“UK ISP Secures License to Share” by Anthony Patarini:
Cory Doctorow over at Boing Boing claims (don’t worry, we believe him) that MSP, a new British ISP, “has secured a license from Sony that allows its customers to legally share any song in the Sony-BMG catalog with any other PlayLouder MSP customer, and to download these tracks from any ISP customer in the entire world.”
Apparently, PlayLouder MSP DSL costs about the same as other DSL offerings in the UK, but subscribers will gain the ability to legally download any music which Sony-BMG holds the copyright to (including “out of print” tracks), to share any of that music with other PlayLouder MSP subscribers, to do so using any file format at any bitrate and using any software. The music can originate from anywhere – P2P, CD, radio recording, etc. MSP is also in talks with several indy labels in an effort negotiate the same deal with them as well.
The system does have its drawbacks, however. As you’ve read, subscribers can only share with other subscribers, and on top of that MSP will be analyzing traffic to try to determine how many Sony-BMG songs are being shared (though this is, according to MSP, only to determine how much they must pay Sony-BMG). Using this technology, they will be actively blocking recognized songs from leaving their network, while allowing unrecognized files to flow like normal.
Although this setup isn’t perfect, it’s certainly the “best thing to happen to the copyfight” in a long time. As Cory points out, this is a lot like the Voluntary Collective Licensing system the EFF has been working towards for years. I personally don’t think that you should need a license to share music non-commercially, so I don’t think that this type of system should even be necessary, but it is certainly a step in the right direction. Hopefully we’ll be seeing many more deals like this in the future.
For those interested, PlayLouder MSP is set to launch at the end of September.
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