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Music Government Media The Courts Your Rights Online News

BPI Threaten Uploaders With Legal Action 29

Posted by timothy from the and-this-was-unexpected-in-what-way dept.
rizole writes "Following the RIAA, ARIA and more recently the CRIA, the BPI (British Phonographic Industry) intend warning 'serial uploaders' that they risk court action if they continue their activities. The BPI has announced a new 'instant messaging' campaign to warn offenders and quotes research that indicates that downloaders spending on albums was down 32%, and spending on singles was down 59% over the previous year. All the best U.S. trends get exported to the UK."
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BPI Threaten Uploaders With Legal Action More

BPI Threaten Uploaders With Legal Action

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  • I hate to admit this (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    When I first read the headline I thought it said British Pornographic Industry. And I was wondering what albums had to do with page 3.

  • UK singles down...because they're lousy value (Score:3, Informative)

    by rklrkl ( 554527 ) on Thursday March 25, 2004 @05:57PM (#8672935) Homepage
    Let me see - 2 or 3 tracks for 3.99 pounds ($7) on a UK CD single. Oh, sorry, 2 or 3 discs per single, so that's anything up to 12 pounds ($20) for a UK CD single ! Any wonder why UK CD singles sales are down ? In the early 90's, you could get an 8 track UK CD single for 99p ($1.80) - 10 years later and the price has multiplied by a factor of 12 !

    • Clearly you don't read the same econ texts. (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      People need entertainment. And since they know they're a monopoly they should be able to raise prices with impunity while having only a modest effect on sales. It's not like they're competing with other companies for entertainment dollars, they're the only ones allowed to sell music.

      Oh wait. You might be reading the same econ texts. You're just not subscribing to the same fallacious set of assumptions. Clever rabbit, Brits are for Tricks.

      Also, over ten years, given the rate of inflation, prices shoul
  • Did anyone else misread that the first time?

  • I download music, I know i am riping off the artists, the labels, the stores and my ISP (bandwidth).

    And do you know why I do it, because if I can save a few pounds, with no chance of getting caught. Not because CDs are expensive; not because its more convenient.

    I just don't give a fuck.

    • Re:May I be frank. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by a whoabot ( 706122 )
      Cool. The model has raised a mass that cares only about consumption: totally immoral, so that they can just spend more and more money. Then, they expect people to not share music because "stealing is bad"? That's ridiculous. They raised consumption-happy people, now they have to deal with the implosion.
      • Stealing is bad, copying bits isn't stealing, it's copying. Big difference.

        Copyright infringement isn't theft. Can you steal an idea? No the person that had it still has the full right and ability to use it. You can however copy an idea. Same idea just the propaganda from your sources of information have warped your brain.

        Copying a page in a magazine is no more theft than copying a music track. It's about fucking time the music industry changes. $18 for a CD that costs $0.05 to manufacture?

        Fuck'em. BTW M
        • Oh, I know it's not stealing. That's just in my quote: that's what they say.
        • Further response, now that I think about it more.

          "Same idea just the propaganda from your sources of information have warped your brain."

          What warping? What progaghanda, and what sources? How does this comment make any sense? Read what I wrote very carefully, perhaps?

  • Reap what you sow (Score:4, Informative)

    by DrSkwid ( 118965 ) on Thursday March 25, 2004 @06:43PM (#8673601) Journal
    A few snippets from the archives

    Lest we forget

    http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,38103, 00 .html
    Aug. 08, 2000

    Twenty-eight states filed suit Tuesday against the five biggest record companies and two music retailing giants, accusing them of conspiring to fix CD prices.

    "This illegal action by record companies and retailers has not been music to the ears of the public," New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said in a statement. "Because of these conspiracies, tens of millions of consumers paid inflated prices to buy CDs of artists including Santana, Whitney Houston, Madonna, and Eric Clapton."

    Tuesday, 12 June, 2001, 12:33 GMT 13:33 UK

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1384638.stm

    EU opens online music probe

    Mario Monti: 'A number of issues merit close attention'
    The European Competition Commission has decided to investigate two online music ventures, set up by leading players in the music industry.

    The two ventures being probed are MusicNet - to be launched later this year by AOL Time Warner, Bertelsmann and EMI - and a service formerly known as Duet.

    Duet is a collaboration between 0Vivendi Universal and Sony, and was renamed Pressplay on Monday.

    Monday, 23 July, 2001
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1452686. stm

    Vivendi profits surge 53%

    Tuesday, 31 July, 2001,

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1467198.stm

    Music giants face price-fix charge

    AOL Time Warner and Vivendi Universal have been charged by the US Federal Trade Commission with conspiring to fix prices of audio and video recordings of concerts by the Three Tenors.

    AOL has reached a settlement with the FTC, while the case against Vivendi will be the subject of a hearing, the US regulator said.

  • Downloader's spending?!? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by El ( 94934 ) on Thursday March 25, 2004 @06:56PM (#8673748)
    How exactly did the statisticians determine which of the people not buying albums were downloaders? Or which of the downloaders were not buying albums? If there are 32% fewer downloaders, then could that result in downloaders spending 32% less? Apparently there are lies, damn lies, statistics... and then there are BPI claims.

  • hmm where to start (Score:3, Insightful)

    by real_smiff ( 611054 ) on Thursday March 25, 2004 @06:59PM (#8673776)
    "All the best U.S. trends get exported to the UK."

    and so does the best FUD

    "seven million people in Britain steal music..." (it's not.. you know the argument. + if so many are doing it, maybe the law needs some reworking)

    "downloading music from illegal sites" (no they're downloading from networks, peers, and the networks are legal. just makes the geek in me cringe when journalists do this)

    "There is no clearer evidence of the damage that illegal downloading is doing to British music and the British music industry" (has this been proven yet? Is it just bad for for the BPI or is it bad for British Music - there's a huge difference in scope there!)

    "The illegal downloaders tend to go for the most popular artists, but in the long term unknown artists will lose out because record companies will not have the money to invest in new artists." (very very unproven - i've found lots of new music that i couldn't buy, because i wouldn't know about it, if it weren't for free file trading).

    and remember the final FUD point (assuming this is the same as in America) they don't get you for downloading! it's uploading. this is the big one to try to scare people off. though of course, not sharing ruins the network ultimately.

    "They are more likely to live in London and the South-East where internet broadband connections have taken off more quickly than in other regions." (so they are more likely to be rich.. so they are not cheap, they are more likely to buy your music if you sort your act out).

    Now a few questions I want to ask:

      1. Which networks are they monitoring? How are they deciding who to go after and who to ignore?
    (this is the part where i want to save my own ass getting sued).

    finally: "allows tracks to be bought over the internet for less than 1 pound each." That's nearly TWO dollars at the current exchange. get the h*ll outta here! a dollar is already too much and too little for artists; rip-off Britain strikes again!

    wow my largest post ever. yeah, i love music.

    • A few comments of my own

      "seven million people in Britain steal music..." (it's not.. you know the argument

      All the articles I've seen look like they're based on a press release from the BPI. Sadly, downloaders don't have a unified voice.

      "downloading music from illegal sites" (no they're downloading from networks, peers, and the networks are legal.

      I get the feeling that most journalists don't quite get the internet. Web and Internet seem to be used interchangably.

      but in the long term unknown
    • and remember the final FUD point (assuming this is the same as in America) they don't get you for downloading! it's uploading. this is the big one to try to scare people off. though of course, not sharing ruins the network ultimately.

      And they can't even get that right. No one is uploading. Really, no one. They are passively serving to those who download from them. To cast them as uploaders is to make them look like they're actively sharing music when many don't even realize that their P2P software aut
  • Threatening who? Uploaders? Who is uploading? There are downloaders and people who serve files to downloaders, but hardly anyone uploads.

    Downloading is pulling. Uploading is pushing. One does not imply the other; they exist separately.

  • Illegal IM Campaign (Score:3, Interesting)

    by DrPepper ( 23664 ) on Friday March 26, 2004 @04:35AM (#8677652)
    I do hope that they got all those people to opt-in to receiving message from them. Under the new Electronic Privacy and Communcations Act (2003) I believe what they are proposing would count as unsolicited electronic communications. Anyone who receives one of these might want to try making a complaint to the Information Comissioner.

  • The usual lies... (Score:2, Informative)

    by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )
    "The illegal downloaders tend to go for the most popular artists, but in the long term unknown artists will lose out because record companies will not have the money to invest in new artists."

    Actually, new artists are required to take out a loan [salon.com], so there isn't really much of an "investment" anyway.

    Most unsigned bands that give away MP3s seem to think it works out in their favor anyway.

    • I drum in un-signed Australian band Way Back When [waybackwhenband.com] and you're right - The only way we're going to be noticed is to get our product out there ourselves (Making our songs freely available on our website). No one's out there to help un-signed bands - We, like many thousands of other bands, are doing it tough trying to be discovered and supported. It's a fight to survive - Even big name bands are being cheated by the Industry - it's messed up and needs to be revolutionised (How much longer will this take?).
      • Nice web site. I'm downloading a few tracks now. I love finding bands this way.

        There didn't seem to be a link to donate or buy CDs on your site. Did I just miss it?
        • Thanks, I do the site myself too. No you didn't miss it - I should knock up an order form. How would you suggest we have a donate link? All the services I've checked out charge a % which make it hardly worth while (because the majority of any small donation is taken by the service). Until I've published order details, please email us and we can arrange payment/a CD to get out to you. :) Cheers.

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