European Music Industry Fails to Crush Equitable Solutions

European Music Industry Fails to Crush Equitable Solutions

European Music Industry Fails to Crush Equitable Solutions

What's the best way to get Record Industry lobbyists to work on the weekends? Release a draft government report – see paragraph 9 – that points out that “criminalizing consumers so as to combat digital piracy is not the right solution,” and suggests that the best way to deal with the challenges emerging from intellectual property use on the internet is to “invite all those active in the sector to join forces and seek solutions equitable to all.”
That was the conclusion of a draft report issued by EU Parliament Member Guy Bono on ways to increase culture and creativity in the European Union. Needless to say, the reaction of the international recording industry was swift. The IFPI, a group that represents the recording industry, proposed an alternative approach. The IFPI made its position clear: the best way to combat piracy is to have ISPs constantly police everything that users ever do on the network. Additionally, the IFPI suggested that the most equitable solution to these emerging challenges would be to further extend copyright terms.
Fortunately, the EU was not convinced that locking up culture while locking down networks was the best way to start a search for solutions. This week, both of the IFPI amendments were voted down in committee. The EU embraced dialog between all interested parties. In doing so, it turned its back on terms dictated from big content owners.
There may be a lesson here for US content holders and ISPs. Earlier this month, NBC, AT&T, and Microsoft discussed the possibility of ISP level content filtering. This type of filtering could be very similar to the proposals made by the IFPI in the EU. Since this story broke, a number of commentators have pointed out that this type of filtering could be massively problematic for ISPs. First, it could open ISPs up to billions of dollars of liability. Second, it would require a massive invasion of privacy. Third, if the history of technology has taught us anything, it is that the most determined people will be able to evade any filters that an ISP might put up. In other words it won't work to stop dedicated pirates, but it might block the picture of your vacation you are sending to your mom.
Of course, it is unlikely that either the US Government or the US ISPs will look to the EU for guidance on anything, and especially not on intellectual property policy. However it can give us hope that some government, somewhere, considers equitable solutions to intellectual property disputes a goal worth working for.