P2P Majority Agrees with Avenue Q ?
Appearently a recent Envisional study has found that the majority of Peer To Peer users believe that “The Internet Is For Porn“.
In attempting to discover how much copyrighted material is being pirated, the NBC Universal commissioned study found that out of the 10,000 transfered files they examined, 35.8% were porn, followed closely by film at 35.2% and television programing at 12.5%.
Of those 10,000 PublicBT files, only 2.9% were illegal music downloads. But of course the study also found that “23.76% of traffic was estimated to be infringing“, meaning that almost a quarter of all internet traffic involved copyright violations of some sort, excluding porn.
When concentrating on American transfers Envisional found that 17.53% of the transfers were infringing. And that 20% of the transfers were conducted on Peer To Peer networks, 13.8% of which were copyright violations.
The vast majority of streaming on the net was either legal or porn according to the study, video streaming accounting for 27% to 30% of the transfers. Only an estimated 1.56% of this streaming material was deemed infinging.
The study also establishes that 93.4% of Usenet posts contain copyrighted material, which is rather interesting. I had thought most people had given up on this antiquated distribution method.
Citigroup / EMI Update
EMI has been taken over by Citigroup and now people are wondering if a merger with Warner Music Group is possible because of EMI‘s dept.
According to Billboard, Warner Music Group has a debt of $2.4 Billion whilst EMI‘s debt is $1.9 Billion.
EMI had been $5.5 Billion dollars in debt before Citigroup “recapitalized EMI through a debt-for-equity swap”.
The Other Major Political Parties on UBB
Here are the links to their press releases :
- New Democratic Party
- Bloc Quebecois (none)
- Green Party
Usage Based Billing Delayed
The CRTC has decided to delay the implementation of usage based billing for 60 days, as requested by Bell and Vaxination Informatique.
In response to more complaints from consumers, CRTC Chair Konrad von Finckenstein was asked to appear before the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology on January 3rd, 2010, where appearently he claimed to support the decision as a means to control downloads by “greedy or excessive” users.
The problem here is that the term “excessive” is subjective. What could be deemed acceptable by some could be deemed “excessive” by others.
For example, I had been asked by Bell to join a cheaper service that would have resulted in a reduction of my allowable monthly usage from 60 gigs to 25 gigs. Was I being “excessive” at the average use of 40 gigs ?
I don’t download films or television programs illegally. I mostly watch videos on Youtube and on the television network sites, and rarely in HD. Is this “greedy” ?
The CRTC failed to define what is normal when it comes to usage so the internet providers would impose their beliefs as to what is and isn’t excessive, to the detriment of consumers.
What is average today would have been “excessive” years back.
Response From Liberal Party on UBB
The Liberal Party want the usage based billing decision reversed, according to the Liberal technology critic.
Marc Garneau, the Member of Parliament for Westmount-Ville Marie, stated “We consider this decision to be anti-competitive, because it does penalize the small internet service providers.”
In a statement found on their web site, the Liberal Party complains that the proposed caps are too low in comparison to the states, at 25GB instead of 250GB. And that the CRTC failed to respond to the consumers concerns on this issue ; “This shows yet again that under a Conservative government, CRTC has come to mean ‘Consumers Rarely Taken into Consideration‘”
The Liberal Party proposal in regards to the internet can be found here.
Response From Government on UBB
In response to the political and consumer backlash, the Minister of Industry has promised to investigate usage based billing.
In a statement issued on Monday, Tony Clement said “The Harper Government is committed to encouraging choice and competition in the wireless and Internet markets. Increased competition can lead to more choice, lower prices and better quality services for Canadians.”
The online petition had grown to over 160,000 signatures, doubling in less than 72 hours and I suspect his office has been flooded with letters, emails and faxes on the subject.
It is vital for taxpayers to voice their opinions on the matter because it is the taxpayer that paid for most of the infrastructure on which the internet operates in Canada.
Please discuss this issue with your local Member of Parliament.