April 26, 2010

Rights holders’ org wants to legalise music uploads

Filed under: Music,Online by Branko Collin @ 8:55 am

File sharing in the Netherlands shares a strange dichotomy with selling marijuana: acquiring the stuff is completely above board, but distributing it is illegal.

The collecting society for composers and performing artists, Buma/Stemra, has therefore come up with a plan to make uploading music legal, for a small fee paid through Internet providers of course. The society told Telegraaf that research shows users are willing to pay a fee of between 5 and 10 euro a month.

Response to Buma/Stemra’s plans has been varied according to an article by Webwereld. Access providers and representative organisations of consumers and record companies all saw positive sides to the proposal. The only group that has reservations (based on my reading visitor comments at the Webwereld and Telegraaf websites) are listeners themselves.

See also:

Tags: , , ,

October 20, 2009

Industry lobbyist exaggerates legal download market

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 8:15 am

legal_videos_arnoud_engelfrietNVPI, an organisation representing the ‘Dutch’ entertainment industry*, recently called for harsher measures against legal copying in the Netherlands, pointing out that there is a ‘sufficient’ supply of stores offering really legal downloads**. However, as Internet lawyer Arnoud Engelfriet points out, they are stretching the truth a bit.

There are indeed 19 online stores selling legal video downloads to the Dutch, but as Engelfriet’s research shows, hardly any of them sell the movies people want to buy. The article is in Dutch, but the accompanying table speaks volumes. Engelfriet compared the 100 videos currently most popular at Bol.com to what NVPI’s champions were offering.

*) Amongst which such familiar ‘Dutch’ giants as Disney, EMI, and Nintendo.

**) I realize this must be confusing. Basically, NVPI wants to outlaw what is known as file sharing, which is currently legal in the Netherlands for some types of creative works.

(Illustration: Arnoud Engelfriet.)

Tags: ,