This week PRS for Music’s chief economist Will Page released a co-authored paper suggesting some approaches for tackling online piracy which are radically different from those currently proposed by the Digital Economy Act. The paper is complex but we think it’s fair to summarise its main message is thus: “Rather than targeting individual file-sharers and seeking to punish them, instead let’s look at ways in which we can monetise illegal music use at the ISP level.”
It was little surprise that most media outlets ran with the paper’s most juicy suggestion that a levy could be charged on ISPs for the amount of illegal media use on their networks. This proposal takes its cue from the existing requirement of the new Digital Economy Act that illegal activity will be monitored and measured at the ISP level, then presented to Ofcom and the Secretary of State on a quarterly basis. ISPs, Page and Touve set out, could therefore be charged for that illegal use, with charges dropping if they found ways to tackle and reduce the piracy measured on their networks. Less prominently reported was the paper’s other suggestion that ISPs could be brought into the fold via compulsory licensing, as has been the case in South Korea. All internet users would make payments for their music use to their internet provider, with the accumulated pot of money being distributed to rights holders according to the traffic which is measured.
There are some interesting suggestions in this paper. We’re always in favour of market-based solutions to tackling piracy. But are these genuinely market-based? They rely after all on the legislation of the Digital Economy Act, yet they suggest a totally different use of that legislation than that which has been proposed. If PRS for Music envisaged a radically different solution to piracy than that which was contained within the Digital Economy Bill, why is it proposing it now after the Bill has become legislation? Another problem with these suggestions is that they would seem to require additional legislation in order to be implemented. So are they not therefore being voiced rather too late? Is there a subtext which says that PRS for Music is deeply unhappy with the DEA as it currently stands?
We found the timing of this paper strange. Less than a week after BT and Talk Talk launched a legal bid to challenge the Digital Economy Act, PRS for Music launches a paper which suggests placing an even greater burden on ISPs than the measures they currently object to. We wonder how this could cause anything other than greater friction between ISPs and rights holders? Meanwhile, some tech commentators have reacted quite negatively to this report. One key argument raised against an ISP levy is that it could end up punishing those ISP customers who don’t engage in piracy. Others question whether ISP-based monitoring of internet traffic can ever be accurate enough to form the foundation of a levy-type ‘punishment’ model.
From our perspective, we have to wonder what exactly PRS for Music was trying to achieve with this report. We’re all in favour of discussion and debate but if this was a simple think piece, it seems to have had a much deeper impact than intended. To us it reads rather as a sideways condemnation of the Digital Economy Act. And we wonder, if it is no more than a discussion piece, why was it so prominently-branded by PRS for Music and actively promoted to media? PRS for Music is one of the main funders of lobbying organisation UK Music, but seems to be engaged in separate lobbying which doesn’t necessarily fit neatly alongside it. Regardless of the quality of the research or suggestions in the report, its manner of release was in our view poorly-timed and potentially damaging to the wider industry, a great shame when we’re sure that the intention was to create a positive impression.
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