Tackling Online Piracy without Harming Consumer RightsIES - IBBT Workshop

Strengthening the European Information Society - Consumers in Media Policy and Law

23 October 2009

Sakari Aalto

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Basic Message Today

The most effective way to fight piracy is to make content available legally

Customer is King

Where regulatory actions are necessary they should concentrate on the customer’s rights and removing obstacles from offering content legally online

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Online Piracy as Phenomena

Source: PWC Global Entertainment and Media Report (2008), IFPI

Collating separate studies in 16 countries over a three-year period, IFPI estimates more than 40 billion files were illegally file-shared in 2008, giving a piracy rate of around 95 per cent.

Overall 16 per cent of internet users in Europe regularly swapped infringing music on file-sharing services in 2008 according to Jupiter Research.

Analysis by the Institute for Policy Innovation concludes that global music piracy causes $12.5 billion of economic losses every year. 

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1. Pirate Bay Stockholm District Court decision of 17 April 2009 against four individuals associated with a

file-sharing website and service called The Pirate Bay, directed at the file-sharing community

Contributory copyright infringement

2. Finreactor Turku Court of Appeals decision of 19 June 2008 against 30 defendants associated with the

Finnish “Finreactor” BitTorrent-based P2P network

Contributory copyright infringement

3. Grokster United States Supreme Court decision of 27 June 2005

P2P file sharing companies could be sued for inducing copyright infringement for acts taken in the course of marketing file sharing software

4. Napster The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision of 12 February 2001

Repeated infringements of copyright law as millions of users uploaded and downloaded copyright protected sound recordings

Legal Actions to Fight Piracy - Examples

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Possibilities of Right Holders to Fight Piracy

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Monetary claims against mostly private individuals or companies in not very solid financial standing

Badwill for the right holders

File sharing services moving to new locations

Image demonstrated by results of the PirateBay decision in Sweden:

Pirate Party (Piratpartiet) in Sweden (also in Finland) Advocates for reform of copyright laws High visibility, newfound popularity

Sweden: 75% of youths from 15 to 25 years old would not alter their file-sharing habits even if their actions were found illegal (Dagens Nyheter, 23 February 2009)

Results of Right Holders' Legal Actions

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Legally Available Content

What is slowing down the introduction of services offering authorised content?

Unavailable or unclear licensing Overly burdensome administrative requirements The pricing expectations of supply and demand do not meet

Examples of successful services offering legally available content :1. iTunes

2. Spotify

3. Ovi by Nokia

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Effective tackling online piracy requires balanced interplay of different elements Having content available legally Taking legal action against piracy Implementing technical measures to protect content Increasing awareness of general public

None of these elements work alone and the set of elements used needs to be approved by the users (customers) and general public

→ Looking at where we are now in relation to each of the elements the most sustainable results would seem to be reached by promoting legally available content

→ Penalizing the customer with more stringent technical measures and forced knowledge feeds seems hardly effective

Tackling Online Piracy

Thank YouSakari Aalto

E-mail: sakari.aalto@roschier.comTel. +358 (0)20 506 6271

Mobile: +358 (0)40 558 2000