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Warning letters won’t work, paid-for online content not attractive
By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 10 June 2009
A new report from media lawyers Wiggin reckons that, in the majority of cases, sending warning letters telling people that their file-sharing is infringing copyrights, and that that’s very naughty, won’t actually stop said people from accessing illegal sources of content online.
The legal firm asked the question in their annual Digital Entertainment Survey. Only a third of internet users surveyed said they’d consider such a warning letter a deterrent, which is down from 70% last year, before the net firms started sending out such warnings.
As much previously reported, content owners in the music, film and TV industries have been focusing much of their recent anti-online-piracy efforts on the internet service providers, who, they argue, should take more responsibility for combating the piracy committed by their customers, especially if compelling licensed online content services, like Spotify or iTunes in the music domain, are available.
The net firms, in the main, don’t like that idea, citing privacy issues, the implications of privately-owned companies taking on a pseudo-judicial role, the cost of monitoring and tackling infringers, and arguing that serial file-sharers will just use software that hides their file-sharing, or file-share off line copying large amounts of illegal content directly from device to device.
Nevertheless, under government pressure six ISPs entered into a memorandum of understanding with the music industry last year, a key part of which was a commitment to pass on warning letters to customers who the record companies believed were file-sharing. Said letters were sent.
The problem is, what is the deterrent if, as the Wiggin survey suggests, the average file-sharer will just ignore (or proudly display as a badge of honour) any cease and desist letters they are sent? Direct lawsuits against said customers are an option, but are costly and laden with PR issues for the content owners. Such lawsuits might be viable if it was thought a handful would prove a deterrent to everyone else, but I think its fair to say that the fact the Recording Industry Association Of America launched thousands of such lawsuits without having any impact on wider file-sharing statistics is proof that policy won’t work.
As also much previously reported, the music companies want the ISPs to take action against those who continue to file-share after receiving warning letters – ultimately cutting off serial offenders. The net firms don’t like that idea at all. The British government has made a lot of noise about the importance of cracking down on illegal file-sharing, and admitted ISPs might have to use “technical measures” as a deterrent, though it’s been rather vague about what those measures might be and how they will be enforced. Ministers aren’t expected to be all that much more specific about anything really in the final draft of their ‘Digital Britain’ report, which is due to be published this week – other than probably proposing to formalise the currently voluntary letter sending system.
Commenting on his survey, Wiggin litigation partner Simon Baggs told reporters: “The findings of this report show that letter-sending alone will not be enough and that much more needs to be done if there is to be a real reduction in unlawful file-sharing”.
The ISPs, of course, also argue that the content owners have not done enough to provide compelling affordable licensed online services, and that that leads to people accessing unlicensed content instead. Though unless the content owners can find a way of making those services free-to-access – either by being advertiser funded or by hiding the costs by bundling them in with ISP subscriptions – then there is an argument many consumers would continue to use the free illegal services instead of the licensed ones.
Certainly the Wiggin survey, undertaken by Entertainment Media Research in association with paidContent:UK, is pessimistic about the chances of copyright owners successfully persuading punters to pay for online content. They say less than a half of those surveyed were keen on the idea of paying for any online content, though online TV services, if they were in high-definition or offered unlimited on-demand programmes, might persuade some to part with some cash, somewhere between £3 and £8.
That said, many people said they wouldn’t pay for online content services even if all sources of free pirated content stopped – so it seems rampant piracy isn’t the only challenge for content owners trying to make their online business models add up.
