NBN “disastrous” for piracy, claims music industry

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news Australia’s peak music industry organisation has claimed that the rollout of the National Broadband Network could have “disastrous results” for the local music industry due to the lack of “graduated response” or “site blocking” processes to stop the “serious problem” of Internet-based piracy of music.

This week the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry released its annual report card on the global music industry. The report was broadly positive, finding that global recorded music revenues were up 0.3 percent in general, “boosted by downloads, subscription and other channels”. Digital revenues in particular were up nine percent, with “major music services” now open in more than 100 markets.

“The global recorded music industry is on a path to recovery, fuelled by licensed digital music services and rapid expansion into new markets internationally,” IFPI said in a statement. Frances Moore, chief executive of IFPI added: “It is hard to remember a year for the recording industry that has begun with such a palpable buzz in the air. These are hard-won successes for an industry that has innovated, battled and transformed itself over a decade. They show how the music industry has adapted to the internet world, learned how to meet the needs of consumers and monetised the digital marketplace.”

However, the report also stated that more needed to be done to tackle the issue of online music piracy.

“Despite the optimism, key barriers to further growth remain – the biggest being unfair competition from unlicensed music services,” IFPI’s statement said. “Governments have a key role to play in addressing this problem. The key priority remains to secure effective cooperation from intermediaries including advertisers, ISPs and search engines, who have a major influence on levels of copyright infringement.”

Associated with the report was a separate document constituting a “case study” (PDF) with respect to the Australian music industry specifically. As with the global trend, Australians were also adopting more digital music services and purchasing more music online.

“The local recorded music industry experienced its first upwards trend since 2009 with both the quantity of units sold (>42.85%) and overall industry value (>4.03%) increasing in 2012,” the report stated. “This growth can be attributed to the growing demand and consumption of digital music products, which made up 46.29% of the industry’s dollar value in 2012, compared to 36.7% in 2011 and 27.2% in 2010.”

“This digital growth was spurred on by increasing access to new and established digital music download services, particularly via mobile, coupled with the long anticipated introduction of music streaming services into the local market. Music fans down under had patiently watched and waited as various streaming services were established in other territories around the world. However 2012 proved to be the watershed year, as services such as Spotify, Rdio, Deezer, Samsung Music Hub, JB Hi-Fi Now and MOG all entered the Australian market, with further services expected to arrive in 2013.”

However, the report also warned of a darker side to the growth.

“The digital revolution currently underpinning the healthy resurgence of the local industry shows no sign of abating with the continued roll-out of the Federal Government’s National Broadband Network (NBN) in 2013 with 90% of Australia’s population set to have access to high quality broadband internet within the next two years,” the report claimed; although it is not clear where it sourced that statistic from.

“However local rights organisations, including ARIA are concerned that whilst the new NBN opens up endless possibilities for local content industries, if more action isn’t taken by the Government and ISPs to curb piracy levels, the NBN could have disastrous results for the local industry.”

Later in the document, it claimed that digital piracy continued to be a “serious problem” in Australia, threatening investment in artists and further growth of the legitimate online music market, as Australia did not have what the document described as a “graduated” response process, or a process to “facilitate site blocking”.

The document noted that content owners in Australia across a number of areas had collaborated three years ago to seek a common solution to the issue of online piracy through creating a new group, the Australian Content Industry Group (ACIG). The document noted that ACIG had participated in a series of closed door discussions convened by the Attorney-General’s Department into the issue of piracy over the past several years.

The talks have broadly fizzled out, however, and some groups which had participated initially, such as ISP iiNet, have pulled out of the talks. The discussions have been controversial as they have been held behind closed doors, and the department has declined or redacted a number of Freedom of Information requests seeking to ascertain their content. Initially the department blocked consumer representatives from seeking to attend the talks, but relented on that issue after negative press coverage.

The music industry’s Australian case study document further noted: “ACIG participated in the series of roundtables convened by the Federal Attorney General’s Department to find a solution to this serious problem throughout the year. However, the decision by the High Court in the long running iiNet litigation illustrated the inadequacies of the Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) to address online infringement and it became clear that any solution would require amendments to the Act to ensure adequate protection online for creative content owners and those who invest in them.”

It also noted that a number of rights holder organisations had made submissions to the ongoing review of copyright legislation being undertaken by the Australian Law Reform Commission, and also that the music industry was also attempting to address the issue of music piracy by conducting an education campaign in schools entitled ‘Music Matters’.

“As part of the Music in Schools initiative, Music Matters developed an animation to support the ‘Music Count Us In’ program,” the document notes. “‘Music Count Us In’ is a national education campaign which is designed to raise awareness of the importance of music in education. Each year a new song is written for the campaign, by the students and a well-recognised Australian artist (Josh Pyke in 2012). School children around Australia then learn to sing and play the song, culminating in students across the country all performing the song on the same day at exactly the same time.”

The music industry’s claims that piracy is affecting its business are highly contentious and rejected by some segments of the community. For example, discussing the issue in a recent blog post, iiNet used a high-profile report published in February last year to push the argument that the overall global content ecosystem is booming and that content providers should stop trying to stop Internet piracy and instead focus on new business models.

The landmark report was published by Floor64, the publisher of Techdirt, a well-known global media outlet which often focuses on copyright issues in the context of the changing technological landscape.

The report, entitled ‘The Sky is Rising’, uses statistics published by the content industry itself to come to a number of conclusions positive about the future of content monetisation, including the ideas that for consumers, today is “an age of absolute abundance for content”, that for content creators, “it is an age of amazing opportunity”, and that for traditional middlemen, “the Internet represents both a challenge and an opportunity”.

“The sky is not falling; the facts outlined in the report clearly show that things have never been better for rights holders,” wrote iiNet regulatory chief Steve Dalby in a recent blog post, citing examples such as Valve Software, whose Steam online gaming store has been hailed by video game fans for its ease of use and ability to lure players back into the legal world and away from Internet piracy.

“This online digital distribution model is a salutary lesson for other content distributors,” wrote Dalby. “Instead of insisting their non-paying players were pirates and thieves, Valve took the behavior as a marketing failure and addressed it head-on it by adding value.”

opinion/analysis
My personal opinion here is that I am simply flabberghasted at the ignorance shown in this report issued by the IFPI with the support of its Australian partners. I mean, the report itself shows that online channels are growing rapidly and rapidly replacing the traditional revenue models enjoyed by the music industry, a fact which has been true for a decade now after Apple first introduced its iTunes Music Store in April 2003. You’d think the fact that the iTunes store includes some 28 million songs worldwide and makes billions each year would be enough to show that this model works; and that’s not even counting streaming services such as Spotify and Rdio.

But to take the argument one step further and claim that the development of the NBN will have a “disastrous” impact on the music industry — when music files can easily be downloaded over existing broadband infrastructure, or even over dial-up! — is just fear, uncertainty and doubt creation of the highest degree and should be laughed off by any rational individual.

Just how much bandwidth does the IFPI believe is necessary to download a music album? Because I think anyone who used Napster a decade ago would be able to assure the music industry that it’s possible with download speeds measured in the low kbps — you don’t need anywhere near the 12Mbps minimum speeds provided by the NBN, nor is there any reason to expect that piracy would increase to disastrous levels under the NBN. If anything, the current trend shows that more people will buy more music online under the NBN — and there’s even evidence these days showing that piracy of a company’s products can even lead to higher long-term adoption of those products.

Simply incredible that these kinds of claims are still being peddled by the music industry.

68 COMMENTS

  1. LOL just silly really.

    Speeds are already good enough that it takes seconds to download a song faster speeds will have no further impact on music.

    TV and Movies perhaps but they need to provide means to watch content legally before they can complain provide services like netflix and hulu here and piracy will decrease markedly.

    • This is one of the few times I’m in full scale agreement with the NBN fanbois… =)

      Sales, revenue (and profit) are up on the back of a broadening of digital distribution options replacing CD’s from brick and mortars, and yet proliferation of broadband is supposed to cause greater piracy?

      As the software industry has slowly woken up to, the cure for a lot of piracy is providing easy and reasonably priced access services (like Steam hosting games with US equivalent pricing rather than artificially boosted pricing to match local physical locations).

      Of all the things to complain about the NBN, this one is so absurd it really shouldn’t need rebuttal.

      • While many games are very reasonably priced on steam and I’ve spent thousands over the past 8 years on games through steam, it’s worth pointing out that steam does have regional pricing which (I believe) is set by the publishers. Many games are the same price as in the US but some of the big titles are complete ripoffs still.

        Regional price comparisons on some of these rip offs.
        http://www.steamprices.com/au/topripoffs

        Charging Aussies 70%+ more than other regions will definitely push some to pirate that software still. The distribution model is still great and many people pay big money for these games just out of convenience but I still see it as publishers holding onto old practices that don’t belong in this new era of digital distribution.

        • Indeed, and it is important to point out as you already did, that it is the PUBLISHERS and not Steam that are doing this.

          The method for delivery is not he problem, it never has been, the problem as usual is people not wanting to change because it might affect their margins.

  2. Indeed, I bought a pink floyd album off itunes several years back, the entire album took 6 minutes to d/l on adsl2.

    oh 90% of us will have NBN in two years? really? thats news to me, news to NBN, news to the NBN contracted installers, news to the Govt and news to most of us regional residents.

    Speaking of the copyright act, it does need reform, WTF these arseholes get to double dip in things like MOH licencing is beyond me, it needs to be stopped, APRA was original, and should be the only org to deal with.

    • Q: Whats the difference between Pink Floyd and the Recording Industry (Worldwide not just Australian)?

      A: One has a song called Comfortably Numb, the other is just full of people who are Comfortably Dumb

  3. Are piracy rates for music increasing, static or decreasing? Since the arrival in Australia of services like Spotify, I haven’t been at all tempted to download an evaluation copy of a song, why would I when Spotify is so easy, and cheap at $9 / month, with no risk of malware infecting my computer.

    If only TV and Movies could be obtained so conveniently, oh wait they can, if you live in the US.

    • Wait a second

      “Since the arrival in Australia of services like Spotify, I haven’t been at all tempted to download an evaluation copy of a song, why would I when Spotify is so easy, and cheap at $9 / month, with no risk of malware infecting my computer.”

      Malware? From an mp3? I have never in many many years of Linux ISO downloads over P2P networks, seen a malware infected music album linux ISO

      I am not saying it doesn’t happen, but if you do download a music album linux ISO and it contains an .exe as well as an .mp3 and you actually run that .exe you are an idiot.

      Despite the fact it wouldn’t even be there because my anti-virus would scan it as the torrent finishes and scream with indignity and electronic outrage.

      That is not the main thing prompting this reply, the main thing is you are an obvious shill for Spotify, unless your normal writing style is perfect PR prose.

      Nice try, shill for Spotify

      • I think your being a bit harsh, I’m no Shill for Spotify, it’s just the service we use at home. I could just have easily mentioned MOG or any number of similar services, but I haven’t used them myself. I personally don’t like the iTunes store, but it has also provided a good alternative to piracy. As for the malware comment, many people would open an .exe not knowing the risks, I wouldn’t call them idiots, just not tech savy.

      • “music album linux ISO”

        Golden! i’ll have to use that in future!

        The solution to the movie/music industries problems seems so very straight forward (solution not implementation) to anyone who is technically inclined. UPDATE YOUR BUSINESS MODEL

        If they spent half as much investigating new distribution models that they did lobbying/prosecuting they would have their problem solved now. They are just reluctant to:

        A) Spend money developing a new system where they have the same control
        B) Admit they were running an international scam

      • Whilst I agree with you re the malware comment (altho you are probably more discerning than many), the reality is services like spotify and others are exactly want are needed.

        Spotify is simply an example of a service that is working. I am sure there are other services out there as well.

        Anyway, by providing LEGAL means for people to get what they want, they are damaging the pirate streams. Because despite the music industries protestations, most people are happy to pay a fee to get what they want, if they see it as reasonable.

  4. I believe the effect of illegal downloads on the coffers of music industry heavy hitters is grossly overstated. The elephant in the room is that digital technology allows people to share audio files very easily, not in a P2P way but by simply plugging a USB stick into your friends computer and pressing Copy. This cannot be measured or policed and this form of file sharing is huge.

  5. Something odd going on here, Who is behind this report? Seems like it’s got more to do with discrediting the NBN (and thus the current government) than it has to do with the music industry.

    All through the newspapers this morning I can see articles from the music industry claiming how much money they’ve made due to online sales and legal downloads, yet here they are panning the (almost non-existent) NBN.

    • You raise an interesting point Adrian.

      The claim of the NBN ruining the music industry is so ludicrously stupid that you have to question the motives of those who would spout such garbage.

      It could just be topical fearmongering. While we have archaic business models and rich people who are desperate to hold onto those business models, we will have opportunistic scavengers making money from this situation (I wonder how many lawyers have made their millions from RIAA’s actions?).
      In their efforts to ensure that the rich people stay scared these scavengers will throw up anything and hope it sticks…. in this case it might be the NBN.

      On the other hand, I can absolutely see it being a politically motivated attack. This latest Quixotic charge is just too weird to write off, it smells funny.

      • It’s not that surprising.

        Unfortunately it’s the SAME TIRED OLD STORY from (quite frankly) a bunch of self-interested windbags.

        The made EXACTLY the same claim about *every* single consumer-oriented recording technology, EVER.

        Yet despite the incessant “the end is nigh” claims by the RIAA/MPAA and friends, there’s NO SUCH THING as a dead and rotting corpse of the music/movie industries – and it’s been how many years?

    • “Seems like it’s got more to do with discrediting the NBN (and thus the current government) than it has to do with the music industry.”

      Seems so. Perhaps they think malcolms FttN patchwork will be immune from piracy issues… but I hope that is not what they are implying, does this mean it would turn out to be even slower than the ADSL2+ that we already have???

  6. It does not surprise me one bit that they have decided to make these comments.

    If you take into consideration the actions of organisations like IFPI, ARIA, ACIG, RIAA, MPAA, etc. all they are are really interested in doing is trying to maintain old business models in an industry which has changed.

    Rather than spend money to help their members change their business models – they pour money into actions which do nothing to help the situation.

    Considering the majority of “piracy” is done purely because its easier – isn’t that a sign that if you provide an easy, single point of source of online music – and don’t impose silly DRM restrictions music that is purchased AND provide a fair price for the content (by that I mean equal pricing – e.g. everyone around the world should pay the same $US amount for music track/album) – then it stands to reason that the people will use that service over piracy any day of the week.

    You will never truly eliminate piracy – but you can reduce the amount that is done.

    However, the fact these organisations ignore this simple point, combined with them exaggerating the effects of piracy on the industry ( to be honest, if they produced better content and less mass produce crap it will have larger effect), one can only come to one simply conclusion:

    The dumbest people in the industry are working for these organisations.

  7. People say the movie industry should be more like the music industry when it comes to copyright infringement online, looks like we were wrong. They are both as bad as each other, it’s just that the music industry was forced to change because it’s so much easier to download music because of its size. Seems they have forgotten that.

  8. Oh, horseshit.

    And you’ve already brought up the IFPI report I was going to. Ars tech covered it the other day and its clear to see that its business models that have the biggest effect, not speed of connections. Piracy is in decline, because there is legal availability – what I’ve always said, put your product in front of us with a way to pay and you’ll get paid. Refuse to and people will take it anyway, and big media is slowly coming around – music much faster than video. From Ars….

    ‘ “illegal music file sharing declined significantly in 2012” in the US. According to NPD, the number of consumers using P2P services to download music fell 17 percent in 2012. Similarly, it said that the volume of “illegally downloaded music files from P2P services also declined 26 percent.”’

    And “At the beginning of the digital revolution it was common to say that digital was killing music,” Edgar Berger, chief executive of the international arm of Sony Music Entertainment, told the Times. “The reality is that digital is saving music.”

    ARIA seems distinctly behind the 8ball on this compared to the global federation. I wonder how long it will take for em to catch up?

    • Josh Taylor over at ZDnet actually picked up the aussie increase was a lift of 4 percent from the previous year – quite handily beating the 0.3% global! in that light i have to add – i dont know WHAT ARIA is whingeing about. and they are even more out of touch than id thought…..

  9. Report created to substantiate reason for being. The “piracy” drum is great. It frightens content owners. And demonises consumers.

    Digital formats, online distribution, have been demonised as impossible to police and ‘control’. It’s the same FUD and fear peddled over and over again by the mobster ethic so frequently on display from FPI, AFACT, MPAA, etc.

    If you don’t frighten content owners, they won’t pay you. They’ll realise there’s a huge market (that might be a bit scary because business models have to change a bit) that has the potential to generate quite a lot of money.

    Middlemen fighting to retain control of a market they barely understand, using archaic arguments long since disproved.

    Does piracy exist? Sure. There will always be a percentage of any market that wishes to have something, for nothing. However much of the market just wants an easy way to access content. And will happily pay for it.

    It’s increasingly evident it’s the goon squads trying to save their business models, than rights holders alone.

  10. The thing that the music industry doesn’t seem to be able to grasp is… Sales aren’t suffering because of piracy… Sales are suffering because most of the music they have been putting out lately is complete crap… Why would people want to buy garbage?

    • True.

      Even given the option of listening to most current music for free, I have no interest in it. I think that the old business models have grown to a point where they are no longer producing anything worth listening too.

      They don’t discover talent and nurture it, they manufacture images and market them. They know all about business and nothing about music.

    • So true, I rarely listen to anything released in the last 2 decades anymore as it’s about 98% overproduced garbage.

      FWIW im a former dedicated TripleJ listener

      • Most pop music has always been overproduced garbage. Give your “BACK IN MY DAY” outrage a rest.

        It’s just that the stuff that’s really garbage, rarely survives the test of time.

        • I think his point and yours are both valid, while there has always been crappy “pop” music, there’s been a flood of it with “manufactured” music in the last two decades…heck, they can make anything (cat, dog, australian idol) “sing” in tune now days thanks to electronics.

  11. The Music industry (like the other content cartel) need to fix their broken out of date business model and stop complaining about piracy – their own actions/inaction is the number #1 cause of ongoing piracy*!

    *according to OsPoll_2013

  12. ‘These are hard-won successes for an industry that has innovated, battled and transformed itself over a decade. ‘

    Read: we released Gangnam Style and a new Justin Bieber cd.

    • ‘These are hard-won successes for an industry that has innovated, battled and transformed itself over a decade. ‘

      This is the line that stands out to me because it is said with the same flair and idiocy as your typical politician. Claim credit for any success and blame your failures on someone else.

      My take on the last decade is that these companies were dragged kicking and screaming like the most painful of children. They did not innovate; innovation was forced on them and they still don’t see the potential that lies in the digital age. There are some companies that just need to die as society and technology move along – it is a normal process that we embrace in many other areas.

      If they had listened to their customers so many years ago instead of treating them as criminals, just think where they could be today.

  13. Out of date ways of dealing out their product, hold back all technology advances to suit them!

  14. As I recall music industry sales of digital downloads are at all time high and grow every year. At the same time more people pirate music

  15. Ha ha ha ha ha . *sniff*
    Of course they will say that, till the day comes that we give them money for nothing.
    But then they will want more, as it is not enough for them as they always want more. So we’ll have to pay them for what they dream they should be getting from us.
    Oh! Really? You mean they all are already doing that to us?
    Oh dear.

  16. No mention of the licencing issues for broadcasting over the internet, rather than traditional radio waves.

  17. Improvement to highways disastrous for drug trafficking police.

    Actually this example is more extreme than copyright infringement because drug trafficking is actually a crime. Can anyone replace it with a civil infringement example?

  18. From my reading, a number of reports suggest differently…. People buy more not less.

  19. I’m of the opinion that a considerable amount of piracy is still the result of bad business practices that are still prevalent in the industry, and piracy is a way of avoiding those practices (i.e. the pirates are providing better service). The one that really sticks in my craw is this preposterous concept of regional pricing for content that is delivered via downloads. Adobe’s outrageous pricing for Australians is probably the most egregious example, but they’re by no means the only ones. If I recall correctly, Activision were the first to start charging Australians more for content on Steam (at one point they were charging significantly more for the download than they were for the boxed copy), now virtually all the big game publishers charge an “Australia tax” to varying degrees.

    And then there are also those online retailers who just flat-out refuse to sell to Australians. Yeah, I’m looking at you, Amazon MP3. Last year I had to get my sister (who lives in the US) to buy some albums for me because of Amazon’s steadfast refusal to sell mp3s to non-Americans. To add insult to injury, the albums in question were by an Australian artist. Surely I’m not the only one who finds that entire scenario bloody ridiculous?

    • That’s not Amazon’s fault, it’s the distros. Blame the music industry douchebags.

      • I concede that it the fault lies primarily with the copyright holders, but that does not completely absolve Amazon. By failing to negotiate the right to sell to non-US residents, they are effectively endorsing the recording industry’s bad practices.

        • Unfortunately the content industries want those controls in place so that they can continue to charge different prices in different locations.

          Amazon would no doubt prefer to be able to sell to everyone, but they are unable.

          When your choice is Operate to the entire market but have controls in place, or do not operate at all.

          Its pretty obvious the choice.

          Later down the track once the revenue stream is locked in and the content industry don’t want to lose it, then Amazon and other companies can fight back more effectively.

    • Steam, and possibly Adobe, are red herrings. We complain that we are paying twice the price on some AAA and etc titles on Steam, but we don’t complain we are paying ten times the price that Russians can buy games for.

  20. Quite an outrageous claim, as someone who works in the tech sector, deals with the NBN and is also a musician I have to cry bullsh*t.

    As per usual it’s the old school hanging on to the archaic business model trying to squeeze their last dime out of it, who are the most disconnected from the music culture itself… making the most noise about it.

    I always donate a small portion of money I earn to the artists I like and support by buying their music, whether it’s in a digital or physical format. Online indie retailers make this easy, and you know what you are getting when you pay for it (a few bucks isn’t much for an mp3 album.)

    … of course that is if I’m not region blocked.

  21. This is one of the most idiotic, knee jerk statements by any industry I’ve heard in years.

    Piracy was around in the days of twin deck cassette player/stereos.

    Piracy was around in the days of dial up internet.

    Give people an opportunity to consume digital music at a price that reflects the cost to distribute and people will lap it up.

    There will always be those who want something for free regardless of the NBN.

  22. The NBN won’t make any difference LOL, if you have the wherewithall you can do it right now.

    Let’s talk about something serious, such as dragging copyright laws and royalties into the 21st Century ffs!

    • I couldn’t agree more, Copyrights need to be brought back in-line with Patents and only get protection for 10 years MAX – after that they revert to public domain end of story!!!!

  23. Most idiotic, blatantly greedy thing I’ve ever read. And a horrible excuse to delay something that is already far too delayed. I’d imagine america and google fiber would be more of a worry for those people. Why don’t they go bother them.

    Too many arguments getting in the way of Australia’s progress in nation wide technology. I’m sure we’re going to fall behind some 3rd world countries soon. I mean I’m in Canberra and my internet is horrid (max 700 down, 75 up). For the capital of Australia that’s just deplorable.

  24. Treating your customers with contempt “disastrous” for piracy, claims everyone else.

  25. Why are people even listening to these ratbags when they have been proven to be lying or peddling distorted “facts” time and time again.
    In the last few weeks I have purchased (and downloaded high quality FLAC downloads) from bandcamp.com (Yagya and others) and bands own web sites (My Bloody Valentine). this selling direct ethic by the internet ethic would be what the music industry is really running scared of.

    It is notable My Bloody Valentine say “We never got paid a penny for any records we sold in America”.. and had to involve the police in the matter to get their master tapes from Sony – an obvious driving factor in cutting the leaches out of the loop and selling direct to their audience via the internet.

    I propose a 3 strikes rule to protect musicians – any record company accused of ripping of musos from royalties 3 times can have their assets forfeited by said musos as compensation.

  26. I can’t believe they are still in denial about this!

    Increases in speed will have no impact on music piracy what so ever.

    They can’t expect governments to “crack down on piracy” unless they are willing to change some of the pricing and have all the labels staff retrained into new careers.

    That distribution model is dead. Hardly any money went to the artists. If the fans get it for free, but then go out to the live show and buy CDs and t-shirts there, they may have actually spent more money, except more of that money is going back to the talent where it should be.

    I also really like the model some artists are doing – check out Hannah Holley’s “little lady” EP online – you can have it in mp3, FLAC, AAC or other formats and paying starts at a small amount, or you can pay more if you wish (and I did give a bit more actually).

    That’s the future of music – give it to us in a format OF OUR CHOOSING not what’s being forced on us.

  27. They are scared of NBN because any musician would be able to have web site running at home selling they stuff directly

  28. mp3@192kbps ~ 11.5Mbps
    So essentially, the NBN will raise speeds high enough that everyone can stream high quality music 24/7. No one will ever buy any music ever again. And those that go for the top tier of 100Mbps can stream half a dozen songs simultaneously 24/7

  29. I just love the fact that the Herald Sun I think it was, reported word for word that “The NBN will be available to 90% of Australians within 2 years”.

    That single sentence also set the bar for that entire report- made up tripe :)

    • “The NBN will be available to 90% of Australians within 2 years”.

      Well, to the Herald Sun that time is very variable. If it’s an article about bad side effects of having the NBN the rollout accerates. Read another that is complaining about the supposedly slow rollout and it is a different story. I don’t know how that can slaim objective report when there “facts” change to suit the article.

  30. Hilarious! What they are essentially suggesting is the faster your internet, the more illegal music you’ll download, so using their logic we should just stop progress on all future broadband development to save the record industry. In fact I suggest that the government should destroy the NBN, and ban speeds over 12mbps forever.

  31. The music industry hasn’t yet accepted that if it provides the right music at the right price in the right manner then the only people pirating will be those who would never have bought it in the first place.

  32. LOL… I love how the music “industry” is stuck 2 decades behind.

    In 1999 (around, I know it was behind the Y2K thing) I was working in a music store.

    Point 1…. I showed the owners how to grey import from CD now from the US, onsell to customers and make a healthy profit on titles that appeared in no Australian catalogue.

    Point 2…. I amazed them by asking them to name any album. They’d pick something obscure a customer had asked for that wasn’t available via Aust distributors. I would download it overnight via dialup and return it to them on a CDR the next morning.

    Point 3….. The music industry has had at least 2 decades to work on affordable digital distribution without stupid DRM that hurts legitimate purchasers

  33. On the news today, they said researches have developed software that can redict the future news, I thought we already had it, its called a journalist.

  34. Coming into this late after a week or so (happily) away from any PC. The only way I can see this report having any credibility is that the NBN speeds up the download process. At the moment it takes a minute or two to download a song (or less), which leaves a potential footprint for detection. With NBN speeds your going to be grabbing a song in a second or two, making that potential footprint very very small.

    Piracy will still happen. I dont think there’s much that can be done to stop it completely. But services like Spotify show that people are willing to toe the legal line when the options are easily available. If those services continue to grow, the piracy problems the industry sees will really be a storm in a teacup.

    • I don’t see this effecting detection at all. It doesn’t matter if it takes a couple of minutes or half a second, if a record is going to be left then it will still be left. Computers don’t blink.

      • Depends on how they do the detection. If the detection involves linking into the swarm and logging people who connect to you, the longer you’re part of the swarm the more likely you’ll connect to someone logging. So a couple of seconds means you’re far less likely to hit them.

        If the detection is simply going through logs and trying to piece together downloads, then no, its not going to change much. The fingerprint is still there to find. Problem with that is that its easy to figure P2P connections, not so easy to figure out the content. You need to have an idea whats being downloaded before you can make accusations.

        • P2P networks won’t allow people to download songs in a couple of seconds though. They usually take time to establish connections and build up speed. I do still see some merit in your point, just no where near enough to validate the report.. Even though a decent chunk of their business model does seem to be scaring people into out of court settlements.

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