– fordi tiden kræver et MODSPIL

22. Aug 2005

Fri fildeling på Internettet på vej?

 
Et første skridt lader i al fald til at være taget. Den engelske Internetudbyder Playlouder MSP har ifølge The Guardian indgået en aftale med SonyBMG (verdens næststørste pladeselskab) og en række uafhængige pladeselskaber om en kollektiv licens for udveksling af musik på deres netværk.

Dette betyder, at deres kunder for £26 om måneden for ikke alene en bredbåndsforbindelse, men også en licens til frit at downloade og sende musik til andre brugere på samme netværk.

Pladeselskaberne vil til gengæld få en månedlig licensbetaling afhængig af en analyse af trafikken på netværket.

Playlouder forventer snart at have aftaler i hus med de andre store pladeselskaber, så stort set al udveksling af musik på deres netværk reelt bliver legaliseret.

Et kærkomment alternativ til de nuværende tåbelige "antipiratgrupper" og klapjagt på almindelige brugere og musikelskere: Licensaftaler, der legaliserer fildeling og samtidig sikrer pladeselskaber og kunstnere en bid af kagen.

Boing Boing skriver om dette initiativ:
This is such stupendously good news that I frankly didn't believe it. This is what EFF has been calling for for years now, a Voluntary Collective Licensing Scheme will break the file-sharing deadlock and give the majority of Internet users who file-share today the chance to get legit while compensating rightsholders.

I spent the day going back and forth with the two principles from PlayLouder MSP, Paul Sanders and Paul Hitchman, and based on what they've told me, I'm prepared to say that this is the best thing to happen to the copyfight all year -- maybe all century.

Here's the deal. PlayLouder MSP DSL costs about the same as comparable DSL offerings in the UK (though right now, PlayLouder MSP's one-meg speeds don't compare to the high-end offerings from ISPs like Bulldog, who are offering 8-meg DSL). For their money, PlayLouder MSP customers get their regualr DSL lines, as well as:
  • The right to share any song in the Sony-BMG catalog
  • Even if it's out of print
  • In any file-format
  • Using any file-sharing software
  • At any bitrate
PlayLouder MSP's customers' license includes Sony music sourced from P2P networks, ripped from CDs, or digitized from vinyl, cassettes, or radio broadcasts.
(...)
PlayLouder MSP has deals with many indy labels as well as Sony, and those labels will also get a proportional cut of the money that PlayLouder MSP takes in based on their network monitoring. The ISP says that it is negotiating with other major labels and hopes they'll come into the fold soon.

They'd be crazy not to: this is free money, just for letting music fans go on doing what music fans have always done.

More, this is a chance for the labels to extract themselves from the unsustainable quicksand they've sunk up to their necks in: suing their customers by the thousands in the hopes that some day, with enough lawsuits, the music-buying public will finally see the light and go back to the malls.
Og den naturlige udveksling af musik og andre kunstværker, som teknikken lægger op til, vil blive ikke alene gængs praksis (og uden kopibeskyttelse, DRM og hvad der ellers findes af teknologisk bøvl) men også helt selvfølgeligt lovligt - uden at nogen mister noget ved det. Helt så langt er vi naturligvis ikke endnu - men det hjælper. Piratgruppen kan måske endda snart overveje at nedlægge sig selv!

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