Author: Trichordist Editor

Trichordist Editor

Is The Piracy Threat Really Decreasing?

Flat or declining revenues at major media companies like Sony and Viacom is contrary to recent reports that digital piracy is declining.

Guest post by Robert Steele

Recently, there has been a lot of discussion surrounding a few articles suggesting that online piracy is decreasing.  From where I sit that is not the case.  I am the Chief Technology Officer and Chief Operating Officer of a company that helps monetize copyrighted intellectual property (IP) for the artists and holders of copyrights.

A brief overview of the public filings of Viacom and Sony, two major players in the production and distribution of copyrighted intellectual property shows that one has no growth over 3 years and the other has declining revenues. In fact, Moody’s recently expressed concern that Sony will be unable to maintain future profitability and has downgraded the Company’s debt rating to “junk” status. Due to various external circumstances including “rapid changes in technology”, Moody’s announced that it would be difficult for Sony to improve their financial position in the near-term

Much of the claims that piracy is declining are based on a new report published by Sandvine,  To get our levels set correctly here, Sandvine is a Canadian company, which as it ends up, makes software to assist ISPs to “shape” i.e. control, BitTorrent traffic.  BitTorrent is the primary tool for file sharing and pirating content online.  This report declares that “Filesharing now accounts for less than 10% of total daily traffic in North America”  This has been widely touted in various blogs as a decrease in piracy.  Specifically, the report states that during the second half of 2013, filesharing’s share of aggregate peak-period traffic in North America (not worldwide) fell to 8.93% from 10.5%. This data is being shown as proof that the proliferation of legal services that distribute copyrighted content such as Spotify, Netflix, YouTube, are helping to combat the fight against piracy.

If we had written a narrative regarding the same data, we would have stated that BitTorrent piracy grew by data volume during the period.  Since Sandvine’s clients are ISPs, they don’t want to highlight this embarrassing fact about how their clients are harming companies like Sony and Viacom, so they feature the statistics that paint their client’s in the best light. 

In regards to their narrative on their findings we see problems with the report–all of which should cause companies, investors and owners of copyrighted IP to be skeptical of any optimism about the decline of online piracy. Among them:

1) The report estimates that total traffic from the first half of 2013 to the second half of 2013 increased 20-30%.  This means that the total amount of data used for filesharing increased.  The 8.93% of internet traffic in the second half of 2013 is more movies, music and video games consumed illegally than the 10.5% indicated in the first half of 2013 because the overall “pie” grew by 20% to 30%.

2) The report shows BitTorrent’s share of total Internet traffic increased, as did total volume of BitTorrent traffic, everywhere else they measure–Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America (as it has in every report published).

3) The narrative does not take into account the increase use of VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) or proxies increasingly used by BitTorrent users to “mask” where their traffic is coming from. SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) traffic, used by VPN services, more than doubled in the past year (as reported by Sandvine).  They include data on VPN usage but leave that out of their analysis on filesharing.

4) We believe that the report is misleading when it states “Long are the days when filesharing accounted for over 31% total daily traffic, as we had revealed in our 2008 report.”  The total amount of fixed data transferred on the internet grew by more than 310% between 2008 and 2012 from 9,927 Petabytes per month to 31,388 Petabytles per month.  We are still waiting for total 2013 internet traffic totals.  So 8.93% of internet traffic in 2012 used for filesharing is a lot more music and movies files than 31% of internet traffic in 2008.

4) The report hinges its filesharing debate solely on public BitTorrent, ignoring the rise in popularity of “dark nets” including Tor and other encrypted digital lockers used for online piracy.

5) Despite the increase in total traffic, U.S. digital track sales decreased for the first time ever in 2013, dropping from 1.34 billion to 1.26 billion, according to Nielsen SoundScan. CD sales also declined, dropping 14% to 165 million.

The data provided by Sandvine says nothing about the number of files share, or the number of files shared per person. That is the information that matters, and what we attempt to solve everyday at Rightscorp.

Ignoring all the other factors, this is reason alone to question the claim that “piracy is decreasing”.

VPNs and Proxies

US BitTorrent users are becoming more savvy and turning to VPNs to mask their traffic from their ISP. It has been shown that this method is effective in avoiding piracy lawsuits and strikes. TorrentFreak, a popular piracy blog, reports “a majority” of BitTorrent users are turning to VPNs.

The results in the Sandvine report show that SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) traffic, used by VPN services, has increased significantly over the last report, more than doubling from 2.5% to 5.4% of total traffic. Since actual traffic has increased even more, the true usage of VPNs could be significantly more.

As TorrentFreak pointed out

“This increase in VPN use also means that the actual percentage of BitTorrent traffic is even higher, since the Sandvine report puts the traffic generated by these users in the SSL category.”

Other Piracy Channels

The metric Sandvine uses for all “piracy” is BitTorrent. This is flawed, as recently many pirates have been abandoning torrent-based peer-to-peer file sharing, partially because there are many other ways available to share material.

“Dark nets” such as Tor and other encrypted digital lockers have experienced an exponential growth in number of users in recent months. Particularly following the attention drawn to them by the Edward Snowden case. Other popular anonymous networks including I2P, and Freenet have combined to more than double in size in the past year.

The limitations in Sandvine’s tracking data for anonymous networks such as Tor suggest that the report is missing one of the fast growing segments of the piracy market.

What Does This Mean?

Well, to be frank, piracy is not decreasing, and investors should be skeptical about reports stating that it is. On the contrary, there are many reasons to believe that it is in fact on the rise. Artists are still unable to properly monetize their copyrights.

Hopefully, with services, including our own at Rightscorp (RIHT), artists will be able to protect what is theirs. Additionally, Rightscorp has been successful at getting VPN companies to adopt its copyright monetization services to discourage misuse of VPN services.

The cultural acceptance of piracy–particularly with young people–creates a lot of media incentives to mask the consequences of this system. It also leads to optimistic reports like the one above.

by Trichordist Editor

Google pretends to care about human rights | Vox Indie

It’s not the message, but the messenger–a hypocrite to its very corporate core.  If Google as a company truly believed in “human rights” why does it continue to disregard the rights of artists at every turn?  Perhaps those who doodle for Google might want to review the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 27, paragraph 2) which includes this passage:

(2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

Why is Google so keen on “fair play” and the rights of athletes to compete, but when it comes to artists, not so much?

READ THE FULL STORY AT VOX INDIE:
http://voxindie.org/google-lgbt-olympic-doodle-opportunism

by Trichordist Editor

Washington Turned a Deaf Ear to Artists’ Rights Until One Guy Wrote The Words “I Respect Music” on an Index Card and Showed It to the World | Digital Journal

The Washington beltway turned a deaf ear to artists’ rights until one guy, one activist, wrote the words “I Respect Music” on an index card and showed it to the world.

Now, thousands upon thousands of music makers and music lovers are standing together and making history by adding their names to a petition that is not only shaking up the music world, it’s shaking up Congress.

To sign the petition, please visit http://www.irespectmusic.org.
#irespectmusic

READ THE FULL STORY DIGITAL JOURNAL:
http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/1729302

by Trichordist Editor

Jean Michel Jarre: ‘Artists are the collateral damage of the tech giants’ | The Guardian UK

The ‘monsters’ of Google, Facebook and the tech giants need to work with musicians, the electronic music star said, to develop new ways of protecting creative property.

Jean Michel Jarre has called on music artists to work with the world’s most powerful technology companies, urging them to explore new ways of making money for their work.

“We are the people creating the future – not manufacturers of computers or cables. We are the extraordinary,” Jarre told the Guardian. “[The lack of enforcement of] intellectual property is not just a problem for artists from Europe and America – it’s a global problem . It’s one of the strongest elements of what democracy is all about.”

READ THE FULL STORY AT THE GUARDIAN UK:
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/05/jean-michel-jarre-smartphone-google-creators

RELATED:

Google, Advertising, Money and Piracy. A History of Wrongdoing Exposed.

Two Simple Facts about Technology and Piracy : iTunes Vs. YouTube

If the Internet is working for Musicians, Why aren’t more Musicians Working Professionally?

by Trichordist Editor

The Music Industry’s YouTube Problem | Music Ally

“Google are not music people, and that scares me.” This single quote from Colin Daniels, of Australian independent music firm Inertia, summarised a whole conference worth of anti-Google unrest at this year’s Midem, which spilled over onto YouTube too.

Whenever a YouTube exec appeared in a panel session, they were put on the defensive about the company’s approach to music and creators, often by pointed questions from audience members – and on one occasion, angry heckling.

After the last year of Spotify taking constant flak over streaming’s value to artists, at Midem that company was being praised – “everyone there are music people,” said Daniels before making his Google comment in a session on indie label strategies – while YouTube (and, more surprisingly, Facebook) were being attacked.

Music good, Big Tech evil. We’ve been writing about this clash for years now, but it was more open and more emotional than we remember at any previous Midem. Yet we also found a more positive, if challenging takeaway from this year’s conference: the music industry can shed its victim status and make these Big Tech platforms work better for rightsholders and creators.

READ THE FULL STORY AT MUSIC ALLY:
http://musically.com/2014/02/07/music-allys-midem-recap-the-music-industrys-youtube-problem/

RELATED:

Meet the New Boss: Google’s Kent Walker Shows Us What Monopoly Looks Like

Kent Walker’s Grooveshark Problem

Worshiping the Great God Scale: Google’s Four Great Lies as read to you by Kent Walker

by Trichordist Editor

Music Thievery Laid Bare : When Pirates Rip Off Working Class Artists : Guest Post by David Cloyd

The naked truth of how music piracy hurts working class artists

Let’s face it. “Piracy” is a loaded word. As Captain Phillips played in theatres last fall, the word “pirate” found itself in a very different context than it did right after any of the Pirates Of The Caribbean movies. Real-life pirates aren’t funny, quirky, eccentric characters based on Keith Richards. They’re terrifying criminals with a desperate bottom line. And while a lot of people may enjoy dressing up as Captain Jack Sparrow for Halloween, nobody wants to be mistaken for an actual Somali pirate.

So maybe it’s time we all took a second look at “music piracy.”

Defined typically as an act of robbery or criminal violence at sea, “piracy” was initially used as slang for copyright infringement because the “pirates” in question were trying to profit from the crime by reselling the product. As the recording industry evolved beyond vinyl, it became much easier for music to be copied for personal enjoyment, and as federal legislation dictated, a mandatory fee was tacked on to the price of blank audio to help account for the loss. What’s more, copying music—or anything else—came at a substantial loss of quality.

But with the birth of digital music, the Internet, peer-to-peer networks, and now the behemoth of social media, there is no such safety net. Digital copies don’t require a physical copy and are indistinguishable from the originals. Coupled with the fact that most people today listen to music on computers instead of stereo systems, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that even major radio stations play low-quality mp3s without anyone noticing.

When the “pirate” station Radio Caroline hit the airwaves in the UK in 1964, it did so with the rebellious attitude of rock n’ roll. They broadcast from a Danish ship just outside English territorial waters, but the metaphor stops there. Their self-perceived purpose was much closer to Robin Hood’s—to steal from the rich (circumvent the monopolies of popular broadcasting) and give to the poor (supply the people with great music from great artists they wouldn’t have heard otherwise). They were the rebel alliance, a small band of freedom fighters mounting a hopeless attack against a domineering and impenetrable station.

In a similar fashion, today’s exuberant supporters of “music piracy” are not advocating profiteering at the expense of artists and musicians. Today’s “pirates” see themselves as modern-day Robin Hoods, fighting against corporate greed and the tyranny of the big bad music industry. They are fighting for a perceived right to access music and share it with their friends in the same way they share every other aspect of their daily lives. Their lives aren’t analog anymore—they’re digital, and for them, digital means free.

Sadly, today’s pirates may act the irreverent hero and plead the helpless victim, but in fact, they play only the hapless villain. In their minds they’re valiantly battling the same big bad corporate music industry, and though they’ve wounded their sworn enemy in a way pirate radio could have only dreamed of, the collateral damage for artists is just as bad.

To make matters worse, while these same so-called pirates are each saving the price of a few coffees at Starbucks each month, they’re unintentionally aiding and abetting a global army of parasitic digital King Johns who are collectively making billions each year by stealing from the rich and the poor—opportunistic vultures circling the battlefield, feeding on the dreams of digital freedom, and biting every single hand that feeds them.

Pirate radio wanted to make a point. These new King Johns—the true pirates of today’s music world— only want to make a profit.

In my life as a musician, I have encountered these true pirates myself. During my time with ECR Music Group over the past six years, I have worked together with the other artists on the label doing something that most musicians today have to do: everything. By and large we do all of our own marketing and promotion in house, and so every day we all collectively roll up our sleeves and just get it done. One thing that I used to do was deliver cease and desist messages to bit torrent sites to take down our music, something that our system of Google alerts still brings to our attention daily. But after a bit torrent site ate my hard drive a few years ago, we reevaluated the importance of this effort and decided that the cost far outweighed the altruism, and it didn’t stop the pirates from making a single cent of their advertising profits.

So “piracy” might not be the best word to describe what’s going on with music anymore—and perhaps it never was. Maybe it’s time for a new generation of music pirates to reclaim the word and take it back to its rock n’ roll roots . . . People of all ages who rebel against the powers that be, rather than mimic them and hide behind a thin veil of approval . . . Real-life Robin Hoods that can distinguish challenging unjust authority from simple petty thievery…

People who understand that free always has a price, and freedom always has a cost.

As artists, it is our responsibility to lead the way, and as a part of a record label where the artists run the asylum, I live that pledge every day.

Do I respect music? Arrrrrrrrrr, I do, matey.

#IRespectMusic

http://www.irespectmusic.org

MORE ABOUT DAVID CLOYD:
http://www.ecrmusicgroup.com/artists/david-cloyd/

david-cloyd-i-respect-music-2014-01

by Trichordist Editor

The Beastie Boys Fight for Your Rights : Guest Post by East Bay Ray

[An update. The corporation Intuit sponsored a competition for small businesses to get a Super Bowl ad and awarded it to GoldieBlox, despite the company being invovled in a lawsuit for doing something that violated the contest’s own rules. What kind of message does that send?]

First, we have the Supreme Court ruling that corporations are people. Now, with a recent dispute between toymaker Goldieblox Inc. and the Beastie Boys we have a corporation — in the fine tradition of the Dred Scott decision — attempting to justify the exploitation of people’s work for the benefit of a business.

The reasoning Goldieblox, Inc. — which hijacked the Beastie Boys’ song “Girls” in a recent promotional video — uses to justify economic exploitation is right out of the book 1984: in the name of the greater “common good” (and to make even bigger profits), an individual’s autonomy is not important. To paraphrase George Orwell, Exploitation is Innovation.

There are some legal commentators who try to contend that the Goldieblox ad is not primarily aimed at advertising a product but “spreading” the company’s message that “traditional girl toys aren’t all that great for modern girls.”

Somehow that makes economic exploitation okay.

Well, looking past their doublethink, “a commercial ad is not an ad,” the video was, bottom line, to advertise the brand Goldieblox, Inc., a for-profit company. Whatever other message the ad has isn’t relevant. Just because you claim the message is positive, you don’t have to ask? Who decides if it’s a positive message or not? What if a company like Walmart wanted to use someone’s work without compensation to promote their “message,” would that be okay too? What is so hard about asking permission first? It’s the human thing to do.

What some are advocating here is ultimately nothing less than the violation of a basic human right everyone has: the right to the material and moral benefit in work you’ve created. The authors of the Slate article seem to have no problem that people are to work while others get rich off that labor. Why not at least demand that Goldieblox pay the Beastie Boys a share of the company’s profits? Or is treating people like sweatshop peasants, framed as “innovation” in true 1984-style, just too important a “social value” that it overrides people’s rights? Maybe it’s of value for a corporation, but absolutely not for human beings. Think about it, how can you be free if they take away your right to say “No”? Or take away your right to share in income you produce?

This is not just a problem for artists. From the viewpoint of many Internet companies, your personal information and photos are the same as the Beastie Boys music. If it draws eyeballs then corporations can use it without your consent to get rich selling advertising, like your Instagram photos, your Facebook profile, etc.

What’s happening to musicians will happen to you. Anyone who wants internet business executives to step up and treat us all as humans, stand up and say, “I am the Beastie Boys.”

###

East Bay Ray Img_8808s2East Bay Ray is the guitarist and co-founder of the band Dead Kennedys. He serves on the advisory board of the the Content Creators Coalition, an artists rights organization that enables people who create content — recording artists, songwriters, journalists, filmmakers, producers, photographers, visual artists, and performers — to join together and gain fair treatment from those who profit from their work.

The Content Creators Coalition link is http://www.contentcreatorscoalition.org/

.

.

RELATED:

Goldie Blox – SPIN’s 2013 Hall of Shame | SPIN

Beasties Countersue GoldieBlox–GoldieBlox brings in Google Books Lawyer

Shut Up and Sing: Goldiblox Shows Silicon Valley’s Latest Strategy to Intimidate Songwriters

by Trichordist Editor

Jean Michel Jarre: ‘Don’t forget that us creators are the smart part in a smart phone | MTP

by Helienne Lindvall

At this week’s Midem music conference in Cannes, France, I sat down with electronic music pioneer Jean Michel Jarre, whose career as an artist and composer is now in its fifth decade, having broken through internationally with his groundbreaking Oxygene album in 1976. Last year, he took over the presidency of CISAC, the global body for authors’ societies, after the previous president, Robin Gibb, passed away – and so his Midem “visionary talk” went under the headline Fair Share for Creators.

Jarre:

“We should never forget that in the smartphone, the smart part is us creators. If you get rid of music, images, videos, words and literature from the smartphone, you just have a simple phone that would be worth about $50. Let’s accept that there’s a lot of innovation in the smartphone, so let’s add $100 for this innovation – the remaining $300-$400 of the price should go to us.

So we should sit down and talk to all the telephone companies and computer companies selling hardware, the companies carrying the content on the internet, such as Facebook and Google. We need each other, so at the end of the day we have to find the right partnership. We are talking about a business partnership, not a tax, and this shouldn’t affect the consumer.”

READ THE FULL INTERVIEW AT MUSIC TECHNOLOGY POLICY:
http://musictechpolicy.wordpress.com/2014/02/05/jean-michel-jarre-dont-forget-that-us-creators-are-the-smart-part-in-a-smartphone-by-helienne-lindvall/

by Trichordist Editor