid for connections.
That is only $20,400,000,000. Hollywood made nearly half that in 2012. The games industry apparently made $67 billion so I don't think they'd like to have to share.
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That would be nice, but of course it would still be illegal. They want it both ways, as always.
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I wouldn�t mind paying a little extra (no more than 15%) for my internet connection if it grants me the right to download legally whatever I want.
It�s not perfect, but it�s better than nothing, it was proposed in France some time ago and, if my memory delivers, something similar in Brazil and Canada. (It was called �Licencia General Opcional� or something like that in Spanish, I couldn�t find a proper translation).
Bottom line is, I would pay a freaking levy if they keep their hands off of the Internet and stop suing the hell out of everyone.
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That said, if a levy were introduced, I would start pirating content.
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"A postman doesn't open letters he delivers. We are also just transporting data, and we are not responsible for the contents," Belgacom says.
Good analogy, faulty conclusion.
The USPS. FedEx, UPS, DHL, etc all monitor packages they deliver for drugs, weapons, etc. It is routine procedure. They accept that role to assure that their package delivery ecosystem is as free from criminality as it can be. Banks and others in the financial world likewise stand vigilant against money laundering and other financial crimes. Only the ISP's try to wash their hands in the Holy Water and claim they have no responsibility to address the criminal conduct their networks facilitate. This argument has grown stale and six strikes and measures to block rogue websites is simply a natural progression of corporate responsibility that will either grow voluntarily or be required legislatively.
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Besides...how is the ISP supposed to know?
1) There is no Central Copyright Database they can check
2) File names can be misleading.
3) File sizes can be misleading.
4) Monitoring like this would be a massive invasion of privacy.
5) This ignores fair use/fair dealing/fair whatever laws.
6) Only a copyright holder can say for sure whether a particular work is authorized somewhere, and as Techdirt reports, not even they can be trusted (e.g. Viacom v Youtube)
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The US ISP's seem to have nailed it through the six strikes program. Interesting how after all of the initial sniveling about collateral damage and unintended consequences; that TD has been silent on the subject. Says to me it works- doing exactly what it is supposed to do. Yet foreign ISP's simply turn a blind eye because piracy provides them revenue.
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And the harm to society caused by drugs, weapons, child porn and money laundering and all far, far worse than the harm supposedly caused by "digital theft", i.e. copyright infringement. It's extraordinary that your own moral compass is so misguided that you would think these things are on the same level of harm. I'm not sure which possibility is worse; that you think copyright infringement is just as bad or if the others are not really all that harmful.
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Let us know when USPS, FedEx, and the rest monitor their mail and packages for copyright infringement.
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Let's face it. You're a Chicken Little alarmist. Grandma's VOIP isn't being turned off. No chorus of the wrongly accused has materialized. Freeloaders are being held accountable. That's your real objection. All of the huffing and puffing about imaginary consequences is just a smoke screen.
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It's very early, as has already been pointed out to you. HADOPI took a while to get screwed up too.
Freeloaders are being held accountable.
Dare I ask if you have a reference to back up that claim?
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