UK ISPs To Pay 25% of Copyright Enforcement Costs 255
Andorin writes "The UK's Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has released a report (PDF) related to the new Digital Economy Act. The debate between copyright holders and ISPs about who should front the costs for the enforcement of the Act's anti-piracy provisions has come to a close: Rights holders will pay 75% of the copyright enforcement costs, with the remaining 25% of the bill going to ISPs (and therefore their customers). Says the Minister for Communications, Ed Vaizey: 'Protecting our valuable creative industries, which have already suffered significant losses as a result of people sharing digital content without paying for it, is at the heart of these measures... We expect the measures will benefit our creative economy by some £200m per year and as rights holders are the main beneficiaries of the system, we believe our decision on costs is proportionate to everyone involved.' Not surprisingly, some ISPs and consumer groups are up in arms about the decision, with one ISP calling it a government subsidy of the entertainment industries."
Thank you for legitimizing bittorrenting (Score:5, Interesting)
This cost will get passed on to the ISP's customers. Everyone with broadband will be required to subsidize the entertainment industry as it pretends to die from losses to piracy while reporting massive profits. If they're forcing me to compensate them for losses based on arbitrary made-up amounts for 'imaginary' lost sales then I will force them to compensate me by giving me free movies & tv shows based on my arbitrarily assigned figures for its value. I think a 2500th of it's retail price (as they like that figure and use it to calculate lawsuit settlements) is fair. I'll be more than happy to bittorrent the equivalent value with my broadband connection.
Re:Thank you for legitimizing bittorrenting (Score:5, Insightful)
.. the entertainment industry as it pretends to die from losses to piracy while reporting massive profits.
Last time I checked they also pretend to not make any money. They may report huge gross income and brag about biggest box office sales ever, but somehow they never make a net profit (even before the days of internet piracy).
Good thing we have all these philanthropists funding the movie industry, because between piracy and films just not being profitable all the big film companies would collapse under a mountain of debt!
Re:Thank you for legitimizing bittorrenting (Score:4, Insightful)
Last time I checked they also pretend to not make any money. They may report huge gross income and brag about biggest box office sales ever, but somehow they never make a net profit (even before the days of internet piracy).
Yeah, it's too bad that Titanic, which cost $200M to make and grossed over $2B worldwide ended up losing $200M. A shame indeed.
Re:Thank you for legitimizing bittorrenting (Score:4, Interesting)
I hope the ISPs bill the monitoring of users at 25% of the cost of enforcement, therefore paying nothing to the RIAA.
Even better, bill it at 50% and ask the RIAA to make up the difference. The RIAA uses the same sort of accounting on artists so it's only fair....
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Re:Thank you for legitimizing bittorrenting (Score:4, Insightful)
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Not if they use reverse "Hollywood Accounting".
That way they ISP will be paying WAY MORE than the 25%.
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It doesn't matter that it's 25% paid for by the ISP and 75% by the content owners it will eventually be 100% passed on to the consumer.
Eh... (Score:4, Insightful)
They instead should have figured it based on how likely the Act would have come into law had the copyright holders not lobbied.
If the answer is "not likely at all", then the copyright holders should foot the bill.
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The Copyright holders probably didn't lobby for anything. It's usually those "organizations that represent the interests of copyright holders" that are involved with the government.
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Nice ethical theory.
Also, welcome to reality, where ethical theory gets bulldozed by "enlightened greed" every time. Because unlike former that can only offer warm and fuzzy feelings, latter pays in cold, hard cash.
Re:Eh... (Score:4, Insightful)
How do you figure? It's something that directly impacts the ability of ISPs to provide customers with the same quality of service for the same cost...while NOT enacting the Act wouldn't affect the ISPs in any way.
This is purely being done in the copyright holders' interest, with zero positive effect for the public or ISPs. Why should one company have to either increase the cost to their customers or reduce their own bottom line because another company had the means to buy a law?
taxation without representation (Score:2)
Re:taxation without representation (Score:4, Insightful)
Corporations should have zero rights. The people INSIDE the corp has all the various right due a human being, but a corporation should have no more rights than a rock or tree or cow.
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Corporations should have zero rights.
Are you saying there is nothing wrong with charging a corporation for something that is none of its business? I'm no corporate sympathizer, but in my mind, that still seems to be a violation of something. What do you call that thing, if not a right? Perhaps it's an "expectation of being treated fairly". Can corporations have an "expectation of being treated fairly"? If so, how does that differ from a ...right?
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>>>Are you saying...
Are you in the habit of using Strawman Arguments? It appears so. Please don't put words in my mouth, or debate strawmen.
I said the people inside the corporation can have rights, like free speech for example. The individual workers inside the ISP are welcome to speak-out against this 25% proposal, as human beings. But not the corporation itself. ----- In other words, there would no such thing as Comcast and RIAA lobbyists wandering the halls of Parliament trying to steal co
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So what you're saying, then, is that UK ISP users should have a say in the total amount of money spent
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If a corp was TRULY treated like a person, then it should got to jail like a regular person does when it kill people etc.
Currently they just pay a fine. They should instead have all of its operations suspended for the duration of "incarceration".
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I think the individuals in the corp should go to jail for an aggregate total of punished time. But the division of how long each person stays in jail is based upon pay, benefits, bonus, and responsibility.
So if someone in the next fuctional area got someone killed, i wouldn't have to be in jail with them. But if i was in their department, my jailtime would be based on my position within that department. The department head would carry the brunt of the punishment, or the CEO/directors if it was policy bei
What do UKers think? (Score:4, Insightful)
'Protecting our valuable creative industries, which have already suffered significant losses as a result of people sharing digital content without paying for it, is at the heart of these measures... We expect the measures will benefit our creative economy by some £200m per year and as rights holders are the main beneficiaries of the system, we believe our decision on costs is proportionate to everyone involved.'
Wow this quote is gold, I am curious how those of the UK will react. Seems a load of tripe to me.
Re:What do UKers think? (Score:5, Informative)
The Government is indirectly subsidizing the Creative industry by taxing the internet industry and giving the taxes to Rights Holders
No they aren't. As a member of Britain's creative industry, and someone who has been a 'victim' of copyright infringement, I doubt I will see a penny of this money. It is a subsidy on the litigation industry, not the creative industry. Those of us who actually do create things are more worried about turning potential customers into real customers than suing people.
Re:What do UKers think? (Score:5, Interesting)
How can we become your customer (I'm a fan of putting my money where my mouth is)?
Re:What do UKers think? (Score:5, Interesting)
You could buy something from this page [informit.com], if you can find something that you find interesting.
I've not tried for a while, but Google used to return a pirate download site as the first hit when you searched for my Xen book's title. Some asshat also decided to post a copy of the PDF version to the Xen Devel mailing list a while ago. I don't encourage piracy, but I don't see the point in doing anything that harms legitimate customers in an attempt to reduce it, which is why I added a clause to the contracts for all of the books that I've written (the third one's due out later this year) forbidding the use of DRM in the eBook editions.
I recently talked to a guy in India who pirated my second book. His family's income for a week is about the cover price (he's using it to learn GNUstep - he can't afford a Mac either) so I've clearly not lost anything from his piracy - he couldn't have afforded it anyway, and he wrote a positive review of it so I might have got some sales out of that.
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Re:What do UKers think? (Score:5, Interesting)
See: RIAA, MPAA, writer's guild,
None of these are producing copyrighted works, they are organisations of lawyers representing the publishers who won't adapt. My publisher is happy to change their business model (see: Safari Books Online, InformIT) when they think it can make them more money. The RIAA and MPAA (and writer's guild, although to a lesser extent) are groups of lawyers who would rather change the world than change themselves.
Richard Stallman and his freakish infectious copyright ideals.
I don't really disagree with Stallman - I've signed a copyright assignment with the FSF for the GNUstep stuff I've done and my (second) Objective-C runtime is a GNU project. Stallman's ideas are quite simple - creating is harder more valuable than copying, so that is what should be financially rewarded. The copyright system exists so that you can do the hard bit (creating something original) for free and then get people to pay you for doing the easy bit (creating copies of it).
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Thanks. I'll be picking up your Xen PDF when I get home.
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Silly customer. You don't eat money!
Sure you do. It's the only way to make sure it ends up in the same place this enforcement money is going to go.
Re:What do UKers think? (Score:4, Interesting)
So you don't mind if we restore copyright to something 10-15 years, then, since the likelyhood your getting paid is almost nil in any case?
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Actually 10-15 years is just fine. Most sales tend to be in the first 1-2 years of release anyway for the vast majority of things. Copyright isn't suppose to be about making sure your kids get an old age pension off some tripe you scribbled off one day.
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It's not the kids though it is. It's the corporations that buy the "rights" to become the "rights holders", and get perpetual income from works. Yes, copyright does have a limit, but we all know when that gets nearer, it'll be bumped up again. Each year we should be getting a new bundle of out of copyright works coming into the public domain, reality is we get nothing.
Elvis died in 1977 IIRC, John Lennon three years later. All their works are under copyright and will be long after my death. Why? They're not
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Re:What do UKers think? (Score:5, Insightful)
fewer people would go into the music business if they had no way of providing for their loved ones if they died an untimely death.
Yup, just like fewer people would go into the janitorial business if they had no way of providing for their loved ones if they died an untimely death.
Or fewer people would go into the plumbing business if they had no way of providing for their loved ones if they died an untimely death.
Or fewer people would go into the lawyer business if they had no way of providing for their loved ones if they died an untimely death.
So - if people won't go into "X" business unless they can guarantee they'll get paid for years after they're dead, how does anything get done?
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30 years seems fair, fewer people would go into the music business if they had no way of providing for their loved ones if they died an untimely death.
How does this sound: Fewer people would go into the "wage slave" business if they had no way of providing for their loved ones if they died an timely death.
Re:What do UKers think? (Score:4, Interesting)
10 years would be fine. My sales drop to close to zero after 3 years, so I doubt it would affect me much, other than by giving my publisher an incentive to commission new stuff more frequently.
This, by the way, is exactly what the Gowers report, commissioned by the last UK government, recommended. Labour extended copyright terms shortly after reading this report. Apparently we're getting more of the same from the ConDems.
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This, by the way, is exactly what the Gowers report, commissioned by the last UK government, recommended. Labour extended copyright terms shortly after reading this report. Apparently we're getting more of the same from the ConDems.
Very true - Labour had their own variation on the old "Yes, Minister" way of dealing with reports.
"Implement the bits you agree with and publicise the fact that you are doing so far and wide. Ignore the bits you don't agree with."
It worked so well I would be astonished if the ConDems don't adopt it themselves.
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10 years would be fine. My sales drop to close to zero after 3 years, so I doubt it would affect me much, other than by giving my publisher an incentive to commission new stuff more frequently.
3 years for you, but not for engineering works (programs). 10 years should still be fine though; XP lasted about that long.
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Re:What do UKers think? (Score:5, Insightful)
As a copyright holder I wouldn't object to a twenty year term (and I have two registered copyrights that would have expired if that were the case), but I object vehemently against the insane lengths of today's copyrights. Having a copyright last longer than a human life hinders and harms creativity. Like science and technology, art is built on what has come before. Imagine how badly technological innovation would be stifled if patents lasted as long as copyrights? These insane lengths help nobody but corporations.
Cory Doctorow credits the fact that anyone can read his books for free, whether hardcover from the library of downloaded from his website, for his status as a New York Times best seller. Nobody has ever been shown to have lost any real money to copyright infringement, but many have been greatly harmed by obscurity.
Ten years is a little short; I wrote a series of journals back in 2003-2005 that I'm just now getting into book form. But OTOH I'm using the CC license; any noncommercial use is OK with me, and I'll thank anyone for uploading or downloading or torrenting or sharing in any other way. Like I saw on an indie music DC, "Be kind and burn a copy for a friend."
Anybody who doesn't want anyone to see his work until it's paid for probably isn't very good.
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Why should there be a time limit when someone is no longer entitled to the fruits of their labor?
Because the author does NOT own the work, at least in the US. If you're an American citizen PLEASE read the constitution. It grants a limited time monopoly to encourage more creativity, NOT ownership of the work. Intellectual Property belongs to the people, not the "content creator".
I suppose you'd like people to pay the hundred dollars that you used to have to pay for paroxetine when it was till under patent (P
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I think this puts you as a creator. It has been very difficult to determine the dividing line between the "creative industry" and the litigation industry. Litigation has been one of the creative industries primary assets for some time, and this is just another step towards monetizing a potential income stream. You happen to be another income stream that management of these companies have available. The management is not creating, the industry is not entirely about creating.
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>>>Those of us who actually do create things are more worried about turning potential customers into real customers than suing people.
Then why do you join organizations like RIAA, MPAA, Authors Guild, SAG, and/or others that support suing people? Quit them and rally your other authors/creators to do the same.
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I realize that fresh water economists don't believe it, but the reality is that choices are not without consequence, and the government mucks about enough on the business side of things so as to make it necessary for the g
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Lucky you.
When I was at walmart I earned ~$1000 a month.
rent on a 1 bedroom next to a crackhouse? ~$500.
Utility cost in a poorly insulated rat trap? ~$300.
We are talking about a low density area (Mississippi), car required: ~$300 (assuming insurance + gas + either a low note or regular lemon repair costs).
Now you have to eat? wait, you are already 100 dollars in the hole...
So we also sell our blood plasma for an extra $300, now you can afford ramen noodles and peanut butter for special occasions.
God forbid
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Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What do UKers think? (Score:4, Insightful)
As a member of Britain's creative industry
If you're not a "Rights Holder", you're nobody. If you merely produce "creative" things but hand over the rights to someone else, you're no more part of the creative industry than a lettuce-farmer is part of the fast-food industry.
Re:What do UKers think? (Score:4, Insightful)
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If you're not a "Rights Holder", you're nobody.
Actually, we are nearly all "rights holders" - or rather "copyright owners" (to use slightly more accurate terminology). As nearly anything produced is automatically copyrighted, it if very hard to imagine any person who doesn't own the copyright on something (even if it is just comments like these). But yes, most artists seem to be forced to sell away their copyrights to the large publishers.
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This is because you're just a creator and if you sign up with a label you usually sign over the rights and are for the most part no longer the "Rights Holder". They are using intentionally deceptive language to make us think they are helping the creators when they really aren't. In the US this would basically extrapolate to "Rights Holders... which are incredibly large and massively companies who donate lots of cash to political campaigns which was not matched by the cash contributed by ISPs." I was unde
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Agreed, same in Canada. Most royalties don't get paid to artists without high-profile representation, and therefore the artists that need the royalties most aren't getting them.
In particular SOCAN is basically a bully for the music labels, literally threatening lawsuits against music venues (who also can least afford this) for having live music unless they cough up a percentage, which is then handed over to the big labels, _even if the bands are playing their own original music_. Must be nice to have the
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I'm willing to bet that you will not only not see a penny of the money, you will find that any profits you would have made will be reduced by a charge that's supposedly to recoup copyright enforcement costs.
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I am curious how those of the UK will react
Those of the UK will assert that this is the result of US corporate media interests controlling the UK government.
Anything else I can help you with?
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I'm beginning to realize that not only was that game amazaballs, it was also prophetic
Pissed off of course (Score:2)
Intellectual property gone nuts, will eventually strangle the western world to death.
Thankfully I'm no longer domiciled in the UK, but when I do return, I miss my 1000Mbit/s symmetric net connection, no caps, and being where the DMCA TDNs can never find me.
Seriously, UK is digital 3rd world.
When will ISPs grow a couple of balls? (Score:2)
I mean, Internet providers with electronics industry should earn more than "creative" industries, why do they still deal with this crap and allow RIAA to walk all over them. ISPs and device manufacturers should be the ones writing the rules.
--Coder
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Because it costs a lot of money, and the real ISPs (not the big telco operators) are already very thin on profits thanks to said telcos.
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It's like gathering a group of Daily Mail readers, and on their recommendation, taxing the ethnic minorities they feel to be most responsible for things not being the way they used to be.
Assuming the money is split between the "big three" record companies - and that's ignoring all the smaller ones, then I'm certain that Vivendi's £66 million, when added to their annual revenue of upwards of £20 billion, will encourage them to take their creativity to levels that mortals could previously only dre
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I'm all for policing the Internet for criminal behaviour. But copyright infringement isn't a criminal act.
They should target the scammers, the hackers, the virus writers, the ID thieves. These are the people causing misery. Copyright loss amounts are just crazy sums, you can come up with any crackpot formula to come up with loss figures.
Good (Score:2)
Maybe the "common" public will start to see how the entertainment industry is corrupt, awful, and generally falling behind the times with no mass adoption of the "new methods" to make money.
Unfortunately in the mean time, the costs will get passed on from the ISP to the customers, who will end up paying more. But, hopefully that causes the above statement to be even more true. Maybe they should do this in the USA too so the MPAA and RIAA will fuck off and leave other non-US countries alone.
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Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
Most of the public wont hear about it. The companies that lobbied to get this Act passed are
very closely connected to the companies that show most of the people their news & current events.
Filesharing in the media is almost always shown in a bad way and they never mention it's legal uses.
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Not really, the public accepted this tax in Canada because the way it is done the 10% surcharge basically gives us free license to pirate anything we want without having to worry about it. They can only really successfully prosecute in Canada nowadays if you made money off of your piracy. There is a legal situation where if you are the originator of a file that could be considered to be damaging to the company that you can get charged but basically as long as you're not the originator you're fine.
It should go both ways. (Score:5, Insightful)
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And, it will never, ever happen.
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Actually the ISP's should bill the content providers for the cost of delivering their goods to the end user. The content providers want to rent movies on line, ISP's want a piece of the action.
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ISPs are already trying to double-bill both Users and Website Providers (like Google) for transferring data, but pro-net neutrality supports oppose the idea.
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ha.. haha.. The artist themselves wont get a penny out these and you expect the ISPs to get a cut?
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record labels are primarily a distribution network. Why cant the ISPs supplant them? If they split their 25% 50-50 with the artists, then all the artists will get a HUGE raise.
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aka Hollywood accounting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting [wikipedia.org]
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Profit? What profit? Didn't you hear pirates take it all? And there is always Hollywood accounting after all.
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But that's our money we paid our internet bills with. We should get 25% for paying the ISP's bills for them.
Then there's the lawyers, they'll take at least 25%.
Then there's 25% for the artist's management.
Another 25% goes towards the interest on the loan needed to produce the artwork and promote it etc.
Makes sense to me, I don't see why these artists keep whining...
Hmm..... interesting (Score:3, Interesting)
Flag in front of cars (Score:3, Interesting)
In other news, the UK Parliament passed a law requiring car owners to have a flag bearer walk in front of cars. The Minister of Roads claimed it was to protect the safety of pedestrians, but critics say the law is to protect the locomotive industry.
This new 25% Law is equally preposterous/bullshit
.
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interesting... (Score:2, Interesting)
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+1 insightful.
The 95% who don't bittorrent/download content illegally are being forced to subsidize those who do. It's very ingenious of the MAFIAA to setup this antagonistic "blame your neighbors" situation.
Re:interesting... (Score:4, Insightful)
So the people who pirate are forcing the ones who don't to help rights holders regain a portion of revenue that would otherwise be lost to them.
Nobody has ever been shown to have lost a penny to piracy, but studies show that music pirates spend more money on music than non-pirates. There is no revenue lost to piracy. Most people have a limited amount of money. If a broke college kid pirates a $900 image editor, the publisher didn't lose any money because the kid didn't have the money to spend in the first place. In fact, it might result in a sale of that program down the road, because college pirate is now employed and is likely to buy the later, updated version of the software rather than the competitor's because that's what he's used to and comfortable with.
If he hears a song he likes on the radio and shells out $20 for the CD, only to find that there's only one good song on it, he's going to stop buying CDs from that artist and maybe even that publisher. In that case, a sale has resulted in lost sales.
If he spends $20 on two indie CDs, that's $20 he doesn't have to spend on one RIAA CD, and the label has indeed lost a sale -- but not to piracy.
There is one instance where piracy can hurt sales, and that's when the content is crap. If a crappy movie gets on the net before it's released, people will find out it's crap and not go see it.
Piracy only hurts crap. It helps good content. The people who pushed for this law are selling crap.
In related news... (Score:3, Insightful)
UK ISPs To Pass 25% of Copyright Enforcement Costs To Customers
buggy whips (Score:2)
It bears repeating that protecting the buggy whip manufacturers only hurts the manufacturers of the new-fangled horseless carriage, while doing nothing to ensure people will actually pay for buggy whips in the future.
It's only fair... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's only fair that if you are "subsidizing" an industry because of claims of "lost profit", then said company should open up their books so the public can see what losses they are talking about. And I guarantee that ain't going to happen.
Shooting the messenger (Score:4, Insightful)
Would you penalize those that build highways for giving road racers the smooth and long pavement on which to drive recklessly? It's not their fault that people choose to break the law (or in this case, violate copyright).
I don't see how it's the responsbility of the providers to be liable for their customers use or abuse. That smacks big time of collusion in politics. Who in the UK parliament is supporting this bill?
Queue "hollywood" accounting in 3..2... (Score:2)
Okay, so RIAA plays EIAA 7.5 million dollars to enforce copyright law.
The ISP's are forced to pay 2.5 million dollars.
And EIAA, a wholy owned subsidiary under the same parent organization as RIAA passes the money uphill where it is distributed back down to RIAA.
And this can be raised to any amount up to the point where the ISP's are collapsing. And it's been done for close to 95 years now (at least the earliest I've heard of it was in the 20's but I guess it may have been done by plays and vaudeville befor
Pass the costs back (Score:2)
Given games companies use ISPs for internet access, could they not pass the full costs costs directly back to the games companies in their internet bill? Somehow, I think that would be appropriate.
Let's get our definitions right (Score:4, Insightful)
By "creative industries" they mean of course, "businesses that sell copies of other people's work and pay the creators a tiny portion."
Yet another lawyerism tax (Score:3, Funny)
How about this for a law (Score:2, Offtopic)
Who Has Been Kissing Who? (Score:2)
To get a solution such as this someone is getting kissed or their wallets are getting full. Freedom lost another round.
New business models (Score:2)
For a long time people have been complaining about the big copyright owner groups not innovating or coming up with new business models but they seem to have finally done so - and it is an impressively clever one.
The DEA (well, the relevant copyright-litigation measures) are designed to make it easier for rich copyright owners to sue people (or threaten to sue them, see ACS:Law). Their aim is that this will increase their revenue by £200mpa. As there is no consensus about whether stronger copyright wil
well... (Score:2)
Add this to the dictionary (Score:2)
Argh! (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm one of these sad people who doesn't (knowingly) infringe copyright on purpose. I'm a UK citizen and I respect copyright laws since they allow things like the GPL to operate and I make a reasonable living working for large companies that use Free and Open Source software in commercial products.
I'm not interested in "pirating" all of this main-stream music, TV and cinema. Life's too short to spend it ingesting drivel. I utterly resent having to pay for it just in case I might decide to "steal" some of it. I am selective about what I give my attention to and I like to obtain it fairly.
I like to support my favourite bands. I buy their CDs (and I break English law when I rip them and FLAC them for personal use) and I go to their shows. My wife and I spend hundreds of pounds a year going to see our favourite bands (including tickets, travel, food and drink, t-shirts). None of these are top-40 acts, by the way. The last lot we saw were Voivod when they played in Nottingham. This year we have also seen Les Claypool and Slayer.
I don't go to the cinema. There's nothing on. It's all aimed at retarded 7-year-olds. I don't "bit torrent" any films. We buy anything we do want to see (and keep) on DVD, including good TV programmes like Frasier, Father Ted etc.
We don't do ebooks. They are an abomination. Books are to be printed on paper and read.
I do "bit torrent" my Operating Systems and they are "copyright" (sic) i.e. copyrighted: but I'm not stealing since they are licensed under Free and Open Source terms and conditions.
If people want to earn money, they'd better jolly well produce something of value that people are willing to pay for. Hollywood cinema and manufactured pop music ain't it.
Any ISP... (Score:3, Interesting)
Any ISP who will forward me any such kind of harassment letter will get from me a reply which will tell them that the allegations are completely unjustified (and that I want to see any proofs of them supporting their allegations). I will warn them that if they continue to harass me, that I will with out further notice cancel my contract with them and move to an other ISP. If I receive another letter I will cancel my contract without any further warning. If they refuse to accept my cancellation I will sue them for harassment and I doubt that they will have any evidence whatsoever that I did anything wrong. So they will lose in court (and meanwhile I do have other means to get to the internet if things really go bad)...
Change the model (Score:2)
Solution (perhaps impractical, but ethical) is to charge users, and prosecute pirates.
It is neither ethical or practical to do that. Instead, what needs to be set up is a new way to compensate artists -- not the RIAA or MPAA, but the artists who actually give us entertainment -- that is compatible with the Internet age. That means a system that is not based on people being unable to copy music and movies.
Perhaps instead of paying for enforcement, ISPs should pay into a fund for artists, and entirely cut the RIAA and MPAA out of the picture. That fund should be managed in a way that l