Music fans will sidestep filesharing clampdown says TalkTalk

The majority of music fans will switch to alternative ways of accessing copyright-protected content for free if using peer-to-peer (P2P) services leaves them vulnerable to disconnection, rendering futile the Government’s attempts to stop copyright infringement, according to research from TalkTalk.
 
The poll shows that the Digital Economy Bill, which is making its way through Parliament now and may become law before the election, will not achieve its aims of reducing illegal filesharing and protecting the revenues of the content industry.

Eighty per cent of 18-34 year olds questioned – the key age group for music companies – said that if new legislation made it dangerous to use P2P services they would switch to using methods which are undetectable.

Earlier this week it emerged that copyright infringement in France had actually increased by 3 per cent in three months after its controversial three strikes Hadopi law was introduced.

There is a large and growing array of non P2P tools available, including applications which scan thousands of internet radio stations and download the desired tracks in a wholly undetectable way.

There are also services which effectively conceal users’ IP addresses, allowing them to download material without detection.

And of course, there is the temptation to hack into other people’s Wi-Fi connections to download content; the attraction of which will surely grow if the Digital Economy Bill becomes law in its current form. This will inevitably lead to many more innocent people being wrongly accused of copyright theft and being disconnected despite having done nothing wrong.

When self-confessed filesharers were asked what fraction of their illicitly accessed content they would buy legally if P2P services were no longer available to them, 66 per cent said it would be 2% or less. In fact four in ten wouldn’t pay for a single track they had already downloaded for free.

One of the primary objectives of the Digital Economy Bill is to protect Britain’s creative industries by discouraging access to illegal content. TalkTalk’s research shows that the Bill simply won’t achieve this aim.

“In any case,” said Andrew Heaney, TalkTalk’s director of strategy and regulation, “the record labels’ claims of the demise of the music industry are simply scaremongering. They have consistently claimed that new technology will wipe them out – for instance in the 1980s with the ‘Home Taping is Killing Music’ campaign. Of course, taping didn’t kill music, the industry adapted and survived.

“Over the past few years consumers have become used to accessing music and video content online for free. We don’t condone it or encourage it but this behaviour is embedded in a whole generation of music fans.

“It doesn’t matter how many sites are blocked, how many families are snooped on or how many customers are disconnected, music fans who want to can and will get the content they want online for free.

“Whatever measures are taken it will have little impact on the music industry’s coffers but will leave in its wake innocent customers disconnected from the internet.

“We have always said that oppressive and ultimately futile deterrents are not the solution to the music industry’s woes. It’s the development of new business models and an acknowledgement of how music fans behave in the digital age.

“The Digital Economy Bill proposals create a new and unfair duty on broadband customers. It asks them to implement complex and expensive security measures on their connections to make it more difficult for their neighbours and others to use their connection for copyright infringement.

“The Bill reverses the core principles of natural justice by requiring customers to prove their innocence.”