Are file-sharing sites’ days numbered?
With MegaUpload getting shut down, are other file-hosting sites like Dropbox in danger?
Earlier this week, file-sharing site MegaUpload was shut down by the US Department of Justice. Its founder, a German national living in New Zealand, is now awaiting extradition to the United States for a myriad of charges stemming from the popular site’s copyright-infringing content.
This all comes on the heels of the SOPA and PIPA bills, which fortunately, lost support after numerous sites, including Wikipedia, Reddit, WordPress.org and others went “dark” to protest the far-reaching, overly zealous anti-piracy bill.
(For those unfamiliar with the Stop Online Piracy Act, it sought to give copyright holders such as record labels and movie studios the ability to block access to entire websites if any copyright-infringing content was present on the sites. This even includes innocuous content such as a commenter posting a link to copyright material and would have meant sites would need to police every bit of content, including user-generated content. An extreme example of this is if someone posted a picture of themselves standing on the street and a logo of a store is in the background. That store could have had the entire website blocked just because its copyright was in the background.)
Check out the video below for an explanation of SOPA and PIPA.
Despite those bills not passing, the DOJ, along with various law enforcement agencies around the world (including Canada’s RCMP), made the arrests based on existing copyright protection laws.
In the past, file-sharing services and websites have been blocked or shut down but typically, it was because they were explicitly hosting copyrighted material with little to no recourse for copyright holders (many sites are hosted in countries with lax copyright laws/enforcement). While Megaupload didn’t police its content, it had copyright enforcement procedures and anyone could submit a complaint about content on the site (such as through a Digital Millennium Copyright Act notice) and it would be taken down. Admittedly, copyright abuse was a large part of Megaupload, but there were many users who used the service legitimately to store their data and share files. Anyone who’s ever had to send large media files knows how difficult it can be to share said files and sites such as Megaupload provided a method to do this quickly and efficiently.
Now, in the wake of Megaupload’s takedown, other file-sharing sites have either halted their upload capabilities or removed any free functionality (requiring users to pay fees or memberships). The question that’s on everyone’s mind is what is going to happen to other sites that host user-generated/uploaded content. These include everything from popular cloud-based storage service Dropbox (and others like Box.net) to Amazon’s commercial cloud-based storage, S3. Every site that hosts user-generated content is closely watching the Megaupload situation to see what plays out.
In the past, courts have upheld the notion that the mechanisms that may enable infringement are ultimately not responsible for their users’ actions. Examples of these include the VCR, portable MP3 player (like the iPod), and personal video recorder (PVR). The protection of intellectual property and copyright is a key part of modern society and without it, there’d be less incentive to produce and sell content but are the actions of the US Department of Justice going a little too far?
Let us know what you think in the comments.
They have been censoring what I watch for years. When I was a kid growing up in Southwestern Ontario and television 1st came out it was analog and we could use rabbit ears or a antenna to pick up American station. Then along came cable and the CRTC they said we had to watch more Canadian content. so they put in restrictions . we even had French content (I do not speak French nor do I want to, but I have have it in my cable package. I have basic cable do not watch much tv (nothing on )_have 34 channels to choose from, get 6 French stations,2 multi lingual channels, 1 aboriginal channel,5 Canadian English speaking 4 American channels 1b sports channel 2 religious channels , and the balance made up of community and informative channels. So you see they have been doing it for years.
Now they want to control the internet, What is next what we eat?
…….you don’t think that they control what we eat already?!?!
If you think this is censorship consider this. What we are talking about here is copyrighted material, that is the property (intellectual) of the copyright holder. Under law (thank you Arthur “Big Boy” Cruddup)the copyright holder is to receive remuneration for the use of said property. Anyone using, or passing along such material without paying said fees is commiting a crime, by definition. The law does not say what may be distributed, there are other laws about that, but that it can only be distributed when the proper fees have been submited.
Folks, this ain’t about censorship, its about what’s fair. Using someone else’s property without permission, or payment, is illegal, and that is what we are talking about here. Don’t believe that this is actually a problem? Well then consider that a few years ago a girl band called “TLC” sold 10,000,000 albums in a year, (before the days of downloads) and recently, Adele sold 3,500,000 and that was the best we’ve seen in a few years. Most of the’sales’ have been illegal downloads in the last few years, making it difficult for an artist to get ahead. Oh the labels will always do alright, but the artist is another story most of the time.
Lee, I don’t think anyone would dispute that it is wrong for people to download copyrighted content illegally. The real issue here is just how far the US government could take this if bills like SOPA and PIPA pass into law. Just as in the writer’s example, what happens if someone uploads personal video which happens to include the image of a storefront…will that store then be permitted to have that person’s video pulled? And why is it that these sites are being held responsible for the actions of some of its users? Do you realise that, if SOPA and PIPA become law that there would be no Youtube at all because they will not seek to punish the actions of a few bad apples, they will simply pull the site altogether. You speak of doing things fairly…well, how is that fair? As far as the music industry goes, it is changing and the music labels need to learn how to change along with it…bands like Radiohead have already shown that their stale marketing ploys won’t work. So, the decrease in music sales isn’t solely the fault of those who choose to download music files illegally but also due to the disconnect between what the people want and what music labels are willing to give. But, I digress, I think we really need to think carefully before supporting initiatives that could potentially censor the information we have access to.
What planet are you from? To think that the biggest decrease in sales is not from illegal downloads is essentially like believing global warming does not exist. You can’t stick your head in the sand and hope that something does not exist.
Similar to your comment about the record labels. They can change or die, but there death should not come about as illegal activity. They should change … but learn to change is their choice.
Last, there is already copyright infringement law. This IS NOT copyright infringement law. XZU stop spouting what others have written and read the laws. SOPA requires a judges order. Those do not come lightly and the government can and is sued just like anyone else and yes they do lose.
John,
There is simply no evidence that the biggest reason record companies are suffering is due to illegal downloading…if you can find proof of that, I’d certainly welcome it. Illegal downloading does take a percentage of sales, sure…I’d be dim-witted if I didn’t see that…but that percentage is much smaller than record companies like to claim. The single biggest reason record companies are losing money is that the vast majority of payment systems for digital music have come from outside of the music industry i.e. iTunes, puretracks, Last fm. Not to mention that we now have other payment systems such as Spotify and We7 popping up which charge only small monthly fees in exchange for allowing their users to download tracks free legally. All of these services make it easy for consumers to download music and to pay for it. Record companies fell asleep at the wheel and Apple and others were happy to fill that niche. So are you going to blame Apple and other companies for seeing an opportunity and jumping on it, too?
Another major reason record companies are losing money is because the quality of music they are releasing has gone downhill significantly. Who wants to pay for an entire CD with two good songs on it? This is one of the biggest reasons people have begun to switch to services like iTunes, because they can pick and choose which tracks they want to download and pay only for those tracks. While album sales have decreased, single sales have increased significantly. Now what does that tell you?
And yet another reason album sales have plummeted is that record companies are lazy about their marketing techniques. Something like updating an artists’ Twitter regularly with news of album releases and tour dates takes time and staff but it is also an easy and relatively inexpensive way for artists to keep in touch with their fan-base, yet few record companies take advantage of this to its fullest potential. The artists that do keep in touch with their fans this way are generally doing it independently of record companies…heck, many of these artists are unsigned and have chosen to market their own music altogether. Check out bandcamp sometime and you’ll see what I mean. It’s a great marketing tool that gives up-and-coming indie artists a chance to market to potential consumers and, thankfully, leaves them independent of any record label.
Radiohead’s experiment with “In Rainbows” showed that people are very willing to pay for music is it is quality and is offered in a way that makes it uncomplicated to pay for. The buzz surrounding the album was also a great marketing tool that got people excited. This is a model for the record companies to study and emulate.
As for SOPA, if you have, indeed, read the bill, truly thought about it critically, and are still convinced that search-blocking, allowing the DMCA to be bypassed, issuing power to shut down sites beyond the US border, rewarding sites for self-censorship, not to mention the potential for media companies to corrupt government are good ideas, then no argument I can offer here is going to convince you otherwise. If you think judges are beyond corruption or bad judgment, you might want to look into the matter of the Nevada judge who ordered major search engines and social media sites to “de-index” hundreds of domain names, and then awarded those names to Chanel, leaving all due process unconsidered. And this is happening without the extended powers that SOPA would give judges should it be passed into law. You may want to think a little harder about who you place your trust in and who you listen to.
Finally, please check out the infographic Jeremy linked to and see if you can not distinguish a pattern regarding the “blame game” that record companies and film studios rely on. Don’t you think it might be time for them to stop blaming others and start taking some responsibility for themselves? Just a thought.
Check out this infographic that shows how industries such as movies and music have fought against many new innovations, failed, and yet ended up profiting from them.
http://addictinginfo.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/SOPAinfographic1.jpg
As shown in the video, the Internet is a much bigger part of the economy than traditional media and it’s because of their inability to adapt that leads to the intensive lobbying for bills like SOPA.
Thanks for sharing this, Jeremy…I think it demonstrates quite adeptly how film studios operate in regards to the greed, lack of creativity and ingenuity, as well as the complete absence of concern over customer satisfaction that seems to be their hallmark. A lot of what this infographic shows could also be applied to music labels, as well. After all, how many of us have bought several copies of our favourite albums over the years in the form of LPs, cassettes, 8-track tapes, CDs, DVDs, mp3s…how much profit have these labels made from us already just by adopting new media and simply repackaging previously recorded music? There is a big hullabaloo going on now regarding music streaming on the net and how it is eating into music industry’s profits. I fail to understand the reasoning on this one unless the music labels are afraid that consumers who try before they buy will find that what the music industry is offering is not worth buying. Personally, I have found that since music streaming began, I have tended to buy more music because I can sample music from new artists freely, this leads me to listen to more music, which leads me to find new favourite artists, which leads instills in me the desire to want to support those artists and the natural outcome of that is that I buy much more music than I did 10-15 years ago.
You are right, instead of fighting innovation and, hence, fighting against consumers (the people who support them financially), film studios and music labels need to embrace new technologies and work to find their particular niche within those technologies…refusal to do so will only work against them. Calling for our freedoms to be quashed is a step beyond that, though, and should NEVER be supported or tolerated on any level. Their arrogance will be their undoing.
Let me see what I think of this. Fiddle with the internet, and the internet community will come and destroy you. Simple as that. Don’t mess with it!
There is too much onus plkaced on the site because it is easier to deal with. There are legitimate uses to Drop Box and even Megaupload. I keep files I want to access on from several locations on DropBox. Are they next?
What these actions do show is that exisiing legislation does indeed do what they want without the need for SOPA or PIPA. I am not saying that it isn’t an issue, but I am certainly saying that there are no hard and fast numbers that definitelyly say that any downlaoding of any material if it were all stopped tomorrow would automatically translate into an added benefit for the industry. In many cases people might just do without.
If this new law is based on the entertainment industry, we need to stop purchasing music and going to the show. That will shut them down or at least cripple them. !
The problem as I see it is. Prior to the VCR and digital downloads Hollywood after a movie finished it’s run it was considered to have no value. TV gave them a new market.
Currently they have a big after market but the price is outragious. From the $20 you pay at the store for a movie The store is getting $10-15. Most of the rest is going to middle men. The actual producer is getting maybe $1. Now with everyone and their dog (actors, directors and many others)demanding a cut it is necessary for them to get new money.
From what I see from the download services is mostly porn. The studios care nothing about porn.
To the studios:
Setup a download site like Itunes where one can legitimately download a copy at a reasonable cost.
If you want to stop piracy, put your collection on it and stop handing out theses free copies to everyone in Hollywood. Most illegal high quality copies I’ve seen are copies handed out to reviewers, MPAA, Academy award members, etc.
Disney and others keep your stock available as I might not want The little Mermaid now but want a copy in a year but you’ve taken it off the market for some stupid reason.
And now we need to kill ACTA too.