UK's pirate-nagging VCAP scheme WON'T have penalties – report

The much-anticipated voluntary UK scheme to reduce online copyright infringement, VCAP, has not yet been signed according to sources – but parties still hope it will be implemented this year. The Voluntary Copyright Alert Programme (VCAP) is modelled on the US program of "graduated response" – a voluntary agreement between …

[EddieD]

No sting but...

If this does nothing to lower infringements, then the Copyright holders may get a nice set of data with which to say to the powers that be "See, being nice doesn't work, we want to be nasty"

[Lamont Cranston]

"I say, would you stop doing that, please?"

Followed by a "Paddington Bear stare".

A rather British solution.

[Shane8]

Re: "I say, would you stop doing that, please?"

Dont forget the tutting !

[Peter Simpson 1]

Re: "I say, would you stop doing that, please?"

So...about as effective as the UN, then?

[Peter Simpson 1]

Re: "I say, would you stop doing that, please?"

So...it will be about as effective as the UN, then?

[Anonymous Coward]

"and create the best possible customer experience online.”

Meaning : Making your customers pay over and over again for the same mediocre

DRM-laden and device, playback or region restricted crap...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "and create the best possible customer experience online.”

Have an upvote sir. We pay for the same stuff, of variable quality, several times. The music and film industry dont like it that their racket is under credible threat, for the first time. Give people the ability to download quality media, at a fair price, in a flexible way, and piracy largely vanishes. Seriously. People are pirating stuff they'd be more that happy to pay for, for the conveniece.

[Richard 81]

Re: "and create the best possible customer experience online.”

...or because Sky et al. hold exclusive rights that make it unavailable elsewhere.

[jonathanb]

Re: "and create the best possible customer experience online.”

The music industry has got it. You can buy mp3 files which can be copied and used anywhere. The video sellers haven't got it yet.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "and create the best possible customer experience online.”

I pirate stuff I can watch on TV, just because it's more convenient to watch when I want without adverts.

[Badvok]

Re: "and create the best possible customer experience online.”

It always amazes me how many people aren't able to actually decide whether or not to buy something but simply cough up the money whenever offered the chance.

[Steven 1]

Remember Kids

Home taping is killing music!

[WonkoTheSane]

Re: Remember Kids

No. Simon Cowell is killing music!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Remember Kids

maybe we should help music return the favour ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Remember Kids

No! Justin Bieber is killing music.

[Wayland Sothcott 1]

Re: Remember Kids

"Mmmm Bieber" smiles the mother in the Argus advert last year. Can you imagine Argus doing an advert where the father smiles "Mmmm, Miley Cyrus" instead of "Mmmm X-Box" or whatever acceptable product he was thinking of.

[Anonymous Coward]

to begin with

possibly

[Anonymous Coward]

Sort out the pricing...

"The legitimate market for digital content was being “prevented from reaching its full potential” by mass piracy. "

Or it could be that download prices are often too excessive. The latest series of 24 is being advertised, so lets look at series 1. itunes has it for £25 for series one (well its £25 for any one of the series). Amazon will sell me the same series for a tenner, new, on DVD, or I can buy a DVD Set of Series 1-4 for the same price as the download of series 1. Heck I can buy the box set of all the 24 series so far for less than just buying two series as downloads. That's also before we consider second hand places like CEX where series 1 is in the fiver bracket.

Prices have to mirror retails stores, where media almost always drops in price once it's left the top 20 charts. By all means charge a premium price for newish material (be that TV or Music), but unless the industry accepts that older stuff have to be cheaper as a download then people will go to a store where its reduced to clear.

And its not limited to TV and Music , Microsoft need to think about this too, I don't buy games on demand for the 360 when they are usually a fraction of the price in retail stores who want to shift excess inventory.

[thomas k.]

Re: Sort out the pricing...

Amen to that!

This is especially egregious with classical music and Amazon is no saint in this area.

Sure there's the occasional bargain (a decent Parsifal conducted by Herbert Kegel for $5, say) but usually it's $30, $40, $50, (even $70 and more) for most operas, not just new stuff but classic recording that are 30, 40, 50, 70 years old!

I stopped buying as many downloads as I did and started buying the CDs instead because, if new, they're almost always cheaper than the downloads, while used CDs are super bargains unless they're super rare items. Then I just rip them myself.

[Naughtyhorse]

Re: Sort out the pricing...

or you can get the first 6?7?8?? series on Netflix for 7 squid a month.

took me a couple of months to watch them all (when I close my eyes I see a digital clock)

it's not like it's the sort of thing that warrants a second viewing or anything

[Tim Jenkins]

Re: Sort out the pricing...

"took me a couple of months to watch them all"

Took me most of Season 1 on Netflix to work out that each episode was less than 50 minutes long when watched that way, as each 'hour' of 'real time' action in the TV broadcast included the advert breaks. Weirdly, I felt kind of cheated; it meant there were 4 hours we didn't get to see, presumably when JB got to shit and shower (but never shave)...

[BenR]

Re: Sort out the pricing...

They need to sort out the fragmentation too.

By the time you've finished paying for LoveFilm, Netflix and NOW! TV to be able to get House of cards, Orange is the New Black, Banshee, Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire etc., that's nearly £20 a month!

Which wouldn't be so bad if I could drop everything barring internet connectivity, but most firms (I'm looking at you Virgin Media!) bundle stuff up so tightly that it costs you more to not have stuff - such as dumping a home phone line for example.

End these counter-productive, anti-competitive 'exclusivity' agreements for certain shows and channels, then we might get somewhere.

[Fiddler on the roof]

Re: Sort out the pricing...

Wow! Any chance you could run for president of the world? (note: not sarcasm)

[K]

Re: Sort out the pricing...

You'd be a mug to buy a game from xBox Live..

A few months ago I saw Microsoft asking for £50 for Skyrim, which is now 2+ years old and you could buy new from Amazon for £15.

[phil dude]

Re: Sort out the pricing...

Here in my part of the US of A pricing is as follows. Anything musical not popular in USA charts can be had for $0.50 CD in 2nd hand shops, maybe $1. They sell new/popular stuff same price as retail, so not so useful.

CD or DVDs can be had for $5 and if you really like it $10/DVD in Walmart, or occasionally Target or Best Buy etc....

I have sussed the pricing policy of Walmart. They hold retail prices for some weeks (6?) to collect chart data, then prices start to level. They have bins of $5 (3/$10) which if you don't mind diving, have surprising content.

The bottom line is we live in a world with more media than heartbeats per human, and "new" stuff is only "new" for a while.

P.

[Peter 26]

A foot in the door

While the ISPs have done a great job limiting this scheme to the bare minimum, I do worry it is a foot in the door giving the BPI etc. the opportunity to ask for penalties a few years down the line due to this scheme most likely being proved to be ineffective at combating piracy.

With the government telling the ISPs they have to do more to combat piracy I guess they had no choice but to let them get a foot in the door, or in this case more like a little toe.

[Anonymous Coward]

Struggling to see why this is accpetable to the BPI etc. Unless of course, they see it as the thin end of the wedge....

[Oliver 7]

Stop!

Reminds me of Robin Williams stand-up sketch about UK policemen. "'Stop!', or I'll say 'Stop!' again!".

That aside, this may actually have some effect. Some people may be spooked enough that they stop file-sharing. However, after more than a decade of wrangles, inaction and a total failure on the part of content providers to provide reasonably priced, comprehensive and legal alternatives, file-sharing is now an entrenched part of our culture. We all know that everyone from housewives to policemen to politicians are now au fait with the techniques and the lack of consequences. And their children surely don't even give it a second thought.

The reality is that copyright legislation and enforcement in its current form is designed for a pre-digital age and is effectively dead in the water. And the fact that the film companies keep making record profits and the major labels haven't folded suggests that the moral panic around piracy has little foundation. Yet we are still left with the execrable DEA on the statute books thanks to Mssrs Mandelson and Geffen:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Economy_Act_2010#Industry_lobbying

[Truth4u]

everyone wins from Piracy

If it wasn't for piracy, no one would have switched to ADSL, VDSL would never have been invented, and the population of internet users would still largely consist of a fringe group of white basement dwelling male scientists with no humour.

[Naughtyhorse]

Re: No humour?

what about B!FF

he was a hoot

[Truth4u]

besides

The big media companies own and operate major sites pushing P2P software such as cnet and download.com

Before file sharing was the defacto way to get music, it was the music industry pushing P2P by proxy. If they own cnet, do you not think they can ring up any time and get that stuff taken off? The fact is they wanted it on there in the first place.

[Robert Harrison]

Re: everyone wins from Piracy

This is an interesting comment. I can't help but think that similar applies to the current net neutrality issue. Without content (from the likes of Youtube, Netflix, Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo, etc etc) most of us would find our broadband subscriptions less of a necessity. Shock horror, content and delivery are symbiotic.

[JimmyPage]

What amused me

was the rather quaint notion that pirating is done with torrent. Anyway, didn't they block the Pirate Bay ?

[Chika]

Re: What amused me

I get rather annoyed overall by the use of the term "piracy". It's a catchy term meant to spotlight the actual act, but "piracy" is a specific crime related to something other than copyright or intellectual property theft.

Besides, the whole copyright/IP concept is broken in the extreme and a lot of the perceived theft is merely the result of an increasingly unfair situation where the copyright holders expect infinite protection. Yes, we are talking about a protection racket.

And when it comes to performers such as Justin Bieber or Nikky Minaj, the racket isn't even pleasant to listen to.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: What amused me

"was the rather quaint notion that pirating is done with torrent."

The vast majority is.

"Anyway, didn't they block the Pirate Bay ?"

Another Whack-A-Mole fail. There are numerous proxies - and plenty of other torrent sites.

For instance http://www.proxybay.de/ still seems to work fine on UK ISPs.

[Anonymous Coward]

This must be a marketing drive

by VPN providers ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: There's only so many times you can say the sky is falling.

Why, pray tell, does this apply only to those opposed to copyright maximalism, and not to the hysteria about piracy that constantly spews forth from the big content corporations and their various mouthpieces?

[Piro]

Give up, Christ!

It's been shown that those that pirate are MORE LIKELY to spend more on purchases of music and videos.

Piracy is a MAJOR WAY shows grow a fanbase these days, the content providers have NOBODY BUT THEMSELVES to blame, because of the insane restrictions and often impossibility in obtaining the latest content.

Our government should waste NO MONEY ON THIS, because if we do, we are effectively pissing money up the wall to protect a handful of rich people in the US.

CAPITAL LETTERS in a block for NO REASON.

1 download ≠ 1 potential purchase. Almost never, ever, ever is this the case. If it wasn't available to download, people simply would never know about it.

But really, this is a waste of time, benefits the UK in no way at all, benefits the content producers in no way at all, and just stinks. It's good at least that it doesn't escalate to anything yet, but the whole idea needs to just go away.

[Chika]

Re: Give up, Christ!

CAPITAL LETTERS in a block for NO REASON.

Inserting WORDS into a sentence made up of #~%*!&$ punctuation.

Inserting! Punctuation! In! Inappropriate! Places!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Give up, Christ!

"Inserting! Punctuation! In! Inappropriate! Places!"

What sort of Yahoo! would do that?

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Give up, Christ!

Are you Serious?

[John Lilburne]

Hmmm. Why is it that forums like this are so ignorant?

IP is 37% of the UK economy and employs over 7.7 million people.

https://oami.europa.eu/ohimportal/en/web/observatory/ip-in-europe

[Salts]

Hmmmm, they seem a bit of a special interest group, also we are talking copyright here and their figures place copyright at ~4%, ~81 euro and 1.2 Million uk employees involved in the uk copyright industry(please keep on subject), still big numbers. Also from your link and this one, it is not a market in decline http://www.bfi.org.uk/news/uk-film-s-contribution-uk-gdp-over-46b.

It's not that the forums here are ignorant, we can get facts and figures off the internet and spew them out as good as the next if that's what it takes to be viewed as none ignorant. It is that we know what we are talking about when it comes to copyright being an antiquated system that needs to see rigorous reform for the benefit of all and that people crying the same old crap that copyright 'theft' is killing the uk industry, despite reports to the contrary, are just special interest groups who need to F*&^ right off.

[Anonymous Coward]

IP is 37% of the UK economy...

and so that gives them the right to screw people on price? Sorry I'm a bit lost to your point here...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm curious as to what your point is. Given that piracy is undoubtably happening (hence these kinds of agreements and laws to "combat" it), is your point;

a) That "intellectual property"-related jobs, despite piracy, still make up a good proportion of the UK economy, and thus piracy can't be all that damaging?

b) That there would be more IP-related jobs if there was less piracy?

c) Something I've missed?

[Syntax Error]

Some of us may be ignorant but we are not as biased as you. IP employs 7.7 million people. Your having a laugh.

[TitterYeNot]

Observatory???

I know I'm probably replying to Trollio McTrollerson of Trollbridge, Trollshire (and if so apologies for feeding it), but just in case I'm not, according to that august body The European Observatory on Infringements of Intellectual Property Rights (yes it really does exist), copyright-intensive industries account for 4.7% of UK GDP and employ 1,188,970 people.

Though of course those figures weren't really pulled out of some eurocrat's backside whilst guzzling copious amounts of wine and cheese. I'm sure they were rigorously researched. No really, honestly, they were...

And getting back to the subject of the article, I imagine they'll be employing the same people that write the TV Licensing warning letters - the way they imply that you're going to court without actually taking you to court is bordering on fraudulent...

[bigtimehustler]

Well, im pretty sure some of those IP jobs are related to enforcement, so I guess piracy directly helps some of those people keep their jobs. No copyright infringement...no enforcement jobs? So on this basis would you suggest we must actually keep some piracy to keep those jobs?

[codejunky]

I dont agree with piracy

But it does offer a superior user experience at little cost. If I buy a DVD I can buy it, own it, sell it on but can only watch it on devices of the correct or multi region. I cant watch it on my tablet or any computer without a DVD drive. It has adverts for all the crap I dont want which often cant be easily fast forward. Also the movie comes out in the US, then ages later we might get it in the UK. If the film has some streaming option I can watch it if I sign up to whichever provider they have chosen to stream a movie (bandwidth issues) which often can only be done on windows.

Or someone can download from the internet and have a file they can play anywhere with no adverts or restrictions and when it has actually been released. You get what you want, to play on any device, to enjoy as it was intended. I am not shocked that people pirate

[Lamont Cranston]

Re: I dont agree with piracy

Very much this. I've been digitising my DVD collection, of late*, and I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that it'd be considerably easier to just comb the web for the appropriate torrents. The existence of UltraViolet suggests that the industry are capable of acting on this, but that's along way off of being a comprehensive solution.

*whack it on the NAS, watch it anywhere in the house - really wish I'd started sooner.

[Peter Simpson 1]

Re: I dont agree with piracy

Nor do I, but Pirate Bay offers what I want, when I want it.

I would happily pay a $20/month "all you can download" membership fee, if that would make the media companies happy. The big attraction of Pirate Bay, is that it has *everything* in one place, and it's pain-free to get and watch or listen to anything, from any media company.

Hey, media companies: just make some kind of deal with Pirate Bay...I'll pay the fee, just make it reasonable: $20, $30 or whatever. $1 or $2 to Pirate Bay, to keep them on the air, $1 or $2 to the media moguls, cause that's all the f*ckers deserve, the rest to the artists and techies (grips, best boys, whatever) who actually create the stuff.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: I dont agree with piracy

"If the film has some streaming option I can watch it if I sign up to whichever provider they have chosen to stream a movie (bandwidth issues) which often can only be done on windows."

...or you come across an "old" DVD/BD disk in the bargain bin of the supermarket or stumble across it on Amazon and you find the streaming or download option advertised prominently on the front cover is no longer available.

[Daz555]

""The legitimate market for digital content was being “prevented from reaching its full potential” by mass piracy. "

Shall we rephrase that to something reflecting reality.

"Failure of the digital content market to meet the needs of consumers is driving many consumers to piracy."

[Anonymous Coward]

"Failure of the digital content market to meet the needs of consumers is driving many consumers to piracy."

Don't confuse needs with wishes. Nobody's forced to pirate - it's that simple. Perhaps if people didn't buy and didn't pirate, the content market would see no choice but to drop prices. Of course, that means being less self-indulgent and more patient, so I don't see it happening.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Failure ....to meet the needs of consumers is driving many consumers to piracy.

As someone wiser than me on here once said: "I would like to acquire the media I want, pay and leave without an ever expanding list of growing partners knowing who I am, where I live, what I have purchased, what else I have purchased before and how long my inside leg is. I want to buy your product NOT become one"...

[Anonymous Coward]

Cliffs law

After that little stunt, the BPI can kindly feck off.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a full Sky subscription but still download GoT, 24 etc. My media server is better at organising content than a Sky+ box and I can play it anywhere in the house. Until the content providers catch up to the 21st century "piracy" will continue.

[Linux Smouty]

Surely it's not piracy if you've paid your subscription, just excersing yopur democratic right to watch however you want!

[Stuart 22]

I am very strongly in favour of reducing copyright infringements ...

... by reducing copyright to a maximum of 50 years from first publication. That is all.

[tojb]

Re: I am very strongly in favour of reducing copyright infringements ...

It still is 50 years in the UK, except for Peter Pan.

[Martin-73]

Re: I am very strongly in favour of reducing copyright infringements ...

And Peter Pan, iirc, benefits the children's hospital? So that's ok with me :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Japan has it right

No warnings just a mandatory minimum 2 years in prison for piracy or a minumum 10 years for facilitation of piracy. The world should adopt these judicial standards and you can bet a lot of piracy would end as it would get a lot of scum off the streets.

[Lamont Cranston]

Re: Japan has it right

Yeah, just last week I was walking home from work when some chav in a hoodie sidled up to me and offered me a download.

[ShortLegs]

Re: Japan has it right

Surely the 'scum' are already off the streets; sat at home downloading 'pirated content'...

Oh, you mean /piracy/... You should have said "get a lot of scum off the high seas".

[Pat 11]

Define "infringer"

Is it:

someone who downloads stuff

someone who uploads stuff

someone who torrents stuff

someone who stream stuff

?

[BigAndos]

I like how the bbc article says that after four letters no further action will be taken. What on earth is the point? All this cost for ISPs for no gain, which will naturally be passed on to us paying customers!

[Anonymous Coward]

I like how the bbc article says that after four letters no further action will be taken. What on earth is the point?

Yes. If the copyright industry is going to offer me a useful, free, risk-free service for testing whether my latest file-sharing privacy app works well enough to hide me from their snoopers, then I demand that they keep running it indefinitely. Stopping after 4 notifications means that I won't know whether my latest enhancements are hiding my app from them properly.

[Anonymous Coward]

So it's official, 'piracy'/copyright abuse definitely isn't theft (in the UK)

Otherwise the 'best brains in the industry' would have come up with something more effective as a deterrent than threatening to send letters to people who will simply laugh at them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: So it's official, 'piracy'/copyright abuse definitely isn't theft (in the UK)

Copyright infringement has never been theft anywhere. Theft involves permanently depriving someone of something that they owned. Copyright infringement is copying something.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: So it's official, 'piracy'/copyright abuse definitely isn't theft (in the UK)

Yes, but as it's been stated before, this is the thin end of the wedge!

Step 1. First they send letters for a couple of years, which everyone ignores.

Step 2. Then they go back to the Gov. and complain that everyone ignored the letters and now they want something more serious done.

Step 3. Start sending new letters with serious threats (disconnection/fines/prison) included...

It's a longer game plan...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Copyright infringement has always been sufficient grounds to get your service terminated by an ISP as it is just another form of network abuse. But ISPs have been loathe to enforce the terms, fearing that this would open a Pandora’s box of complaints from copyright industries, thus increasing cost and uncertainty to their business."

Don't think so. Copyright is a civil matter between the rights-holder and the infringer. ISPs rightly don't give a toss as long as it doesn't cost them anything. Nothing to do with them, they are just delivering the packets requested by the customer. From the POV of an ISP infringements like downloading torrents are much preferable than having to deliver -say- streaming video because torrents can use spare bandwidth and don't require a specific volume of data in a specific amount of time with no failures along the way.

"Particularly if there’s no sting in the tail – VCAP without enforcement is simply an "educational" letter-writing campaign, with copyright industries footing the bill."

And so what? The rights-holders groups are just trying -like normal- to legislate other people into doing their jobs for them at other people's expense.

Frankly, if the various music and film industries didn't take the piss so hard then people would be less inclined to take the piss back. If they could even drag their business models into the 20th century, that'd be a start. Their combined behaviour has been atrocious to date...if they're "waaaaaaaah!-ing" for sympathy now, they're on the wrong planet. They seem to have no moral qualms about -for example- nicking the music for the "You wouldn't download a car" bit, so why should anybody else have a problem with a spot of downloading?

[Eddiea30]

Two questions

What do the ISPs do to meet the date protection issues specifcally then? There are a few here.

If I don't believe the allegation is valid AND I don't want to have it stored on a database by my ISP how do I get them to withdraw the allegation (an appeal???) and expunge that from my customer record?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re. copyright

This annoys me even more, as I have found out that there are between 15 and 25000 classified patents in the UK alone.

At least 10% of these relate to energy, possibly also there are patents in there that connect to solar power improvements.

This is totally unforgiveable, we demand on behalf of the Silent Majority that they be reviewed and released where appropriate with the IP being made public for educational and industrial use.

They released the UFO files held by the MoD so why not these?