news The Pirate Party of Australia has strongly criticised the former Attorney-General Robert McClelland for ignoring consumers and supporting the content industry instead, in secretive talks held by his department.
In a press release published this week, the Party expressed its dissatisfaction with the lack of consumer involvement in the talks held on 23 September, 2011 between the Attorney-General’s Department and ISPs and content rights holders, including around 25 representatives of the television, film and music industries.
Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act in December have revealed that the talks had deliberately left out consumers from negotiations and deliberations. The Australian Communications and Consumer Action Network (ACANN) and the Internet Society of Australia (ISOC) had been denied permission to attend the meeting. While the documents repeatedly refer to the consumers’ importance, they indicate a continual push for an industry-based solution. In October 2011, the Federal Attorney-General’s Department had claimed that no minutes were taken at the closed-door meeting.
One document states that relevant consumer groups will be consulted once the industry discussions have reached a suitable stage. As per the documents, consumers are not named as key-stakeholders concerning copyright infringement, but the industry is advised to consider consumer interests. “The Government cannot know what ‘consumer interests’ are if relevant consumer groups are consistently turned away” stated Brendan Molloy, Secretary of Pirate Party Australia.
Pointing out the difference between the interests of the industry and those of the consumer, the Party stated that giving only the industry a hearing was not democratic. “We need a ‘consumer-based solution’ to be tabled; but every attempt to engage in discussion has been met with stubborn refusal to acknowledge that consumers and industry aren’t exactly seeing the matter eye-to-eye. It’s a simple case of ‘money talks'” Molloy stressed.
The release referred to another document that states, “The Government, through creating the optimum legislative framework to support business, creative endeavour, and legitimate private activity, also has a role [in solving online copyright infringement].” The Party questioned the definition of “legitimate private activity”.
Mozart Palmer, spokesperson for Pirate Party Australia says the indications are that consumers have no say in how they interact with the images that shape their world. “We are surrounded by images and sounds that influence the way we interact with each other, the way we communicate, but we have few rights over them. Our cultural participation is limited to the depth of our pockets according to the copyright industry’s failing business model” continued Palmer. He emphasised that consumers need more rights over their culture.
Party Treasurer Rodney Serkowski termed the issue as being about how laws are framed and the integrity of Australia’s democratic process. “The government must ensure that the decision making process is inclusive and transparent. All we have seen so far is secrecy, exclusion and opacity” Serkowski claimed.
Recently, the Pirate party had also strongly objected to the proposal by major Australian internet service providers titled “A Scheme to Address Online Copyright Infringement”, terming it a privacy nightmare. The infringement notice system proposed by the scheme would involve sending notices to copyright violators, informing them about breaches of copyright and educating them about the issue. The scheme would further allow user details to be made available to content owners through a subpoena legal process, if the notices were ineffective.
The talks last year were held under the auspices of then-Attorney-General Robert McClelland. However, a cabinet reshuffle late in the year saw McClelland replaced with then-Health Minister Nicola Roxon, who has not yet made her views clear on the issue of online copyright infringement.
Has there even been a public proposal to comment on yes? I’m guessing Government has meetings all the time – not everyone is invited to every single meeting, even if they may have an interest in it. Is that a headline?
All I’ve seen/read is that the AG’s Department is faciliating discusions between two industries who have differing legal views over something that both indsutries have a massive private commercial interest in (piracy).
Consumers will be given a chance to comment on proposed statutory change when/if it is proposed surely? Just like every other government process
In any case, arguably consumer opinion has been well and truly voiced by way of the widespread piracy that takes place over Australian ISP networks every secxond fo every day.
These were preliminary talks; but the fact that consumers haven’t been involved in preliminary discussion is a worry. Yes, government meetings take place all the time, but when the government and industry meet with the consumer being literally turned away (consumer groups were not permitted to participate, even though they wanted to) it is not democracy. Why should the government refuse to allow its electorate to participate?
The nature of the meetings have been ambiguous and there is a great deal of contradiction regarding the intent of the meeting. Consumers are very much a part of industry: they are on the purchasing side. Are consumers not key stakeholders in the digital economy?
Consumers should be engaged in designing legislation, not participating after legislation is drafted. If consumer opinion has been well and truly voiced, then why is it not listened to?
I think you are missing a key point in what is being pushed for here billy (it is not at all clear in the article.) What is being pushed for is not a statutory or legislative change, but a voluntary “industry solution.” That is, there need not be any formal government process in the matter but the ISPs and content providers push out a solution without government help. In this scenario there is no “government process” as such, so not necessarily any chance for consumers to comment.
Look at what has happened with the ”six strikes” in the USA – there has been nothing drafted by the government on the matter but ISPs are “punishing” users anyway. This sort of action without proper process is, in my view, a legitimate concern.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy
The problem billy is that the industry is not listening to consumers when it comes to content distribution.
It’s only earlier this week that Tivo in the US announced that only a third of people were watching shows live, with the vast majority choosing to either watch a delayed broadcast on online, basically the push is saying we want the content, we’re willing to pay for the content (since the Tivo service is subscriber based), but we want to be able to watch it at a time that is convient for us.
The push from the industry here is that they will control everything with very limited choice for the consumer, the problem, obviously, is that consumers who would pay for media if they could get it in a distribution model suitable for them can’t, so they choose other typically illegal methods.
Will changing the distribution model to suit consumers stop all piracy? Of course not, piracy will always exist. Will it stop a worthwhile group of people who currently pirate from doing so? Yes it will. And of course the added bonus for the industry is that if they distribute based on consumer demand there is no longer any reason for those consumers to pirate, so having some sort of penalty system would be justified.
Source on the Tivo annoucement .. http://techland.time.com/2012/01/11/only-one-third-of-tv-watching-in-the-u-s-is-realtime/
intelligent comments from the website itself:
comment #1:
What a deceptive article title! It should read “Only one-third of TV-Watching in TiVo Households is Realtime.” This article title fuels speculation that TV has changed in an instant. There is no doubt that it is changing, but you cannot forget that this is a self-reported number from 2-million households that, due to their TiVO ownership, are significantly more likely to shift their viewing than the average American household. How is it possible that Time can’t tell the difference between TiVO homes and the nation as a whole? This is quite shameful, actually.
comment #2:
I think the bigger news is that Tivos customers only use their product a little over half the time they watch TV. See, I can twist the data and round it in such a way as to present information the way I want, too.
Seeing as you merely made direct copies of comments (potentially copyrighted to the website) on the article without actually clarifying your position, do you mind actually making a reply in your own words.
Both those comments you copied can be easily refuted by the way too.
comment #1:
At one time yes Tivo was pretty much the thing when it came to time shifting programs in a digital format (VHS was prior), but now that feature is pretty much stock standard on all PVRs so the argument this only applies to Tivo owners is invalid.
Regarding the 2M households used, well that’s called a sample size, and like when people are polled for preferred PM or whatever (when usually the sample size is around 1000) it gives an indication of the overall populous. And in reality a sample size of 2M households, which would like be around 5M+ individuals, is quite a decent sample size.
And finally no one is saying these changes happened overnight, but what is clear is a trend of people moving away from sitting down and watching programs when they are originally broadcast to watching them at a more convenient time, no matter what format whether that be TV, computer, mobile, they choose to watch it in.
Comment #2:
You need to take into account that there are various other methods for watching media in the US that aren’t available in Australia, for example Hulu, Netflix, etc. And the article even goes so far as state the number of people who watching live broadcasting drops further when they the consumer has either or both of these services as well.
You also need to take into account that people aren’t just watching media on the TV, and it’s quite possible that someone is watching TV in the lounge room while another person in the same house is streaming to their laptop or mobile device.
Finally did you consider that a lot of the media consumed also comes in packaged deals with mobile plans, for example you can get unlimited streaming of Hulu, Netflix, and the 4 major sports leagues (NFL, MLB, NHL and NBA) direct to your mobile devices? ie. The media that was previously consumered sitting on the couch using the TV is now also being consumed on mobile devices on the go.
.
Now, do you have any of your own thoughts on the matter, or does your ability to converse not extend between CTRL-C CTRL-V ?
— It’s only earlier this week that Tivo in the US announced that only a third of people were watching shows live —
first of all, the Tivo survey does not make any inferences about the proportion of people watching shows live. rather, it makes false inferences about the proportion of TV viewing hours watched in realtime.
secondly, if you want to make inferences about the viewing behaviour of the population, you have to survey the population using an unbiased sample. by an unbiased sample, i mean a sample of the population which also includes households that do not own a Tivo. by only sampling households that own a Tivo, your sample is heavily biased towards households that possess a specific device means of time-shifting their viewing habits. that is hardly an unbiased sample.
— with the vast majority choosing to either watch a delayed broadcast on online —
other than the flawed grammar, this statement of yours is potentially very misleading.
this what the report actually says:
TiVo reports that among its users, only 38% of television viewing happens in realtime, with that number falling to just 27% for viewers who also use Netflix, YouTube, Hulu Plus and other online viewing outlets.
among Tivo users:
27% of TV viewing is watched in real broadcast time
62% of TV viewing is time-shifted using Tivo
only 11% of TV viewing is time-shifted using online viewing outlets
— basically the push is saying we want the content, we’re willing to pay for the content (since the Tivo service is subscriber based), but we want to be able to watch it at a time that is convient for us. —
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TiVo
The information that a TiVo DVR downloads regarding TV schedules as well as software updates and any other relevant information is available through a monthly service subscription in the US. A different model applies in Australia where the TiVo media device is bought for a one off fee, without further subscription costs.
i would hardly categorise paying a basic subscription fee for TV programming schedules as “consumers willing to pay for content”.
— The push from the industry here is that they will control everything with very limited choice for the consumer —
how is that different to any other industry?
— And of course the added bonus for the industry is that if they distribute based on consumer demand there is no longer any reason for those consumers to pirate, so having some sort of penalty system would be justified. —
“some sort of penalty system” will always be justified as long as the law is being broken as it is presently.
first of all, the Tivo survey does not make any inferences about the proportion of people watching shows live. rather, it makes false inferences about the proportion of TV viewing hours watched in realtime.
You’ve lost me, are you trying to imply they are separating shows like The Project (which is live), from dramas shows (which are prerecorded)?
secondly, if you want to make inferences about the viewing behaviour of the population, you have to survey the population using an unbiased sample. by an unbiased sample, i mean a sample of the population which also includes households that do not own a Tivo. by only sampling households that own a Tivo, your sample is heavily biased towards households that possess a specific device means of time-shifting their viewing habits. that is hardly an unbiased sample.
Stop trying to imply that Tivo is the only device on which you can timeshift, all PVRs, some TVs, and hell even online service (which is why Telstra is in court against Optus) can do it. What Tivo is is a PVR that is in use across a wide spectrum of the US community, which is exactly what you want a sample of the community to be. You can’t seriously expect them to hold a referendum.
other than the flawed grammar, this statement of yours is potentially very misleading.
That quote is from my previous post, and you are fully aware I meant online, streaming, recorded via their PVR (in this case Tivo), stop nitpicking.
i would hardly categorise paying a basic subscription fee for TV programming schedules as “consumers willing to pay for content”.
The basic subscription cost is the cost of obtaining the customers local programming for free to air broadcasts, the Tivo can however act as the PVR for cable networks on online subscriptions. This adds to the basic cost, and what is being referred to when the article stats a user has Hulu or Netflix. But you probably knew that already and choose to ignore it right?
how is that different to any other industry?
What other industry, and I mean industry as a whole not just Coles not stocking a certain brand of something, does this?
“some sort of penalty system” will always be justified as long as the law is being broken as it is presently.
Really Captain Obvious? I don’t believe anyone is arguing against that, I believe what was being argued is that the current system needs to be changed to suit a distribution model that the consumer wants so that they will be pushed to buy, or did you miss the entire point of the article?
“In any case, arguably consumer opinion has been well and truly voiced by way of the widespread piracy that takes place over Australian ISP networks every secxond fo every day.”
When I have to go to the extremes of potentially obtaining a US itunes account and potentially buying US itunes store gift cards, so I can potentially legally buy (in the US) content that I cannot even physically buy here, such as DVD or Bluray, let alone electronically, I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest there is a fundamental problem with the Rights Holders archaic distribution models.
The Rights Holders have brought this upon themselves. When you cannot even legally obtain content in Australia, that is readily available in other countries, you have to start asking who the enemy actually is.
It’s not the consumer. We. Spend. Money. Lots of it. Every year. We’re not the enemy. We’re just the dumb schmucks easily demonised by the MPAA, RIAA for being bad, simply to justify their existence.
The entire Rights holder debate and demands for action are a desperate action of a group of people desperate to retain their archaic sales models and percentage cuts.
billy is a government shill. that much is clear. he is one of the parasites that have to be sacked
SOPA-PIPA
INTERNET KILLSWITCH….believe it people.
this could happen here too
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act
I’m surprised they had a meeting at all. I thought most of this business was done on the golf course with only the elite stakeholders being invited. Certainly us plebs would never be there.
I’d give a toss if this was the Swedish or German Pirate Party, but we’re talking about a bunch of folks who (three years on) still haven’t worked out how to register their party.
Being a political party means offering a choice at election time, not using a popular international meme for personal purposes.
You know you’ve entered bizzaro-world when both the government and the companies selling what people are trying to buy are ignoring the consumers completely.
The content producers have to use the money-grubbing distributors because it’s the only way to get their content out there and make a living.
The goverment panders to the money-grubbers because they believe they can buy more votes with advertising than they can by actually making the people happy.
The above is probably true because the major news media outlets are at best too inept, or at worst too corrupt, to provide a real picture to the public.
The distributors are the power of greed in the middle. They extort the public, use the money to pay off the government(s) and get increasingly broad laws to protect the copyright they buy off the producers.
For the consumer it’s truly become a monopoly where people are forced to either buy things with ridiculous restrictions and no alternative avenue for purchase, or download them illegally.
I can think of only 2 ways out of the cycle:
– the internet becomes truly universal, meaning everybody who votes will have free access to news both unbias and bias in different directions, and will have the means to get content direct from the producers
– the government dramatically increases the ABC’s funding, turning it into a true power in journalism and public accountability, similar to the BBC’s role in the UK. Although I think it’s much too late for this to work or even happen.
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