Global Music Group isn't backing down

[CaseAgainstFaith]

The IFPI's new report offers its own fixes for online piracy:

    First up, IFPI believes copyright holders and ISPs should work together to develop a "graduated response." The process would include copyright holders monitoring IP addresses that are uploading content to peer-to-peer (P2P) sites, and then contacting ISPs to inform them that they must contact the allegedly infringing consumer to warn them that they should use legal services. If they continue using illegal services, IFPI says, ISPs should explain to them that they could face "penalty or sanction."
    Next, IFPI argues that copyright holders should work with ISPs to block "rogue Web sites." The global group says that blocking illegal P2P sites decreases piracy and increases music sales. In New Zealand, which implemented an anti-piracy bill in September that allowed ISPs to block allegedly infringing sites, digital sales rose 35 percent just two months after the bill became law. IFPI would like to see the same policies come to the U.S. and elsewhere.
   But it's not just ISPs. IFPI believes search engines, including Bing and Google, should be putting legitimate services at the top of search results, while pushing allegedly infringing pages down. The organization found that when it typed artist Adele's name and "mp3" into Google, 77 percent of the results pointed to allegedly infringing sites. When it did the same with Rihanna music, 86 percent of Google search results pointed to allegedly infringing pages.
   In an attempt to cut off funding to allegedly infringing sites, IFPI asserts companies that deliver ads and provide payment solutions, such as PayPal and Visa, should get into the mix by voluntarily stopping to provide payment services to illegal Web sites.
Education is also a crucial component in IFPI's report. The organization says that by promoting legitimate services and improving understanding of copyright law, it can go a long way in reducing the number of people who want to download illegal files.
   Finally, IFPI isn't above filing lawsuits. The organization says that in the U.S., especially, litigation played a crucial role "in the U.S. recovery." Between 2007 and 2010, the organization says, P2P service use in the U.S. fell from 16 percent of the country's Web population to 9 percent. The average number of illegally downloaded tracks fell from 35 to 18 over the same period.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-57364591-17/global-music-group-isnt-backing-down-on-piracy/?tag=mncol;cnetRiver

You know judging how it is worded here, their whole "P2P" is bad is a non starter. Since obviously there is plenty of legal uses for P2P (see Linux Distros and even Blizzard's WoW Patch updater)  So to claim all P2P traffic is probably bad and should be watched isn't going to win you any support.   Let alone most modern P2P clients use encryption software for upload anyway so good luck monitoring. I also don't see ISPs jumping on the bandwagon as wanting to be the police force of the internet since that would cost them more money. Over all these just seem like dead in the water ideas and nothing new IMO.

[Sylvana]

   But it's not just ISPs. IFPI believes search engines, including Bing and Google, should be putting legitimate services at the top of search results, while pushing allegedly infringing pages down. The organization found that when it typed artist Adele's name and "mp3" into Google, 77 percent of the results pointed to allegedly infringing sites. When it did the same with Rihanna music, 86 percent of Google search results pointed to allegedly infringing pages.

This was quite funny. Google already does offer the option for legitimate sites to be listed first, you just have to (wait for it) pay them money to list your site at the top as a sponsored link. Failing that, you would think that a company which is full of money like to copy rite holders would be able to pay for their sites search engine optimization to get their sites listed at the top of google. This is not rocket science.
There are ways to fight online piracy, but these companies will never get it. There is a reason most MMOs are free to play these days, that is because they realize that offering something for free is a huge incentive to actually get people to buy things.

[Witchyjoshy]

The way to fight piracy isn't to prevent piracy.

No, it's to offer a clearly better service than anything the pirates can offer.

For example...

Team Fortress 2.  Through the use of updates that act more like miniature expansion packs, the legal version would pretty much always improve, while the pirated version would become stagnant after awhile.

And then they pulled a fast one by making it free.  Suddenly, pirated versions had absolutely no advantage whatsoever.  And it's still a huge money earner for Valve.

Another example to the contrary is Ragnarok Online, English Version.  The content released for English-speaking audiences was gutted, the experience rate clipped in half, and it had a monthly payment tacked onto it that didn't exist in the original version.  Now they actually allow people to bot, which ruins the experience of anyone who legitimately plays.

...Pirated servers, on the other hand, offered a clearly better service, had a more tolerable EXP rate, gave you choices (Hmm, I could play on the 2x server, or the 500x server...), was several versions ahead of the English version, and had strict rules against botting, oh, and it was free to play (even if many of them are also pay to win).  So it was in every single way (except perhaps stability) superior to original version.

And we're not talking about "No one plays it because it's bad, so therefore, it doesn't get any better because no one plays it", we're talking about stuff that's easily fixed and doesn't require much man hours or time.  Policy decisions that were just horrible.  And the lack of policy decisions that would make things better again.

Now granted, this gets harder with stuff like movies and music and stuff, because of the way those things work.  Regardless, what they're doing now isn't stopping piracy, it's actually just making martyrs.  With Megaupload down, the pirate community isn't scared, they're furious.  And furious pirates will pirate more stuff, just out of spite.

Consider it a downward spiral, but it's a downward spiral that the pirates will win if this keeps going.

[StallChaser]

They're too obsessed with punishing people to come up with any actual solutions.  Other than buying politicians to prop up an unsustainable system, that is.  Also, the laws they use to sue individual downloaders were originally meant for large scale bootlegging operations, hence the insane penalties they seek in lawsuits.