New copyright law has done little to stop illegal downloading of music

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A new law on copyrights, which came into effect in Finland at the beginning of the year, has done little to cut down illegal downloading of music. Only just over ten per cent of respondents to a fresh survey published on Wednesday reported that they had reduced illegal downloading from file sharing networks. About one out of twenty said they had stopped using the peer-to-peer networks altogether.
      According to composer Tuomas Kallio's Masters degree dissertation, the amendment to the copyright law is well known, and it has had a certain effect on the activities of the respondents. Nevertheless, this effect hardly qualifies as a major change in attitudes.
     
"At this stage, the use of file sharing networks is more common than downloading from legal sources", Kallio analyses the results of his study. "Half of the respondents announced they used peer-to-peer networks, and that is a lot."
      Executive director Antti Kotilainen of the Anti-Piracy Centre in Finland, CIAPC, admits that illegal downloading from the Internet continues to be a problem.
      "The problem is substantial. There are around 150,000 active users of peer-to-peer networks in Finland."
      Kotilainen believes the new law will have long-term effects, though. One of its strong points is that it defines the terms for legal trading over the Internet. At the moment, there are 16 legal music dealers in Finland operating through the Net, and also films are gradually finding their way to online sales.
     
Kallio's study confirms that digital music retailing over the Internet has not yet established itself as a major form of music consumption in Finland.
      "Currently, the problem is that the illegal products are identical to the genuine article", Kallio explains. "Some sort of additional bonus is needed to attract consumers to download their music from legal sources."
      "There are still certain difficulties pertaining to the use of downloaded files. If the hard-drive crashes, a person may lose all of his files. Furthermore, the transfer of files from one operating system to another is also not without its hitches."


Previously in HS International Edition:
  New law turns musicians into Internet police (10.1.2006)
  Parliament passes bill for new copyright law (6.10.2005)
  Finnish authorities gear up for strikes against peer-to-peer file sharing networks (13.4.2005)

Links:
  Copyright Information and Anti-piracy Centre in Finland

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