Leave aside for a moment the PR stupidity of this strategy.
Ignore if you will the dubious legal basis of their claim. (Without going into the finer points of copyright in facts, database rights, clickwrap agreements or possible passing off, the vague nature of their complaint – “Following our conversion, I confirm that you do not have the rights to use the information published on the web site http://www.dublinbikes.ie/. In particular the data concerning the stations is the property of JCDecaux and cannot be used without our prior authorisation” – makes it clear that they have little idea what they are talking about.)
Think instead about the issue of principle. A body which is operating in partnership with Dublin City Council is attempting to stop an Irish company from providing – free of charge – facts to the public about the service which they offer, without giving any justification for doing so, and without offering an alternative of their own. (I’m happy to see that at least some of our politicians understand the absurdity of this.)
I spoke to the press office in Dublin City Council today, who made it clear that they regard this matter as nothing to do with them. But why not? DCC were happy to work with Fusio to develop the app. Is there no provision in their contract with JCD establishing an obligation to provide information to the public about the service? Will they make sure that future contracts address this type of situation? (And – while I’m on the topic of the contract – why does JCD own the domain dublinbikes.ie? Is there any provision in the contract for the domain to revert to DCC on its expiry?)
- TJ
[Update - since initially posting this I have asked DCC for a copy of any correspondence with JCD over this issue and with any relevant portions of their contract with JCD. This seems to be an issue where JCD would be likely to reverse their stance if pressure were applied (one would hope they understand the risks of bad publicity!) - and where an important point of principle about reuse of data could be established. You may wish to email JCD at info@jcdecaux.ie; you can find contact details for your local councilors here.]
Looks like we got it wrong. When we wrote about the deal between Eircom and the music industry we believed (as the early reports seemed to say) that it only involved a “three strikes” system and that the daft notion of internet filtering was off the table. But the nastygrams sent to the other ISPs have now been leaked (thanks Michele) so that we can now see just what was agreed with Eircom and what the music industry is demanding that other ISPs do – and filtering is still on the table:
Leave aside for a moment the nonsense of sending this letter to a business – Blacknight - which doesn’t in fact provide internet access. The key words are these:
Eircom has agreed that it will not oppose any application our client may make seeking the blocking of access from their network to the Pirate Bay or similar websites …
Please confirm that Blacknight will also work with the record industry to end the abuse of the internet by peer to peer infringers … in the event of a positive response to this letter it is proposed to make practical arrangements with Blacknight of a like nature to those made with eircom.
Irma is drawing up a list of websites it doesn’t like and Eircom will block them to all of its customers. And Irma is demanding that other ISPs do likewise, on pain of being sued.
Eircom says that it will only block a website if a court order requests it to. But it has undertaken not to oppose any application to a court… Our judicial system is an adversarial one: it depends on someone opposing the action for a judge to come to a conclusion. If the opposing party enters no opposition, a basic standard of proof will be enough to satisfy the court.
The net effect of this scheme, if it is allowed to go into effect, will be to impose an internet death penalty on two groups. On users, who will be cut off on the allegation of a private body, with no court involvement, and on websites, which could be blocked to Irish users based on a court hearing where only one side is heard. Damien Mulley makes the point well as usual:
So first they’ll start with the Pirate Bay. Then comes Mininova, IsoHunt, then comes YouTube (they have dodgy stuff, right?), how long before we have Boards.ie because someone quoted a newspaper article or a section of a book? And don’t think they’ll stop there too, any site that links to The Pirate Bay and the others on the hate list will probably be added to the list too…
I’m sure the business case for eircom was they didn’t want any more costly High Court actions with McDowell biting at their legs on the command of the music industry but this is going to open up a can of worms with IRMA demanding more and more attacks on how people surf the net, this is what it is in my view an attack on our freedom to read, our freedom to write, our freedom to move around the web. All so a very rich but rapidly becoming poor group of luddites can feel better for seeing the future and trying to fight it.
And of course the costs of communications with IRMA and of the filtering is going to be passed on to the consumer. The cost of blocking a single site will be almost nothing I suppose but as more sites get added and as the arms race between the pirates and the ISPs escalates, then it’ll become complicated and complicated costs more. So again the majority get to pay…
So what can you do about this? The first step is the most urgent. The other ISPs are at this very moment considering what steps to take. Although some (such as Bitbuzz) have been vocal in their opposition, caving in is the path of least resistance unless you show that this is an issue which matters to you and which determines where you’ll take your business. Contact your ISP – mark your email for the attention of their regulatory department – and let them know what you think. Contact emails for most ISPs are on the ISPAI website. Do it now – the decision on what to do will be made soon.
The next thing to do is to get involved with a group which will fight this. We’re currently working on a few ideas and will let you know soon. But in the meantime you should go to Blackout Ireland who have been quick off the mark with a plan to black out the Irish internet for a week from March 5th. The Digital Rights forum on Boards.ie has also been abuzz with this issue, as has this thread on their Broadband forum.
Having done that, let the Minister for Communications – Eamon Ryan – know the damage that this is likely to cause. Don’t just rely on the civil rights arguments – business impact is more likely to get attention. Point out that if ISPs are forced to become the (unpaid!) copyright cops of the music industry, it will drive up their costs and set a dangerous precedent for other Irish internet businesses. Would you choose to establish an internet start up in Ireland if you thought you’d be made responsible for policing what your users do? Ask him to intervene to prevent irreparable damage to the Irish internet. Eamon Ryan’s email addresses are eamon.ryan@oireachtas.ie and minister@dcenr.gov.ie but a paper letter (Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, 29-31 Adelaide Road, Dublin 2) or fax ((01) 678 2029 or 2039) are more likely to get attention. You can also ring the Minister’s office on (01) 678 9807 – if you do, be polite and succinct. If you’re a constituent of his (in Dublin South) be sure to mention that fact and that this issue will influence how you vote in the next election.
You might have noticed Karlin Lillington’s story in the Irish Times today about the Department of Justice’s new proposals on data retention. To make a long story short, it turns out that the Attorney General was not impressed with its remarkable plans to change the law to extend surveillance on every citizen in Ireland via a ministerial order – sidestepping the need for the Oireachtas to review these changes. Having been rebuffed on this issue, the Department of Justice has now decided to proceed (as it should have done to begin with) via primary legislation.
An improvement for transparency? It would be, if Justice lived up to their past promises to hold an open consultation process. But they haven’t. Their website still claims that the Directive will be transposed via a statutory instrument – notwithstanding the fact that they have prepared a draft Bill which they have been circulating to industry groups. Nor are they willing to show the draft Bill to the public – consultation for Justice appears to mean a secret process controlled by them and excluding citizens.
We’ve contacted Justice for their comments. In the meantime, we think that the public should have the same right to see the draft Bill as industry insiders, so here’s a copy of what we understand is the latest draft: COMMUNICATIONS (RETENTION OF DATA) BILL 2009
The internet is abuzz (Irish Times | EFF | ars technica | Boing Boing) with the news that Eircom and the record labels have reached an out of court settlement in which Eircom has agreed to implement a “three strikes” regime for disconnecting people accused of filesharing. In return, the music industry has dropped its demand that Eircom apply a filtering system to its network.
It’s undoubtedly a good thing that the idea of filtering has (at least for the time being) been dropped – and in case you’ve forgotten, here’s why it’s a bad idea. But this new three strikes system has the potential to be just as bad. Why?
It’s unreliable. The company which the Irish music industry used in previous cases to identify filesharers – MediaSentry – has a track record of false accusations and in fact was recently found to be operating illegally in several US states. As a result the music industry has now dumped MediaSentry and has turned to Danish firm Dtecnet – but the inherent unreliability of this process remains.
It’s secret. We normally expect rules to be made in public, to be accessible to citizens and to be applied publicly. In this case, though, the settlement is private to the parties and we don’t know how it will be implemented by Eircom. Do you expect the right to challenge evidence in court? Perhaps a right to appeal? Tough. On the face of it the music industry and Eircom will between them act as judge, jury and executioner.
It’s undemocratic. The European Parliament has already rejected a similar plan to disconnect individuals based on mere accusations. In other countries where three strikes has been discussed there has been public input via legislatures and public consultation. (And in the UK the democratic process led to three strikes being shelved.) Here, however, the music industry is trying to foist the system onto ISPs while sidelining the Oireachtas and the democratic process.
It’s disproportionate. Daithi makes this point well:
The present-day Internet includes communication (email), socialising (IM, social networking etc), media consumption (websites, blog, streaming, etc), media creation (ditto), access to Government services, online commerce, etc. Now imagine that the sanction for a, let’s face it, relatively minor crime (copyright infringement, while economically significant, is hardly manslaughter), includes no use of the postal services, highly limited access to shops, no permission to read a newspaper, reduced ability to use public services or get public information, and more. That’s no minor sanction. Indeed, most prisoners can get things like reading material and send and receive letters! Not to mention that a Net disconnection has an impact on family members and others.
It will affect innocent third parties. Internet connections are not generally unique to an individual. Instead they’re shared – amongst families, flatmates, etc. But this system will mean that others will suffer based on the alleged wrongdoing of another. As the Open Rights Group points out:
if Dad gets the connection cut off … suddenly Mum can’t run her business from home, and the kids can’t get access to the Web to do their homework.
The European Parliament is currently considering proposals that would dramatically increase – close to doubling – the length of copyright in music recordings. We’d like you to tell your MEP to vote no.
Why are these proposals being pushed? Because copyright in many classic recordings from the 50s and early 60s is about to expire, making them part of the public domain.
What would the effect of the proposals be? The result would be to lock up those recordings for a further 45 years, depriving the public of the ability to reissue and rework those recordings. The outcome will be to benefit the music industry and to injure the public interest. But you don’t have to take our word for it. Here’s what the leading experts in copyright throughout Europe had to say:
Copyright extension is the enemy of innovation
Sir, Europe’s recorded music was about to experience a wave of innovation. For the first time, a major set of culturally important artefacts was to enter the public domain: the sound recordings of the 1950s and 1960s. Apparently not so. If the European Commission has its way, re-releases and reworkings of recorded sounds will remain at the mercy of right owners for another 45 years. Why?
The record industry succeeded to supply the Commission with evidence that was not opened to public scrutiny: evidence that claims that consumer prices will not rise, that performing artists will earn more, and that the record industry will invest in discovering new talents, as if exclusive rights for 50 years had not provided an opportunity to earn returns.
The Commission’s explanatory memorandum states: “There was no need for external expertise.” Yet, independent external expertise exists. Unanimously, the European centres for intellectual property research have opposed the proposal. The empirical evidence has been summarised succinctly in at least three studies: the Cambridge Study for the UK Gowers Review of 2006; a study conducted by the Amsterdam Institute for Information Law for the Commission itself (2006); and the Bournemouth University statement signed by 50 leading academics in June 2008.
The simple truth is that copyright extension benefits most those who already hold rights. It benefits incumbent holders of major back-catalogues, be they record companies, ageing rock stars or, increasingly, artists’ estates. It does nothing for innovation and creativity. The proposed Term Extension Directive undermines the credibility of the copyright system. It will further alienate a younger generation that, justifiably, fails to see a principled basis.
Many of us sympathise with the financial difficulties that aspiring performers face. However, measures to benefit performers would look rather different. They would target unreasonably exploitative contracts during the existing term, and evaluate remuneration during the performer’s lifetime, not 95 years.
We call on politicians of all parties to examine the case presented to them by right holders in the light of independent evidence.
Professor Lionel Bently, Director, Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law, University of Cambridge; Professor Pierre-Jean Benghozi, Chair in Innovation and Regulation in Digital Services; Director, Research in Economics and Management, Ecole polytechnique, CNRS 1, Paris; Professor Michael Blakeney, Co-Director, Queen Mary Intellectual Property Research Institute, University of London; Professor Nicholas Cook, Director, AHRC Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music, Royal Holloway, University of London; Professor Dr. Thomas Dreier, Director, Centre for Information Law, Universität Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology; Professor Dr Josef Drexl, Director, Max-Planck-Institute for Intellectual Property, Munich; Dr Christophe Geiger, Associate Professor and Director elect, Centre for International Industrial Property Studies (CEIPI), University of Strasbourg; Professor Johanna Gibson, Co-Director, Queen Mary Intellectual Property Research Centre, University of London; Professor Dr Reto Hilty, Director, Max-Planck-Institute for Intellectual Property, Munich; Professor Dr Thomas Hoeren, Director, Institute for Information, Telecommunications- and Media Law, Münster University; Professor Bernt Hugenholtz, Director, Institute for Information Law, University of Amsterdam; Professor John Kay, Chair, British Academy Copyright Review; Professor Martin Kretschmer, Director, Centre for Intellectual Property Policy & Management, Bournemouth University; Professor Dr Annette Kur, Max-Planck-Institute for Intellectual Property, Munich; Professor Hector MacQueen, Co-Director, SCRIPT/AHRC Centre Intellectual Property & Technology Law, University of Edinburgh; Professor Ruth Towse, Professor of the Economics of Creative Industries, Erasmus University Rotterdam and Bournemouth University; Professor Charlotte Waelde, Co-Director, SCRIPT/AHRC Centre Intellectual Property & Technology Law, University of Edinburgh
OK, I’m convinced. What can I do to oppose this? The people to contact are the MEPs for your constituency. A full list (with contact details) is here.
So what should I say when contacting them? A petition against these changes has been organised by (amongst others) the UK Open Rights Group and EDRI . You might like to use the text of that petition (slightly modified):
Dear …
I am a constituent of yours in … and the question of copyright is important to me.
The European Parliament is being asked to nearly double the term of copyright afforded to sound recordings. Industry lobbyists suggest that extending copyright term will help increase the welfare of performers and session musicians. But the Term Extension Directive, which will be voted on by the Legal Affairs Committee in a few weeks’ time, will do no such thing. Instead it will hand millions of euros over to the world’s four major record labels, money that will come direct from the pockets of European consumers. The majority (80%) of recording artists will receive between €0.50 – €26 a year.
Helping poor recording artists is a commendable aim. But the Term Extension Directive insults these good intentions. Andrew Gowers, former editor of the Financial Times, who conducted an independent review into the intellectual property framework for the UK Government in 2006, has called it out of tune with reality. Professor Bernt Hugenholtz, who advises the European Commission on intellectual property issues, has called it a deliberate attempt on behalf of the Commission to mislead Europe’s Parliament. If passed, the Term Extension Directive will have serious consequences for Europe’s IP policy.
* Any extension of copyright term will take money directly from consumers’ pockets. It will also consign a large part of Europe’s cultural heritage to a commercial vacuum.
* Europe’s leading IP research centres have clearly shown the proposal does not do what it purports to do – help the poorest performers. It is simply a windfall for the owners of large back catalogues and the top earning performers.
* The proposal will undermine public respect for copyright law and introduce an unworkable and unproven framework for copyright, at the very time when Europe’s copyright framework needs to be at its most robust.
I therefore ask you to vote to reject this directive.
As usual, we can’t condone illegal filesharing (though we should point out that this is just one of many uses of the technology). But there are still unresolved issues about this litigation.
* Most home networks are wireless these days, and most of those are unsecured. How can they tie the IP addresses they receive with any particular person?
* Claims for lost income must be based on specific evidence of loss. Why have they never released their basis for calculating the claimed damages?
Under Irish law, copyright is infringed where a person commits certain acts, or authorizes another to do so, without the permission of the copyright owner.
Therefore, the owner of a computer which was used to download illegal songs but who was totally unaware of this, and who did not authorize it, might not be liable for copyright infringement.
This may not be a problem where the relationship between the owner and infringer is one of employer and employee, for example, as liability can generally be attributed to the employer.Where the relationship is that of parent and child, however, novel issues of parental responsibility could arise.
The Copycrime Directive (IPRED2) has passed its first reading in the European Parliament. However, the vote was much closer than anticipated, and there are signs that some member states are beginning to have second thoughts about the Directive. The Directive still has a long way to go before it becomes law, and it’s not too late to tell your MEP to vote no unless it is changed to protect your digital freedoms.
Next week – on Tuesday 24th April – the European Parliament will vote on a directive that would turn many breaches of copyright into criminal offences. This directive (with the catchy name of IPRED2) is dangerously wide. EFF Europe has explained why:
IPRED2 and Business
The entertainment industry spent millions suing the makers of the first VCRs, MP3 players and digital video recorders, trying to use copyright law to kill those innovative products because they threatened old business models. Fortunately, the industry was unsuccessful.
IPRED2’s new crime of “aiding, abetting and inciting” infringement again takes aim at innovators, including open source coders, media-sharing sites like YouTube, and ISPs that refuse to block P2P services.
With the new directive, music labels and Hollywood studios will push for the criminal prosecution of these innovators in Europe, saying their products “incite” piracy – with EU taxpayers covering the costs.
Under IPRED2, these same entertainment companies can work with transnational “joint investigation teams” to advise the authorities on how to investigate and prosecute their rivals!
IPRED2 and Your Digital Freedoms
Criminal law needs to be clear to be fair. While IPRED2 says that only “commercial scale” infringement will be punished, the directive doesn’t clearly define “commercial scale” or “incitement.” Even IP lawyers can’t agree on what are “private” and “personal” uses of copyrighted works. One step over that fuzzy line, however, and anyone could be threatened with punishments intended for professional counterfeiters and organized criminals.
How can ordinary citizens feel safe exercising their rights under copyright and trademark law when serious criminal penalties may be brought against them if they cross the line?
If you’d like to contact your MEPs directly, you can find their details here, and EFF Europe has put up suggestions for what you might like to say here. (If you’re going to do this, make sure you contact their Brussels or Strasbourg offices rather than their Irish office.)
Many thanks to Davin O’Dwyer who has an article in today’s Irish Times setting out our concerns about issues such as fair use, private copying rights, and more:
Whether it’s listening to music on iPods, talking on our mobile phones or surfing the web, most of us have embraced the digital lifestyle. Technology, however, is changing faster than the legislation covering our use of it. So while new technology promises a revolution in the way we consume and interact with different media, it is also giving content providers new ways of controlling our use of the music, movies and information we purchase.
…
MUSIC The iPod has revolutionised the way we listen to music, but it has also opened a legal minefield. “As it stands in Irish law, it seems to be illegal for you to make a private copy of a CD that you’ve bought, so it’s illegal to copy a CD on to your iPod,” says TJ McIntyre of Digital Rights Ireland. “Needless to say, the music industry would like to be in a position where they sold you the music once on vinyl, once on cassette, once on CD and they’d now like to make you pay for the privilege of listening to it on your iPod.”
In May, the British Phonographic Institute (BPI) recommended that the law be changed to reflect a new reality in which people routinely convert their purchased CDs into MP3s. However, Sean Murtagh of Irma, the Irish equivalent of the BPI, says it has no plans to make a similar recommendation here. …
MOVIES With the advent of video iPods and Sony’s Playstation Portable (PSP) it seems that our DVD collections will eventually join our CD collections in our pockets. However, unlike CDs, DVDs are encrypted to protect the film studios’ copyrights. That is a matter of debate among certain copyright activists – if our CDs are unencrypted, why are our DVDs encrypted? Furthermore, it is illegal to create technology that circumvents copyright-protecting technology. So while copying CDs and putting them on portable players is legal in many countries – though not here – it is impossible to do the same with DVDs.
Movies will have to be purchased in a new format for portable players, even though the technology exists for them to be copied as CDs are. “The beauty of it is that [ the film studios] don’t have to persuade the market,” says McIntyre. “If they can come up with the technology and legislation that prevent fair use, they can ignore the wishes of the consumer.”
TELEVISION In the good old days, you watched something on channel A, you recorded whatever it was you wanted to watch on channel B, and then watched the tape. What’s more, you were legally entitled to do so. But that legal entitlement to fair use is under threat. As the technology moves beyond the VCR to “timeshifting” personal video recorders (PVRs) such as Tivo or Sky+, we should be able to digitally record programmes to a hard drive, skip the ads and move those programmes on to our iPods or PSPs.
However, a “broadcast flag” is being introduced by US networks. Certain programmes would be digitally flagged as, for instance, unrecordable, or watchable only once, or not entitled to be moved to a portable player. “Broadcasters would like to stop via technology what they couldn’t stop by legislation,” says McIntyre. “First they create the technology that stops people doing something [ the broadcast flag], and then they make it illegal for them to circumvent .”
What can we do about these issues? The Consumers’ Group BEUC is running a campaign at a European level, where you can sign a petition to urge MEPs to protect consumers’ rights. We’ll soon be launching an Irish campaign on these issues – watch this space for more.
IRMA announced, with a media blitz on 15th November, that they intend to send letters to 50 new individuals and companies demanding damages for losses they claim have been caused by these people making files available for download.
We don’t yet know the full details of this, but there are a few issues still outstanding from the last set of such letters, issued by IRMA last April.
A representative of DRI appeared on the Last Word on Today FM, to raise some issues not usually addressed by IRMA. Time was short, so we thought we’d expand a bit on our concerns, for the interested reader.
No Safe Harbour
Firstly, there is the manner in which the individuals’ shared folders on their hard drives were entered and scanned. This was done on IRMA’s behalf by a company called MediaSentry. MediaSentry is a US based company, which does not operate within the ‘safe-harbour’ scheme for Data Protection. This means it has not agreed to handle EU citizens’ data in accordance with the European Data Protection regulations.
Two European countries have now come out against this kind of search of users’ property.
In the Netherlands, in the case of FOR THE PROTECTION OF RIGHTS OF THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY IN THE NETHERLANDS (BREIN) et al v UPC NEDERLAND B.V., and ors the court found that the use of MediaSentry to scan users’ shared folders and process the results was not in accordance with the provisions of European Data Protection Acts. MediaSentry does not confine its scanning to copyrighted music files, but also scans personal files of the computer owner. They therefore found that the application to the court to force ISPs to identify their users could not be granted, as BREIN and the record labels it represents could not rely on evidence gathered unlawfully.
In France, the Commission Nationale de I’Informatique et Libertes (CNIL) spent October 24th announcing that it would not permit the automated monitoring of users of P2P file sharing systems.
The CNIL concluded such monitoring could lead to
“a massive collection of personal data” and allow “exhaustive and continuous surveillance” of P2P sites “beyond that which was necessary for the fight against piracy”
cf Steptoe & Johnson’s E-Commerce Law Week.
IRMA may have a stateable case to answer, therefore, that the way in which they obtained the identities of the individuals to whom they have written could preclude them from relying on that information in court.
When questioned about this yesterday by Matt Cooper on the Last Word, Dick Doyle of IRMA relied on the fact that they had persuaded a High Court judge to grant them an order, as proof of the legitimacy of their plans.
However, it is possible that this fact is not the strength it may seem. If IRMA were aware of these arguments (through their contacts with other record label representative groups or otherwise), and did not inform the court of them, they may have, in legal terminology, not come to the court with ‘clean hands’.
In particular, as the individuals were not represented in court (being unaware of the matter until they received their letters from IRMA) this privacy issue was not addressed before the court, by any legal argument from the parties. In such cases, there is a particularly heavy onus on the plaintiffs to give full and frank disclosure to the court of all the facts at their disposal.
Proportionality of Damages
The other issue not put to IRMA during their whirlwind tour of the media, was the question of the proportionality of the damages claimed to their losses. They have quoted an average settlement figure of €2,500 from their April wave of demanding letters.
In the courts in Ireland, you can only get compensation for losses you can prove you have sustained. To succeed in the court, IRMA would have to prove that their members – the record labels in Ireland – had lost, from the specific individual before the court, a specific sum. We’ll take the €2,500 figure as an example.
As it is only the record labels who are suing their clients here, we can’t simply take the retail price and divide it in, to find the number of claimed lost CD sales that this represents. They can’t claim for the portion of the money that goes to retailers. Or to the distributors, or manufacturers. They can only claim for the profit on each CD that they can prove was not sold as a direct result of a specific individual making files available for sharing.
To date all IRMA have produced by way of justification for their claims of losses, has been to claim a causal link between the rise in file sharing and the fall in profits. However the record industry is a complicated beast – CDs are now available online from abroad more cheaply than those in the shops. CDWOW, only one such retailer, now has 120,000 registered Irish users and is describing its sales as thriving. The record labels’ international representative body, IFPI, said in July that Top 10 album sales were up 14% last year, after a difficult five-year slump. This in the face of what the industry has admitted to be a continuing rise in file sharing. In addition, there are studies that suggest that the people who download the most music from P2P networks are the most likely to spend a higher proportion of their money buying music.
This is not to say that downloading in breach of copyright is legitimate behaviour. But it does call into question whether IRMA’s claimed losses can be laid at the door of file sharing. And therefore, whether they could legitimately attempt to recoup those losses by way of damages from the individuals they sue. The law is not intended to be used to make up for the failures of a business model in a changing environment.
Have IRMA or the record companies they represent actuarial assessments of loss – something which would be required by a conscientious court, before damages at a certain amount could be awarded? If they have, will they publish those tables so that the criteria they use to assess their losses are made public? This is a public campaign of information and education, as they describe it, after all.
Arbitrary Action
Protection of legal rights should not be done in a capricious manner. And yet IRMA, as they admitted on the Last Word, do not believe that it is lawful for the owner of an iPod or other MP3 player to copy music from their own CDs, bought and paid for, onto their own music machine, bought and paid for.
They say that this is a breach of copyright, and therefore – by their emotive language, used in campaigns this year and for many years before – theft.
However they also say they don’t intend to do anything to enforce their rights to prevent this just now. Why should action against uploaders be a vital priority – no matter who they are – when the larger threat, from their point of view, must be the fact that every MP3 player and iPod is an occasion for wholesale theft of IRMA’s claimed property? Or, conversely, why should owners of MP3 players have the threat of potential legal action hanging over them if they haven’t done anything wrong?
We didn’t get an answer to that one on air.
DRI are in favour of civil, legal and human rights being protected in a digital world. That must extend to the legal rights of copyright holders, as much as individuals. However, perceived breach of a legal right would not excuse responding breaches of the civil right to privacy.
Further, if IRMA’s belief that it is illegal to move your legitimately purchased CDs to your own music player is correct, we believe that the law must be changed