| Piracy - Frequently Asked Questions |
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MUSIC PIRACY |
| Q. What is the scale of internet music piracy? |
| A. There are 20 illegal music downloads for every legal track sold worldwide – a far more dramatic ratio than in the physical world where one in three CDs is estimated to be illegal. Internet piracy has had a devastating effect on the music industry, leading to job losses, less money to invest in new artists and fewer opportunities for existing acts to further their careers. |
| Q. Surely the high volume of online music piracy means you're fighting a losing battle? |
| A. While 95 per cent of music downloads worldwide are illegally made from unlicensed services, research suggests this volume of downloads is concentrated among a certain part of the online population, with, for example, a steady proportion of around 18 per cent of internet users in Europe and the US regularly file-sharing. If the industry did not take enforcement action, it is likely that this ‘containment’ at around 18 per cent of internet users would not continue. But the industry’s enforcement actions are not enough; ISP cooperation is needed if we are to find a comprehensive solution to mass online piracy. |
| Q. Haven’t we seen this hysteria before with the “home taping is killing music” campaign? |
| A. The online distribution of copyright infringing music tracks is hurting the music industry. This is not a question of people making one or two copies of a track at home; this is a question of people uploading hundreds or thousands of music files for millions of people to download.
There is no comparison to the scale of home taping in the 1970s and 1980s. The music that was taped was of inferior quality to the original and could not be distributed to millions of people in the way a copyright infringing music file can. |
| Q. Surveys suggest some individual file-sharers are downloading 40,000 tracks, they’re never going to buy that many tracks are they? |
| A. Many of the new business models that are being created involve access to a library of millions of tracks. This should ensure that the most avid music fan with eclectic tastes can satisfy their desire to try new music using legal services. |
| Q. Why don’t you just license and monetise file-sharing services? |
| A. Record labels have in the past signed commercial agreements with file-sharing services. It is extremely difficult however to monetise file-sharing services in such a way that attracts users, while paying artists, composers and producers for their work. Labels are also often reluctant to license services that distributed their work illegally for years before seeking a commercial agreement. |
| Q. Are other industries suffering in the same way as music? |
| A. Mass online copyright infringement is a threat to all the creative industries. Increased broadband speeds and storage capacity mean that the film, television and even book publishing industries are now being hit hard by piracy. |
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ANTI-PIRACY ACTIVITY |
| Q. What is the recording industry doing day-to-day to combat internet piracy? |
| A. Record companies are investing considerable effort and resources into protecting the legal digital music market. The industry’s anti-piracy effort is led by IFPI’s internet anti-piracy unit, IAPU, a specialist team that works to combat infringements of its members’ rights online. The team works with member record companies and IFPI’s National Groups, like IRMA, to tackle problems such as pre-release piracy and the spread of copyright infringing music on peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing networks. It also manages the industry’s high volume notice/takedown programme under which hundreds of thousands of warnings are issued each year, resulting in the shutdown of infringing sites and operations.
The IAPU also tackles other forms of copyright infringement, such as the distribution of unauthorised music via blogs, hosting on cyberlockers and other locations on the internet. It has a proven track record of getting ISPs, site operators and those posting the infringing material to remove it. |
| Q. How can investigators track down illegal music distributors? |
A. IFPI’s anti-piracy team identifies infringers by logging on to networks in exactly the same way as any member of the public can do. It traces the unique IP addresses of illegal uploaders using the various P2P file-sharing networks, where they make copyright infringing music available. There are two ways the IAPU can do this:
- Manually:
IAPU investigators access a P2P file-sharing network as any other user would. They then download copyright infringing material that has been uploaded by other users, to be used as evidence at a later date.
- Automatically:
Automated devices can be used to replicate the manual process at a much faster rate, enabling IAPU to identify greater numbers of serious persistent copyright infringers. Stepping-up the use of such automated tools has enabled the IAPU to dramatically improve its productivity.
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| Q. What information do investigators look for on the P2P file-sharing networks? |
| A. Various pieces of evidence can be legally obtained about persistent copyright infringers. They include the number and a list of files being used, and the precise content being shared. This information is available to anyone who logs on to P2P services.
The IAPU team searches for a particular artist, album or individual track on a P2P service such as Limewire or Ares. It does this by entering the term in the P2P file-sharing client’s search box. Once the search term is entered, a list of results is displayed in the P2P client’s results screen.
A more advanced form of P2P network is BitTorrent, where different parts of a file, particularly large film files, are downloaded from multiple sources and can be distributed quickly and efficiently. Users access “torrent” files which are distributed to other users via a “swarm”. Users downloading files via BitTorrent automatically become uploaders for the duration of their download. In the case of BitTorrent this searching stage is typically done through an index site, such as The Pirate Bay, and/or forum.
IFPI’s anti-piracy team can secure evidence about the individual’s music uploading activity. This is done by downloading the list of copyright infringing files being offered, or the files themselves. The activities of BitTorrent users can be traced on the index site. |
| Q. Can such evidence be used for litigation? |
| A. Yes, this evidence has been accepted by courts worldwide. The anti-piracy team uses software to monitor the communication between its computers and the uploader’s computer on P2P networks. This is commonly known as ‘packet trace’ software and it works on all P2P networks, including services such as BitTorrent .The packet trace software captures all transaction information relating to the download of the copyrighted infringing music and interaction with the target IP address. Each ‘packet’ is uniquely “time–stamped” by the computer, which means that it is possible for the IP address registrant to know which user was using an IP address at any given time. |
| Q. Are you having any impact on piracy? |
| A. The IAPU has had considerable success, particularly in its work protecting pre-release material. Pre-release leaks are highly damaging to record labels as, on average, albums sell 56 per cent of their copies in their first four weeks of sale and the availability of the music online before the release date can dent these vital sales. The IAPU removed three million infringing links in 2008, up from 500,000 in 2007. Increased use of automation is expected to see the figure surge again in 2009. |
| Q. Surely your legal battles with Kazaa, allofmp3.com, The Pirate Bay and similar services are like a giant game of “whack-a-mole”? |
| A. As long as it remains possible to build a business on the basis of infringing other’s rights, people will continue to do so. We do not expect to be able to eliminate piracy, but we do hope that with modernised intellectual property laws and efficient enforcement, we should be able to curb the level of online piracy sufficiently to allow legitimate models to evolve and thrive. |
| Q. You’ve talked about peer-to-peer networks, but how can you tackle other forms of online copyright infringement? |
| A. IFPI estimates that peer-to-peer networks account for around 80 per cent of online copyright infringement so that is why it is of particular concern. While ISPs generally cooperate with our requests regarding hosted content, most ISPs currently do nothing about P2P piracy, even when put on notice of it. That is why we are so keen to bring ISPs into the music value chain. Non-P2P infringement, such as the posting of infringing links on blogs, is being dealt with by the IAPU through a notice and takedown procedure, which is normally effective, and also through a programme of litigation. |
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GRADUATED RESPONSE CAMPAIGN |
| Q. What exactly do you want ISPs to do? |
| A. We are asking ISPs to take concrete steps to address the piracy on their networks. A graduated response approach envisages a policy of warnings leading to sanctions against those who refuse to stop infringing. |
| Q. Many have said that internet connection is a basic human right – how can you try and get it removed from people? |
| A. The graduated response approach to tackling mass online piracy aims to migrate users from illegal to legal music services. Research suggests that a notice, education and warning approach, backed by real sanctions, can change people’s behaviour. People would only face the suspension of their internet account if they ignored repeated warnings against breaking the law. There are plenty of other ways to connect to the internet, such as visiting an internet cafe. |
| Q. Isn’t it draconian to cut an internet link off for a household just because one member of it may have been file-sharing? |
| A. No, it’s a sensible way of apportioning responsibility. The terms and conditions of ISP customer contracts make it clear that it is the bill payer that bears responsibility for the internet connection, so they should check that their computer is not being used for illegal purposes. Such a notice system also gives the bill payer the opportunity to find out if others are abusing their connection and get them to stop their activity or to implement appropriate security. |
| Q. Surely your attempts to secure graduated response are piecemeal, not global? |
| A. The push for graduated response is gaining worldwide traction, but it is incumbent on individual national governments to shape the policy for their countries. ISPs operate and are regulated at national level and any approach must take into account the specific legal environment. |
| Q. Don’t ISPs run the risk of being sued by their customers if they disconnect them? |
| A. ISP customer terms and conditions explicitly state that users who abuse their connection to violate the law, including breaching copyright, risk being disconnected. All we are doing is asking ISPs to honour those terms and conditions. In those circumstances they should be at no risk of being sued by users. |
| Q. Are you asking ISPs to snoop on people’s private email correspondence? |
| A. Not at all. We are not asking ISPs to monitor people’s e-mails but to respond to illegal behaviour of which they are notified. ISPS will be reacting to information legally obtained by copyright holders who have accessed P2P networks where it is publically available. No one will be reading private emails. |
| Q. Won’t users just sign-up to a new ISP service and begin infringing again? |
| A. We think suspension is a proportionate penalty which will act as a significant deterrent to piracy. Users will find it inconvenient to sign-up to another service with another address and this process could leave them without a connection for some time. Persistent infringers would face suspension from their subsequent services as well and there are only a finite number of services available. |
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FILTERING
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| Q. Isn’t it like asking the Post Office to check and be responsible for the contents of every letter they deliver? |
| A. No, it’s actually more like asking the Post Office to use technology to scan letters for dangerous substances without opening them. We’re not asking ISPs to check the substance of communications, but rather to respond to illegal use of their networks to distribute copyrighted works, which can be identified. ISPs’ own customer terms and conditions state that their users should not abuse their connection to infringe copyright. It is time telecom companies enforced those terms and conditions. |
| Q. But filtering involves big privacy and data protection issues, doesn’t it? |
| A. Filtering can be a very significant tool in the fight against piracy – it shows that while technology has created a problem, it can also provide solutions. Filtering allows a new targeted approach, using technology to distinguish between licensed and pirate music on the basis of identifying information cross-referenced against a database of authorised tracks. It would be used automatically and anonymously without monitoring users’ written correspondence or revealing the identity of individual users so we do not believe there should be serious privacy concerns. |
| Q. So what communications are you asking ISPs to monitor for filtering purposes? |
| A. We are not asking the ISP to read or monitor communications - technology would be used to automatically flag up infringing tracks which can then be blocked. |
| Q. Is there the technology available to effectively detect copyright infringing material? |
| A. Yes, there are several technologies available that can detect and filter infringing material. The court in SABAM v Tiscali considered an expert report outlining several technologies, ruled that the technology was available to effectively filter and ordered Tiscali to take steps to implement such a system.
This kind of use of technology is not new to the music business. Audio recognition systems have been used for some years by peer to peer services such as iMesh, and more recently by websites that deal in user generated content, such as YouTube.
The technology would “flag up” copyright-infringing files by cross-referencing them with a huge database of authorised tracks. The system would then automatically block files that match the database of copyright protected tracks but are not licensed. |
| Q. Isn’t filtering too expensive for ISPs to implement? |
| A. We think the cost of filtering is reasonable and proportionate to the problem. On one of the models considered in the SABAM v Tiscali case, for filtering P2P networks, the cost was estimated, after start-up costs, at between 30 and 50 euro cents per customer per month. This is a small percentage of the cost paid by a customer for a monthly broadband subscription. Network filtering could also offer real benefits to telecom companies, clearing bandwidth, speeding up their networks and generating efficiency savings. |
| Q. Most peer-to-peer networks use encryption and that means you can’t identify which material is infringing and which isn’t? |
| A. Most peer-to-peer traffic is currently not encrypted. While encrypted traffic may call for a different approach to filtering, it certainly does not prevent the use of technology to tackle infringements. Encryption should not be used as an excuse for doing nothing. |
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