BPI hails digital

The BPI has, at least, resisted the temptation to describe the 19% of UK music buyers who only ever download as "digital natives". Let's be thankful for that.

They seem thrilled by this news, as it gives it something positive to say after a grim couple of months.

"There has rightly been a lot of focus in the past few weeks on high street music retail. That will continue – we must do all we can to serve music fans who love CDs and vinyl," said the BPI chief executive, Geoff Taylor.

I'm not sure what he means here - does he mean that high street retail will continue? Or the "focus" on it will continue? And whose focus? Ours? The BPI's?

If it's the industry's focus, last month Taylor was kind of vague when talking to Billboard about what the BPI was doing:

We're working very hard together with AIM [Association of Independent Music] in talks with the administrator of HMV. Secondly, we are talking to [U.K. collection society] PRS for Music about the way that publishers approach mechanical royalties on stock for which labels are not being paid, or only being paid a fraction of its value. It's important that the publishing community help labels ensure that HMV has a viable future and that as much of HMV can emerge as a viable ongoing concern as possible.

Obviously, you wouldn't expect Taylor to detail exactly what moves were being made, but given that's an interview with a trade magazine, you'd expect something more than "we're having chats with the people managing the decline" as a roadmap.

Still, back to today, and Taylor's embrace of the new figures:

But as well as great music stores...

You're going to have to speak up, Geoff, we can't hear you above the sound of boards being nailed over HMV windows.

...Britain is blessed with a world-beating array of digital music services, which fans rate very highly for ease of use and value for money. And this is just the beginning."

Only a puritan hides his fear of Springtime by pretending to celebrate it. There's a hollowness to this embrace of digital from an organisation whose members struggled against the tide for so long.

And the suggestion that Britain is somehow at the heart of things is surprising - perhaps he's thinking of America's iTunes or Amazon, or Sweden's Spotify. (True, Spotify is headquartered in London now, but its heart is still Scandinavian.)

And the value for money claim is surprising.

In the US, Spotify premium costs $9.99. At the moment, that's £6.38. The same package costs £9.99 here ($15.65 in USD.)

In the US, the top tier of iTunes pricing is $1.29, equivalent to 82p. In the UK, the top rate is 99p - $1.55 at current exchange rates.

When Geoff Taylor hails the value for money, it'd be nice if he could explain what the extra value UK customers are getting for this hefty mark-up.

BPI puzzled by Google Play

Google is bringing the music store element of Google Play to the UK. Rather than welcoming another legitimate source of digital music, the BPI is feigning confusion:

The UK's biggest record labels say a new, legal music service from Google "doesn't make sense" because its search engine still helps piracy.

The BPI's [British Phonographic Industry's] chief executive Geoff Taylor, said: "We don't think it makes any sense for them to be doing something which does support artists and then, on the other hand, undermine artists by referring consumers to illegal sites."

This is, in effect, the BPI banging on about the way if you search on Google you can find links to music, some of which might not be officially licenced.

Obviously they're going to carry on chewing away at this - I think we've long since passed the point where the BPI/RIAA is suddenly going to understand online behaviour, and that if people want to snaffle tunes without paying, they will always find where to go.

But just look at the concept: pretending it's not worth being able to sell their products to Google's enormous user base, because it's possible to put 'One Direction torrents' into the search engine and get some results.

It's like Yale saying to B&Q "I don't know why you bother selling our locks, when you have crowbars on sale as well."

Oddly, none of this angry confusion has lead to the BPI taking a principled stand and having its labels boycott the sevrice. Almost as if it can understand the difference between two parts of a very large company, and is just pretending it can't.

Pirates repelled

The BPI has won a historic High Court judgement forcing UK ISPs to block access to The Pirate Bay.

This isn't great news - the idea of access to any website being blocked on the say-so of a cartel run by three-and-a-half multinational organisations would always be an affront to natural justice - but, obviously, the BPI are delighted:

BPI's chief executive Geoff Taylor said: "The High Court has confirmed that The Pirate Bay infringes copyright on a massive scale.

"Its operators line their pockets by commercially exploiting music and other creative works without paying a penny to the people who created them.

"This is wrong - musicians, sound engineers and video editors deserve to be paid for their work just like everyone else."

Geoff Taylor must know, in his heart, that this isn't a win, though. It's not even locking a stable door after the horses have bolted; it's turning up at stables that have long since been turned into holiday homes and putting up a 'No bolting' sign.

Not a single extra penny will find its way to a sound engineer as a result of this; the only people making money are lawyers. So much effort still being poured into a policy that failed in the early days of the century.

BPI almost sound upbeat; fall back on to wailing about piracy

Half a point for making the effort to the BPI for trying to make their New Year press release about 2011 sales sound slightly upbeat:

MUSIC SALES SLIP IN 2011 BUT DIGITAL SINGLES AND ALBUMS GROW STRONGLY

In the past, that headline would have been written the other way round, splattering the silver lining with the mud of despondency.

Does this mean the BPI is slowly coming to terms with the new world; accepting that they're lucky to have emerged out of the last ten years with any sort of business at all?

Nope. Much of the press release is given to the usual wailing about the nasty pirates. Chief Executive Geoff Taylor starts it off:

“British artists continue to produce incredible music that resonates at home and around the world. But while other countries take positive steps to protect their creative sector, our Government is taking too long to act on piracy, while weakening copyright to the benefit of US tech giants. The UK has already fallen behind Germany as a music market. Unless decisive action is taken in 2012, investment in music could fall again – a creative crunch that will destroy jobs and mean the next Adele may not get her chance to shine on the world stage.

Yes, god forbid that the government doesn't do as the BPI orders, lest the music industry lose out to American owned tech companies. Which would be a tragedy for the Japanese and American owned music industry, of course.

Taylor isn't an idiot, and he knows that it's probable that Germany's music industry has benefited not from any magic measures against piracy - "ooh, those umlauts are too hard to force through a torrent filter" - but from having had (for much of 2011) a stronger economy. Germany is a larger economy; it's got lower unemployment and lower inflation and the average German earns more than the average Brit - surely its surprising that it took so long for the UK to fall behind Germany in terms of music purchases? Taylor isn't an idiot. So why does he allow a news release to be circulated that makes him sound like one?

Tony Wadsworth, who chairs the BPI, also has something to say. The second paragraph of his thoughts at this magic time of year focuses on piracy:

“Led by Adele, Jessie J, Coldplay, Ed Sheeran and others, records by British artists in 2011 achieved both critical and commercial success both at home and around the world. But the challenge of sustaining this performance against a backdrop of chronic piracy means that Government action remains absolutely crucial for British artists and their labels.”

Adele again. In fact, Adele had the whole of Tony's first paragraph just dedicated to her success:

“The spine-tingling performance by Adele at The BRIT Awards 2011 fired the starting gun on her incredible and well-deserved year of success. Her achievements are phenomenal – the biggest-selling album this century, the best seller of 2011 by miles, her debut album also making the year-end top five, not to mention her fantastic success overseas

As the press release points out, Adele's sales aren't just the impressive for this one-eighth of a century; they're just impressive, full stop:

Adele’s 21 reaches 3.8m sales – the biggest-ever selling album in a single year.

Unfortunately, this does tend to fire a big hole in the heart of Geoff and Tony's demand that something must be done about piracy to save the music industry. Despite all this "chronic" piracy going on, Adele's album has sold more copies in a year than any album has ever sold. More than a Michael Jackson album managed in a year, even the good one. More than a Beatles album ever managed to whisk out the shops in twelve months. More, even, than the third Charlatans album sold in a year.

So, how come Adele's album was not only immune to the chronic piracy, but thrived in a world so stricken? Had there been secret umlauts sewn into the hemlines of the choruses, rendering it impossible to torrent?

Were any of the many pirate-busting measures deployed? Did the pre-release circulate solely on a tape glued into a Walkman? Was every copy watermarked? Did a fleet of fake files get launched onto the internet to foil downloaders? Did Derren Brown hypnotise the world so that if they typed 'Adele 21 free' into Google they'd die?

Nope. The success of Adele's album seems to be nothing to do with avoiding piracy, and more to do with sticking out an album that people liked and wanted to buy.

Now, it's possible that in a world without torrentsearch, Adele might have sold more copies still of her record. But even so, she has sold more copies of 21 than any album has ever sold, even before home-taping killed music.

The conclusion has to be that if we don't see other records selling in large numbers, it's not because of chronic piracy, but chronic releases.

Look at the other names Wadsworth throws around - Jessie J, who is alright in a Nookie Bear Sings The Black Eyed Peas way; Coldplay, an act who can't even hide their own boredom with their music most days; Ed Sheeran, a singer so devoid of charisma promoters regularly close down his live act mid-set because they simply don't notice he's on stage. And these are the acts that Wadsworth picks out as the marshmallows in the box of Lucky Charms.

Since they're bobbing about on a sea of singing squadie spouses and ten year's worth of build-up of Cowell dung, you can see why Wadsworth felt that was the best he could do. There's people who will always be excited by music, but for big sales you need to get that ripple of connection, of interest, beyond those people and out into the wider public. The people who will buy an album from time-to-time, if it's a better way of spending their money than a computer game, or a bottle of wine, or a chip supper. With the best will in the world, Olly Murs is never going to win a struggle with a pickled egg and a can of Irn Bru.

It's not piracy. There's no need for the government to legislate. Unless the action they take is to pass a law forcing major labels to introduce quality control.

BPI issue sunny news release, make themselves cry to stop us thinking it's alright now

Great news from the BPI: Despite the UK economy having been in recession last year, the UK music industry saw an increase in sales. In money terms:

A strong fourth quarter and increased digital income streams offset the reduced sales of physical formats as the UK recorded music market reported a modest 1.4% annual increase in total trade income for 2009 of £928.8m, BPI’s annual survey of industry income revealed today.

Brilliant news, eh? Champagne all round, barkeep and...

Oh, hang on: if digital sales are growing so strongly, then that kind-of makes the arguments that without supertight new copyright laws, the music industry will vanish look like a bit of a fib. Quick, everyone, turn those grins upside-down:

Geoff Taylor, BPI Chief Executive said: “It’s encouraging to see industry revenues stabilise and even show modest growth in 2009. This is testament to continuing investment by UK labels in talented artists despite challenging economic conditions, and the innovation labels have shown in licensing new digital services.

“But let’s put it in broader perspective: 2009’s modest result follows a five-year drop in annual income, and total industry income has not exceeded £1bn since 2006. The CD continues to show greater resilience than many predicted – it is an excellent digital product. The pace of growth of new digital services is encouraging, but the size of the market continues to be constrained by competition from illegal downloads.”

Does it, though, Geoff? You're telling me that a market which, by the BPI's own figures, has grown by nearly 50% in twelve months is constrained? That seems a little unlikely, doesn't it? Almost as if you're selling convenience and experience, not the actual files themselves, so your growth has nothing to do with what may or may not be happening in the torrents. But don't worry, nobody expects the BPI to say anything that might make its histrionic hijacking of the Digital Economy Bill look any more ridiculous.

Oh - and while you might have had a five year-drop in total take, let's never forget (as you always do) that lower total revenue is in part a side-effect as you move from artificially-highly priced physical albums to lower cost single digital files. It's not the same thing as selling music becoming less profitable. (And if selling music had become less profitable, I have a feeling that would have been in the press release...)

BPI bloke suggests scanning & copying card, says he was joking

Adam Liversage of the BPI was busy with other matters than simply watching his beloved Digital Economy Bill pass the other day, struggling with copyright. Rev Dan Catt monitored it on Twitter:

A conversation on twitter on the day the Digital Economy Bill was passed between Adam Liversage (Director of Communications for the BPI, the BPI that supports/wrote some of the DEBill) and Janet Liversage.

Janet: "Great. Bought a card but forgot the envelope - doh."
Adam: "There's some in my study on the shelf."
Janet: "yes but not necessarily ones that will fit the card I have bought"
Adam: "Crop the card using scissors - job done. Or scan the card, shrink it and re-print it."

Where Adam suggest stealing and repurposing a bought card.

Wait, I don't mean stealing I mean making a copy leaving the original intact, and then adjusting the second copy to better suit a purpose.

When you've shrunk it and sent it, the original will still exist. I assume you can just then use the original for something else, sell it on, or perhaps scan it again and again and again that's a money saving tip right there. Shame the copyright owner wont get the benefit of all those copies.

Just saying; copyright, it's a bit complicated.

The BPI's Communications Director rushed back to Twitter to make it clear he was only joking:

Is it really not obvious that my comment about cutting or scanning a card was a joke? Let me be clear: I do not condone card-scanning.

Liversage has missed the point - not unusual for people working in the copyright industry. Because had he scanned a card he'd bought to resize it, he would have technically breached copyright, but nobody could possibly object. Indeed, it would be a perfectly sensible thing to do. That was why you were being joshed, Adam, because you were proposing a quite legitimate remix.

It's actually a bit more surprising you felt the need to rush out a justification. Although the next tweet did swerve charges of being po-faced:

I also think that a card-cutting has the potential to ruin the artistic integrity of the original card, and I am also not in favour of it.

Back at the day job, and the BPI was busily making delighted honks that the narrow interests of a few foreign companies had outweighed the entire concept of democracy:

BPI Chief Executive Geoff Taylor welcomed the passage into law today of the Digital Economy Act as a key milestone in the development of the internet, which will help secure Britain’s world-beating status as a creative force in music and entertainment.

Geoff Taylor said: “The Act’s measures to reduce illegal downloading will spur on investment in new music and innovation in legal business models. An internet that rewards taking creative risks will mean more British bands enjoying global success, more choice in how to access music online, and more jobs in our fast-growing creative sector.

“These measures will not eliminate all piracy, but they will go a long way towards reducing illegal freeloading and will help to build a more sustainable ecosystem for content on the internet.“

Bless. You know what, he really does think it's going to make a difference. You know, the way the DMCA virtually stopped "illegal freeloading" in the US.

That's the bitter joke at the end of the week: the legislation won't do anything to address the 'problems' the BPI sees - all it will do is lead to the creation of a lot of expensive work for lawyers, create a couple of martyrs, and force Taylor to shuffle on breakfast TV sofas in about eighteen months to shiftily try and defend the implementation of a pointless, punitive law made in haste.

[Thanks for card story to @electroweb]

Mini liveblog: DEBill debate on Today

Geoff Taylor of the BPI has just been on Today talking about the Digitial Economy Bill. It's impossible to tell if he really is an idiot, or just happy to try and take people for a ride.

Amongst his strange claims were that it didn't matter that there wasn't enough time for proper debate in parliament as "there had already been a lot of debate in the media" and that it didn't matter the elected chamber would look at the legislation properly as the Lords already had, and that that was where most revisions to legislation took place. (He didn't mention that was where a BPI patsy had dumped some of his trades group's own words into the legislation.)

Taylor also claimed that all the parties supported the bill being jumped into law through wash-up - when it was pointed out to him that the Liberal Democrats didn't, he stuttered that they supported the general principle, as if that was the same thing.

When David Babbs from 38 Degrees raised the question of the risk of public web services being hit by the law - clearly talking about internet cafes and services like coffee shops with wifi - Taylor dealt with this point by ignoring it completely and talking about "technical measures" which "householders" could use to "secure their connection" - again, it's unclear if he really didn't understand the difference between 'protecting a home network against someone sitting outside in a car downloading files through an unlocked connection' and 'a public wi-fi service that would be useless if it had to be locked down to stop people accessing it', or if he was deliberately confusing the two. Neither option is particularly edifying.

In the topping of his call to trust the idea of legislation being chucked together as MPs pack their bags, though, was his reassurance that we don't need to worry about customers being targeted unfairly, as Ofcom would be drawing up the rules and overseeing how they work.

That's alright then. It's not like the man likely to be the next Prime Minister has effectively announced that the Tories intend to junk Ofcom and build a new, light-touch regulator. Apart from perhaps being told that nothing bad would happen without Stephen Byers saying it was alright, I can't think of a less reassuring piece of reassurance.

BPI lament rise in unlicensed downloading

The BPI has just unveiled a big survey which - let's be honest - is just intended to try and push the case for ISPs being made to police copyright law in the UK.

They claim the nation is pretty much planning to download more and more unlicensed tunes, until even Simon Cowell is forced to get a proper job:

BPI chief executive Geoff Taylor said the findings were "disappointing" and expressed concern at a rise in illegal downloads from blogs and newsgroups.

More than 3,000 people aged between 16 and 54 took part in the online poll.

When questioned about their future plans, current users of unauthorised services reported that they actually intended to increase their illegal activities in the coming six months.

Really? That's how people phrased it, was it? "I intend to increase my illegal activities, at least until the summer"?

Given that the BPI have found that the law isn't working, and people don't actually consider what they're doing to be wrong, the labels have thrown in the towel and said they're going to concentrate their efforts on building the myriad of new revenue streams that exist in the new reality.

No, of course they haven't:

Mr Taylor said: "There are now more than 35 legal digital music services in the UK, offering music fans a great choice of ways to get music legally.

"It's disappointing that levels of illegal peer-to-peer use remain high despite this and the publicity surrounding imminent measures to address the problem. It's vital that those measures come into force as quickly as possible.

"The growth in other, non-peer-to-peer methods of downloading music illegally is a concern, and highlights the importance of including a mechanism in the Digital Economy Bill to deal with threats other than peer-to-peer."

"Our failure to stop the water flowing in through the floorboards and cascading through the ceiling doesn't mean that it's time to abandon the house; instead, it is a signal that we must buy larger pails and bail faster and faster."

BPI setting Cameron's agenda for him

There's some good news - even those people who think that going through the motions of putting a three strikes style law on the Statute Book simply to have it thrown out again as illegal don't expect to see anything happen soon. Indeed, it's unlikely to happen in this government:

Industry group BPI, which represents the four big labels and independent music companies, believes the latest proposals from business secretary Peter Mandelson will significantly change consumer behaviour online and marginalise piracy within years.

"Assuming there is an election in May, then we believe the bill will be in the Queen's speech and that it should go through. It's got the full support of government and we believe the opposition will support it," said BPI chief executive Geoff Taylor.

"There will always be people who seek to work around the system. But the average consumer who pays for their jeans, pays for their car, we believe will be brought back into the legal market."

Full support of the government? Really? Although it wasn't part of the government's Digital Britain report?

And hoping for it to be a priority for a new Cameron regime seems to be a little naive - there are important national institutions to be destroyed, dammit. Expecting there to be legislative time for a measure like this to get rushed through would probably take a lot of lunches being bought for the Tories - especially if it doesn't turn up in their manifesto.

By the way: Geoff, you're confusing digital files with manufactured products again, aren't you? How about thinking instead of "people who pay a few pennies for tap water" or "people who enjoy going to see Christmas lights in neighbourhoods without expecting to then get a bill through the post a few days later despite the christmas lights costing money to put up and keep switched on."

Is Mandy on the yacht? Government issues file-sharing proposals

The new, stricter proposed rules for filesharing that were dictated to Peter Mandelson during his time on Geffen's yacht - sorry, I mean "totally coincidentally being drafted while Mandelson just happened to be hanging out with Geffen and Spielberg"; I think must be something wrong with my keyboard - have been published today.

The reason for throwing away the more carefully-considered approach developed in the Digital Britain report is being given as "Steven Spielberg asked us to, while passing the port to Lord Mandelson".

Sorry, that should read:

previous plans would take too long to implement "given the pressure put on the creative industries by piracy".

Ah, so in other words: instead of a measured approach, let's just hit people with bottles.

"We've been listening carefully to responses to the consultation this far, and it's become clear there are widespread concerns that the plans as they stand could delay action, impacting unfairly upon rights holders," said Treasury minister Stephen Timms, who is responsible for implementation of Digital Britain.

"... so we've decided to pass all the unfairness on to the public, instead."

Under the tougher proposals, internet service providers would be obliged to block access to download sites, throttle broadband connections or even temporarily cut off access for repeat offenders.

Communications regulator Ofcom would report regularly to the business secretary, Lord Mandelson, providing evidence of whether such action is required against illegal filesharers.

Ah, blocking access to "download sites". Thereby making their legitimate uses fail, while simply encouraging unlicensed filesharers to migrate to another download service.

And surely even Timms understands that you can't throw people off the internet. Especially not at the whim of EMI. You can make a law which removes people's ability to participate in society, and it's childish and wasteful of this government to pretend you can. And offensive that they think they should.

Maybe Timms hasn't read the Digital Britain report, but one of the key themes is removing digital exclusion. How can it be that one part of government is trying to get everyone hooked up, while another part is running round trying to pull people off.

Broadband throttling is a bit of a hoot in its own right - the way Thatcher, Major, Blair and Brown governments have allowed the communications industry to limp along in the UK, it's unlikely that many people even have an internet connection good enough to notice if their connection got throttled. Or perhaps they've just introduced throttling for all?

Welcoming the move, the chief executive of music industry trade body the BPI, Geoff Taylor, said that digital piracy posed "a real threat to the UK's creative industries". "Today is a step forward that should help the legal digital market to grow for consumers," he said.

Geoff, bless him, can't really explain why blocking access to Rapidshare would "help the legal market grow", because he knows in his heart that there's precious little linkage between reducing unlicensed filesharing (even if such a thing were possible) and persuading people to pay seven quid for the Dolly Rockers album.

Indeed, for the RIAA and the BPI, the war on piracy has long since borne any real connection to the industry the bodies purport to represent, and has instead become a religious crusade. If they want to continue to pour the millions their member companies have borrowed from the banks into a black hole, that's fine. But should an elected government really be enabling their fantasies to go further?