Led by Tim Suter, founder of Perspective Associates, the panel explores how best to tackle illegal file sharing. Speakers included Neil Berkett of Virgin Media; James Lancaster of BBC; Geoff Heath of ELSPA and Tiga; Jeremy Silver of Featured Artists Coalition; Andrew Harrison of THE WORD; John Reid of Warner Music Europe and Andy Heath of Beggars Group and UK Music.

Largely the panel agreed that where we are is not sustainable but we may be (probably are) having this argument too late. The ideas distilled (there wasn't really much disagreement):

The good (the bits i agreed with mainly came from Jeremy Silver)

  • Make great, compelling services that people want to pay for
  • If we crack down too hard we will drive people underground
  • Help young people to understand the value of content
  • Nobody minds stealing from the rich music industry because it has cultivated a bling, obscene reputation around diamonds and helicopters
  • Use the opportunities of new technology to open up access to archive content
  • We are too busy protecting existing business models to explore new ones
  • We labour under a regime where the switches are all off by default. We need to turn the switches on and let artists choose what they want to protect
  • Get closer to your audiences. It is harder to steal from someone you have a built a relationship with
  • The answer is in new forms of licensing rather than the reform of copyright law.

 

The old

  • Make customers take legal responsibility
  • Work with government to legislate
  • Work with iSPs to take ownership and crack down

 

@matlock twittered: "Now a session on p2p. Panel looks like they might agree. It needs @Doctorow to open a can of whup-ass". Or from @katzy "Spot missing demographics in this future gazing panel". #cabinetforum

The most sense came from a questioner to the panel (Anita Ondine Smith of Seize the Media), making the point that digital products are different to physical products by using a Thomas Jefferson quote "He who receives an idea from me receives [it] without lessening [me], as he who lights his [candle] at mine receives light without darkening me."

We live in a world where content is infinitely replicable at a negligible cost. Shame that most of the (very male) panel seemed to be missing this.