BPN 1660: Every Dutch e-book buyer is a potential pirate

Dutch book publishers fear for piracy. Lagging behind the music, movie and game industries, it thinks that it will be able to eradicate e-book piracy. From now on, the data of every buyer of e-books with a watermark will be registered and kept in a database for at least two years. The watermark will have the name of the buyer on every page and a few invisible marks.

The Dutch entertainment police BREIN has made it mandatory for internet booksellers and book distributors, using the distribution platform eBoekhuis of CB , formerly Central Book House, to register e-book customer data  and to provide those to the foundation BREIN, when asked for. The booksellers in the Netherlands and Belgium will have to retain the data for two years.

Recently, a large number of Dutch e-book publishers disbanded DRM , the lock on e - books. They were convinced that the DRM lock hindered selling e - books hinders. E-books could not be copied to multiple devices. With a watermark in Adobe EPUB and PDF formats , distribution over more than one platform is possible. Through the watermark the book can be traced back to the original buyer, who does not need to be the uploader. The 2,500 participating booksellers in the Netherlands and Belgium are required to sign an agreement with the foundation BREIN to exchange the data in case of abuse .

This obligation seems to conflict with the privacy of the e-book buyer. BREIN says it will not chase private uploaders, but it will go after identifying (commercial) uploaders of particular torrent sites.

MP Astrid Oosenbrug of the Dutch Labour Party has asked parliamentary questions to the Minister of Security and Justice whether e-book shops are allowed to register personal data and keep these data for at least two years .

Doubts about the BREIN method

In the Dutch language book publishing world there is doubt as to the method BRAIN wants to apply . The largest e-book webshop Bol.com has already indicated is not sign the agreement. Academic publisher Springer SBM states that illegal copying and distribution of e – book, has not affected  sales. Also General publisher Meulenhoff Boekerij does not believe that  watermarking will eliminate piracy, but it may help to reduce piracy . On Tweakers.net a publisher of Meulenhoff Boekerij says: " Piracy often arises from dissatisfaction. You need to offer the buyer a good price and no hassle" .

The question is now whether the watermark , registration and data retention will deter pirates from copying and distributing. The e-book buyers , who have paid for an e - book copy , will not easily pass the book for duplication. In addition, most online webstores store purchases in personal libraries for the reader in case of loss.

The question is now whether e-book buyers will shy away from a purchase due to the registration and data retention. For now every Dutch buyer of a watermarked e-book  is a potential pirate. Besides you can wait for it: one day in the near future a collection of personal data  of buyers of a watermarked e-book will be found in a street on the street, just as happens to government and banking data.

Update BPN 1649: E-books in the Netherlands

Update article Google starts e-book sales in the Netherlands (5)

14 August 2013

web roi Dutch eBook Sellers Mandated to Provide Customer Data to Anti-Piracy Agency

Archive for E-Book News

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The Dutch eBook scene has grown up in the past few years and many companies have embraced the digital watermark. 62% of all digital publishers who produce digital books use this technology, while 24% use conventional DRM....

BPN 1245 Dutch cyber crime Code of Conduct in effect

The Minister for Foreign Trade Heemskerk kicked off the 'Notice-and-Take-Down' Code of Conduct in The Hague today. The Code sets out how internet companies are to handle reports about illegal websites. Under the terms of the Code of Conduct, illegal websites hosted from the Netherlands will eventually be removed. Substantial progress fighting spam, spyware and malware has been made over the past years. The new code will help to tackle other illegal activities on the internet, including handling stolen goods, discrimination or phishing.

The code of Conduct is based on good practices from businesses, governments and other parties involved in fighting cybercrime. The Code has been drawn up under the patronage of the National Infrastructure Cybercrime (Ministry of Economic Affairs) by market parties including KPN, XS4ALL, ISPConnect, Dutch Hosting Provider Association, NLKabel, Ziggo, UPC, CAIW, Zeelandnet and domain register SIDN. Ministries, the police and investigation services and organisations including Marktplaats/eBay and the copyright police BREIN collaborated in setting up the code. Affiliated businesses - 85% of all access providers and several hosting providers - hereby send a clear signal that the internet is not to be used for illegal practices.

Those responsible for placing illegal content on the internet are often difficult to trace. As reports about illegal Dutch sites are rarely acted upon, these sites often remain online. The Code sets out the agreements between participants and their specific roles in dealing with reports they receive. In principle, internet users can report any illegal content they come across to those responsible for placing the content on the net. If this is not possible or if they don't know who to approach, users can report their find to the next party down the chain. This may be the manager of a discussion forum, the company that hosts the relevant website, the service provider or, as a last resort, the police. These other parties in the chain will make every effort to get the information off line. The new Code will become effective today.

The Code will be followed up later this year with more measures to fight cybercrime. For instance, a ban on sending spam to companies will be introduced from early next year.

Blog Posting Number: 1245

Tags: cybercrime, phishing, spam, spyware, malware

BP N 1142 Dutch judge forbids downloading

Every Dutchman who downloads protected songs, movies or software from internet, infringes on the law. That is the ruling of a court in The Hague. It is for the first time that a Dutch judge marked unauthorised downloading of copyright protected material for private use as illegal. The ruling goes against the government’s position of tolerating downloading for private use.

The court case concerned the conflict of blank media levies. In the Netherlands manufacturers of blank media carriers have to compensate rightful artists by paying a levy. In this way artists are still paid for the music which is recorded on the media carriers like CD-ROMs and DVDs. The manufacturers thought that the levy was too high and started a court case against the collecting society Homecopy (Thuiskopie), which distributes the money among the claimants.

However it came as a great shock that the judge expressed himself so explicitly about illegal copying. So far in The Netherlands only uploading unauthorised material was illegal. However downloading concerned the recording of a home copy was tolerated. This has been the position of the government also so far. The court ruling now says that downloading is liable to punishment. However how can this position be consistent with the copying levy? The consumer compensates the artists at source, when purchasing a blank media carrier. And at the moment that music is recorded on the blank media carrier, he is again liable to punishment.

The music recording companies are very happy with the ruling. They can now start prosecuting any downloader. And it will give the piracy watchdog Brein more clout in prosecuting downloader. However the execution of the ruling will be a problem, as the anti piricay officials just can not knock on everyone’s door to check who is busy downloading what. So privacy will be an issue. The piracy watchdog might go to the ISPs to worm data of individual trespassers out of them.

The ruling comes at a moment that the government is studying the collecting societies and the blank levy issue. Also the European Commission is making an inventory of the collecting societies and the blank levy issue. In France the minister of Culture piloted a very strict download law through the ministers’ council. In the UK, British ISPs and music rights holders are engaged in serious negotiations, being pressured by legislators, who have threatened to enact their own measures to resolve massive piracy issues if the industries cannot devise their own solutions.

Blog Posting Number: 1142

Tags: piracy, blank media levy

The music industry pie to be divided differently

A discussion is raging in the Dutch amusement industry. Last week the news service of the ISP Planet Internet published an article on the amusement industry. It recognised that the music industry is in trouble while the games industry is flourishing.

For years the music industry has lived from selling vinyl records and audio CDs. But since internet this has changed dramatically. Live performances are seen as yielding the revenues. But this is not true, according to Wouter Rutten, spokes person for the NVPI, the Dutch recording association. “Yes live performance yield more revenues, but they do not compensate the loss of revenues from carriers like audio CDs”.

He continues saying that he disagrees with the position that the role of record companies and record shops is changing and even has finished. He offers the position that live music can not survive without record companies. They are the flying wheel. They put the artists in the market, make them known to an audience, offer their music to channels and accompany them with marketing actions. Without all these efforts, less people would come to their live performances.

He supports his position with figures of the Dutch music scene. The annual turn-over of live performances in The Netherlands yields 80 million euro. This is only a small part of the half billion euro spent on amusement products every year. The entire pie of the amusement industry is about 1 billion euro. And this is already so for some years with only light fluctuations due to the economy. There are changes within this pie, but they are diverse with changes from audio CD to DVD.

Mr Rutten notes that the amount of music record shops is diminishing in The Netherlands. However he also grants that many of these music record shops evolve to multimedia shops.
He also indicates that the NVPI is less strict about down- and uploading as the Dutch piracy watchdog Brein. He makes no bones about illegal down and uploading; the NVPI is against it. But the association likes to look at the whole picture, while Brein looks at piracy specifically. NVPI even looks at legal alternatives.

He cites examples in the UK, where Prince has bundled his latest audio CD in a Sunday paper; no less than half a million copies. This was done to promote the twenty concerts to be given later on. Rutten is not sure that this type of economic models will make it in the future. He is convinced that these models will also reach The Netherlands. But this will not be the only model or method of sharing revenues. Prince had first to get popular, a task for the record company.

Blog Posting Number 870

Tags: music industry, amusement industry