Whatever other differences we might have, the fundamental disagreement between Bernie Corbett and me can be boiled down to one essential point. He thinks it is wise to disconnect people from the Internet if they are suspected of infringing copyright. I think it is stupid.
Bernie characterises those who disagree with him as thinking of disconnection as something that is wrong, a breach of a human right. I, however, think it’s stupid, backwards, foolish, boneheaded, counter-productive, not-thought-through. Here’s why:
The argument runs that, in the 21st century, people are consuming more and more of their media online. Some people consume some media illegally. Therefore we should stop them, and the people with whom they share an Internet connection, being online.
This fails to take into account the fact that a family who has been disconnected because someone has infringed copyright aren’t doing the following. They aren’t downloading TV or songs from iTunes. They aren’t buying books or DVDs from Amazon. They are not listening to songs on Spotify. They aren’t watching ad-supported videos or reading blogs which are supported by GoogleAds. They aren’t bumping up viewing figures through iPlayer, 4OD or ITV.com. They aren’t downloading free samples of the things creators make to advertise what they are making. They aren’t watching movie trailers. They aren’t emailing each other links to exciting and interesting things they have found. They aren’t clicking the ‘donate’ button on my or anyone else’s website. In short, they aren’t consuming media any more.
So creators cannot make money from them any more.
In a world where more and more is consumed (and paid for) online, preventing people consuming (and paying for) things online is foolish, backwards, all of the things I said above…
Internet disconnection works directly against writers, musicians and artists being able to get their works in front of audiences, and paying audiences. In the last five years a number of models have emerged for ‘monetising content’ (ugh!) At present, the residuals and tips and ad revenues make up a small but growing part of many creators’ incomes, and more sophisticated models are being developed.
Reducing the number of people who have access to my work is not the same as working on my behalf, Bernie.
In general the argument seems to be: disconnection will significantly reduce piracy; reduced piracy will lead to significantly greater revenues for media companies; greater revenues for media companies will lead to their commissioning significantly more things. These are all accepted at face value (without evidence) by supporters of the Bill. I don’t think a convincing case has been made that any of the above is true.
On the other hand it is definitely true that reducing the number of people with access to the Internet reduces the size of the market for (some of) the things I make. It certainly impedes them finding my work, or my finding them.
It’s only if you accept all of the contentious industry-wisdom syllogism above that you can think disconnection will be effective, fair, or wise. I don’t. I believe it is profoundly stupid.
Nathaniel Tapley 
14 comments
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April 12, 2010 at 10:32 am
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April 12, 2010 at 8:51 pm
Chance
Check out “the hacker crackdown” by Bruce Sterling. A good book about how government fails to understand how technology creates it’s own social structures and how big business moves to crush the changes instead of adapting. The chapters about the early telephone network and also the reaction of the FBI in Operation Sundevil in which they seized all works of an RPG book company because it mentioned the word “hacker” is a good parallel to how they are going to run this DE Bill
April 13, 2010 at 8:57 am
Nathaniel Tapley
Thanks, I’ll try and find that book. I certainly don’t share Bernie’s optimism as to how the Act will be enforced…
April 13, 2010 at 9:11 am
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[…] – As well as the comment in the section below, I raise another practical issue with Bernie in this post *** Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Tues-Dinner Party Chez NousTopsy-Turvy […]
April 13, 2010 at 9:14 am
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April 14, 2010 at 11:13 am
UK Comedy Writer Takes The Digital Economy Bill Seriously… As A Threat To His Livelihood | PHP Hosts
[…] His original post that spurred Bernie Corbett’s response is a worthwhile read, as is his response to Corbett’s email. Tapley’s main point of contention is that it is stupid to […]
April 14, 2010 at 11:30 am
Wig
I couldn’t agree more! Disconnecting people from the net is actually disconnecting them from the media market of the ‘new world’.
Of course, I suspect that the media companies think that those disconnected customers will have no choice but to revert to buying physical media formats (book, cd, dvd…), much like they did in the ‘old world’. And of course those are more difficult to produce for an artist without support from a (big) media company.
So, in my opinion, their argument is: accuse as many internet users as possible of infringment (remember, no proof needed and no repercussions for falsely accusing someone), get them disconnected, forcing them back to the ‘old world’ of physical formats. You know, the ‘old world’ where said media companies ruled and had their (rather big) part of the pie…
Sad, actually, how they keep insisting it is for the benefit of the creators.
April 14, 2010 at 11:41 am
UK Comedy Writer Takes The Digital Economy Bill Seriously… As A Threat To His Livelihood | Techne.ws
[…] Bill. His original post that spurred Bernie Corbett's response is a worthwhile read, as is his response to Corbett's email. Tapley's main point of contention is that it is stupid to disconnect anyone if […]
April 14, 2010 at 12:44 pm
Dom
Another great article! I admit that I haven’t been following the progress of the DE Bill as closely as I perhaps should, but being a web developer by profession, and doing both home-based freelance work and working full time as a developer, the DE Bill could easily have some serious consequences for me.
As far as the copyright-infringing clauses go, it seems that they’re in place to try and prevent piracy of copyrighted works, which makes sense. But, with the haste that this bill was reviewed, amended, and passed, I’d bet good money that they’ve failed to look at the correlation between illegal file-sharing, and the money that is spent by those file-sharers on legitimate media (among other things).
A report was published recently that showed a direct correlation between pirates, and the money they spent on legal media. The trend showed that the more pirated material a person was in possession of, the more money they tend to spend on legal MP3s, DVDs, CDs, and other media. The conclusions that were drawn suggested that the free availability of so much copyrighted material actually exposed people to work that they would otherwise never have seen or heard, and as a result, the more creative works were purchased legally through legitimate channels than would have been otherwise – all due to the extra exposure that file-sharing technologies provided.
I can understand that many popular music artists, for example, will have their work pirated more than others, and they may well lose out on more royalties because of that, but what bugs me is that the record companies don’t put pressure on the government to curb piracy for that reason, but because the record companies themselves will lose more money. They present to us a case whereby an artist has lost out due to piracy, but the real reason they’re kicking up such a fuss is because they lose even more than the artists do. I know it’s more of a moral argument than a financial one, but it annoys me all the same.
The government, and other DE Bill supporters, also seem to (as if by magic) come up with statistics about the actual loss of profits by the major record companies and film studios, as a direct result of piracy in order to justify their support for the DE Bill. Yet all they’ve done, in reality, is found some statistics about the number of files illegally downloaded, and worked out how much potential profit they could have made had those works been legally bought. What they fail to realise is that not everyone can afford to buy a copyrighted work legally. That in itself is not an argument to support illegal file-sharing, but it negates the whole reason for major film and record companies to support the bill. They seem to forget that if someone can’t afford to buy a CD, for example, then removing the ability to obtain that CD by other (illegal) means won’t help the end user afford the CD any more than before. If you can’t afford to buy a CD, you can’t afford it. No amount of restricting bandwidth, or cutting the user off altogether, is going to put more cash in the pockets of the record companies. In my opinion, very few users who illegally download as a direct alternative to buying a work legally would be inclined to buy everything they would otherwise download for free. They would simply go without.
But, as has been said upteen times before, all the new Bill WILL do is stop new creative works from being discovered, stop freelancers from working at home, disconnect innocent people through no fault of their own, and significantly reduce the number of public wifi access points through fear of the owners of said points being prosecuted for their customers’ actions.
April 14, 2010 at 6:18 pm
Nathaniel Tapley
Thanks for this, Dom. Wayne Myers post (his open letter to Sarah Teather) has links to some of the studies and articles you mention.
When research is as flawed as that we have seen produced in defence of this Act, we in the creative industries should not accept it withouth question, even if it is claimed that it is ‘for our own good’.
April 16, 2010 at 3:57 am
Ian Alexander Martin
If someone steals, both their hands are not removed to prevent them from doing so again. How would they eat, dress, open a door, operate any piece of machinery, etc.?
But, the logic from the DEB supports would suggest, the now handless person would be able to become adept using their feet. It’s an understandable side-effect of not be able to take something which wasn’t their own!
Ah. Yes. Brilliant.
Nose… face… act of cutting and spiting… Isn’t there a phrase employing all that, somehow?
As a publisher, I’ve ’embraced change’ as Bernie suggests one ought to. All the books I publish are in both some sort of ‘dead-tree’ form of binding as well as in electronic form (both directly through the web-site and through the “Kobo” software platform). DRM-free, I might add, so that it’s as easy to shove the files from one computer to another you own, or from your laptop to your smart-phone and back again. If, however, you happen to shove the file onto another person’s computer, while I might not be cheerful at the news, I can’t really stop you, can I? By the same token I can’t stop you from handing a copy of the book in paper form to a friend saying “here, I just read this, and you’ll really enjoy it!” The real villains in my mind are Public Libraries! Do you realize they buy a copy of a book from me and then simply let anyone take it away and read it? There’s a lost sale there, eh? People do it as many times as they like, too! My God! Think of the revenue stream I could have if it weren’t for Carnegie running around setting up those damned Public Libraries — or literary whore houses as they should be called — all over the bloody world! S’trooth!
[and in both Canada and the USA, there are no lending royalties paid for library materials]
The ground has shifted far more than those in charge have realized, probably, which makes the logic so very much not ‘forward looking’ in the slightest.
April 16, 2010 at 11:03 am
Nathaniel Tapley
One of the good things the Writers’ Guild has achieved is to ensure that an author gets paid every time their book is borrowed from a British public library. You should get more of your books into libraries over here, Ian…
April 22, 2010 at 8:56 pm
Links 15/4/2010: GCC 4.5 Released | Techrights
[…] One Stupid Thing About The Digital Economy Bill This fails to take into account the fact that a family who has been disconnected because someone has infringed copyright aren’t doing the following. They aren’t downloading TV or songs from iTunes. They aren’t buying books or DVDs from Amazon. They are not listening to songs on Spotify. They aren’t watching ad-supported videos or reading blogs which are supported by GoogleAds. They aren’t bumping up viewing figures through iPlayer, 4OD or ITV.com. They aren’t downloading free samples of the things creators make to advertise what they are making. They aren’t watching movie trailers. They aren’t emailing each other links to exciting and interesting things they have found. They aren’t clicking the ‘donate’ button on my or anyone else’s website. In short, they aren’t consuming media any more. […]
May 5, 2010 at 11:40 am
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