As UK Piracy Falls To Record Lows, Government Still Wants To Put Pirates In Jail For 10 Years

from the maybe-there's-another-way dept

Last fall, our think tank, the Copia Institute, released a paper, The Carrot or the Stick? which detailed how innovation in the form of convenient, appealing and reasonably priced legal content streaming services appeared to be the most powerful tool in reducing piracy. The report looked at a number of different data sources and situations in multiple different countries. And what we found, over and over again, was pretty straightforward: ratcheting up enforcement or punishment did not work -- or, if it did work, it only worked exceptionally briefly. However, by introducing good, convenient authorized services, piracy rates fell, like off a cliff. We saw this pattern repeated over and over again.

And yet... instead of seeing policymakers and legacy content companies pursue strategies to encourage more innovation and more competition in authorized services, they continually focus on enforcement and punishment. This makes no sense at all. Take the situation in the UK, for example. Last week, the UK's Intellectual Property Office (IPO) came out with a report noting that piracy in the UK had dropped significantly in the wake of authorized streaming services like Spotify and Netflix entering the market. The full report is worth reading and pretty clearly suggests -- as our own report last year did -- that having good authorized services in place is the best way to reduce piracy.

The IPO’s report, carried out by research group Kantar Media, suggested a strong link between the rise of such services and falling piracy. 80pc of music listeners now use exclusively legal means, up from 74pc a year ago

This is all great and consistent with what we found in basically every country we looked at. But that's why it's equally troubling that, rather than supporting that innovative ecosystem that is successfully diminishing piracy, the UK's IPO has moved forward with its ridiculous plan to jail pirates for 10 years. As we described in great detail a few months ago, the IPO's support of 10-year prison sentences for copyright infringement was not only based on no actual data, and pulled out of thin air, but it directly contradicted numerous studies on the deterrence effect of longer prison sentences.

I spoke to people at the IPO (many of whom are quite reasonable) after the recommendation came out, and they insisted that the 10-year prison sentence would only be used for "true criminals" and not just people sharing files online. They apparently also promised Open Rights Group that the specifics would be clarified in the final bill so as not to target ordinary people file sharing online -- but that's not what happened:

Partly in an attempt to deal with headlines that this was “10 years for filesharing", the IPO has rewritten the definition of criminal liability. They told us during meetings that the new definition would make it very clear that ordinary internet users - including filesharers - would not be targeted, and raising the penalty would also mean narrowing its application to real criminals. Unfortunately the final draft appears to be as bad or worse than the original, with a very low threshold of “having a reason to believe” that the right holder will be exposed to “a risk of loss”.

So, what the hell is going on at the IPO over there? They have clear research showing that a massively effective way to reduce piracy is to get more good, convenient authorized services. And they have no research backing up the idea that increased prison sentences will reduce infringement. And yet, which one have they doubled down on?

This is why people have so little respect for copyright law and why we so often refer to it as "faith-based" policy making. The evidence clearly points in one directly, and the powers that be, instead, go in the other direction, against all the evidence, because some people "feel" that piracy must be punished to make it stop.

Filed Under: carrot, competition, copyright, enforcement, innovation, ipo, piracy, stick, uk

The Right Way To Stop Piracy

from the look-at-the-evidence dept

Read the new report from The Copia Institute,
The Carrot Or The Stick: Innovation vs. Anti-Piracy Enforcement »

Ever since the internet became a place where copyright infringement was rampant, we've seen the same basic playbook from the legacy entertainment industry: pass stricter anti-piracy laws. In the 30 years predating the big fight over SOPA in 2011-2012, the US had passed 15 separate anti-piracy laws. Countries around the globe (often under pressure from the US) have passed increasingly more draconian copyright laws designed to "stop piracy." And, when they can't pass laws directly, they resort to international trade agreements, like the TPP, whereby trade negotiators (who are directly influenced by the legacy entertainment industry) negotiate deals in back rooms that require stricter anti-piracy laws. And none of it works. Sure, when a new law first goes into effect there may be an initial, short-term decrease in piracy rates, but it doesn't last for more than a few months, as people quickly go back to finding ways to access the content they want.

So how about a different approach? One that actually does work. One that has been shown, time and time again, to actually reduce piracy rates? Enabling more innovation and allowing more services to legally deliver what consumers want.

The story in Sweden is somewhat famous. Sweden was home to the Pirate Bay and had sky high piracy rates. And then Spotify -- a company also born in Sweden -- launched at home. And piracy rates fell off a cliff. But only for music. Piracy for other products such as TV and movies remained high. Under pressure from the US, Sweden passed a strict anti-piracy law, IPRED. And, when it went into effect, there was a notable decline in piracy rates... but, within months, those rates rebounded to where they had been before, as people quickly figured out new ways to do what they were doing before. And then Netflix launched in Sweden. And piracy rates for TV and movies dropped.

This story made us wonder. So, over at the Copia Institute, we've been digging into similar situations around the globe, and this morning we're releasing our latest report: The Carrot or the Stick, in which we compare attempts to ratchet up anti-piracy enforcement against simply enabling more innovation, and the impact both have had on piracy rates in a bunch of different countries. Over and over again, we find the same basic story: anti-piracy laws have little to no long-term impact on piracy. Any impact is, at best, short term. However, when innovative services are allowed to thrive, and when there's real innovation, the public is more than willing to sign up in droves, often leaving their pirating ways behind.

Thus, if the entertainment industry is truly serious about decreasing piracy, why are they so resistant to the facts? Why do they fight tooth and nail against these services, demanding rates that are sure to bankrupt them, or putting ridiculous restrictions on them that limit their value to users? Why do they demand DRM or limit selection? It's difficult to make sense of this strategy.

And, yes, I know that some will claim that the two things (anti-piracy laws and innovation) go hand-in-hand -- and that the anti-piracy laws are necessary in order to make it possible for authorized services to thrive. Once again, however, our research showed that does not appear to be the case at all. In most countries we studied, the number of authorized services tended to rapidly expand before the introduction of new anti-piracy laws. And, in fact, sometimes we saw the number of services decline after these laws were in place, and after the "winners" in the market had already been established. In other words, entrepreneurs and users of these services saw no reason to wait for these laws, and the laws themselves don't appear to have done much to encourage more innovation in the field.

You can check out the full report over at the Copia site. Oh, and as a reminder, the White House's Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator is still asking for feedback on how to best use the federal government's resources on this issue. One would hope that learning what's in this new report would be helpful to him in crafting his new plan.

Filed Under: authorized services, carrot, copyright, innovation, piracy, stick, studies
Companies: copia institute