Eye Tea

Monday this week brought me an email from the marketing manager at the firm where I work, giving me a link to an illegal file sharing news item on the BBC website.  The link’s at the bottom of this post.

I popped up to see him.  I don’t know how to play this one, I said.  Blog it, he said.  Fair enough.

First things first.  At our firm we often call ourselves ACS.  We don’t trade as ACS:Law – that’s someone else.  No connection.

Moving quickly on.  The BBC article raises interesting questions about how you deal with copyright piracy on the internet.  The thing is, if ACS:Law’s clients see some strategic value in sending letters to every illegal file sharer under the sun, that’s the service that they want from their lawyers.  If we were convinced of the strategic value, frankly we’d do the same.

I’d like to see a debate and it’s a shame that the BBC article doesn’t invite comments, and that the views reported in the article are polemic. 

I  see mixed strategic value in using big mail shots in these cases.  It depends how good the evidence is against the pirates.  The BBC article quotes that point being made, but the implications aren’t explained and they’re key.  Internet piracy is increasingly conducted through social networks.  They don’t bother to set up big websites for law enforcers to shoot at.  If all you’ve got to go on to provide piracy is an IP address, a big mailshot could make the problem worse.  Copyright pirates often have some spirit and nerve.  They might be intimidated by being pursued.  But they’ll probably also wait for the threats to develop.  The implications: no evidence = empty threat = bolder pirate.

You can however understand copyright owners’ frustration.  It’s a costly road to go down if you want enough evidence to really nail illegal file sharers.  You can easily make yourself anonymous on the web, and under current UK law it costs a small fortune through the courts to get names from the ISPs.  If you’re a copyright owner you’re pretty comfortable with the proposition that some alleged infringers will pay to make the problem go away, not because they did it.  If you’re a music copyright owner who has responded to Napster etc by offering cheap MP3 downloads as an alternative to full price CDs, you’ve got some moral high ground to stand on.  And after all, the UK TV licensing authority behaves in substantially the same way.

In the BBC article the BPI is quoted as saying its policy is to concentrate on the big infringers.  On balance I agree that probably is the more responsible approach.  But I think what’s really needed is a change in the law so that it’s easier and cheaper to identify pirates and collect evidence to pursue them.

BBC article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8483482.stm

I’m fresh back from the Housing Quality Network’s conference on customer profiling which was held in Manchester today.  Fresh is the word – it was perishing cold all day in Manchester, and snow was falling heavily when I left.

There’s a single thought at the top of my mind.  The Tenant Services Authority is pushing social landlords to use customer profiling to help adapt their services to customers’ wants and needs.  The regulator is refreshingly averse to tick-box compliance, which offers landlords a real opportunity to demonstrate passion, creativity and sector leadership.  But landlords could be forgiven for thinking they’re being asked to walk to the first floor before the stairs have been built.

There’s lots to be gained here – desirable outcomes for landlords and the regulator.  There’s also a real risk of the wheel being reinvented several hundred times over.  Online and supermarket retailers have been developing know how on customer profiling for years now.  The worst case outcome would be for the social housing sector to ignore that and build new know how by trial and error.  A better route is to buy/acquire the retailers’ expertise and graft it over.  But it’s surely preferable to buy it once and share it within the sector, or at least within districts.

The same goes for data protection law, which is what I have to contribute on this topic.

Here we go again, then.  The benefits of co-sourcing ICT (for example), and whinging about how few organisations see the light on this, are two of my pet themes.  I’m not the first to apply it to customer profiling in the social housing sector.  I heard it first today from Donna Hall, Chorley Borough Council’s Chief Executive, who chaired the conference.  Needless to say, I think she’s spot on.

The TSA is running pilots and by the sound of it will publish some guidance saying what worked and what didn’t in the pilots.  I look forward to seeing that, and hopefully some of the pilots have drawn on retail sector experience so that it feeds through to other landlords that way.

Whilst we’re waiting for the guidance or regulatory comment on the pilots, or if the pilot outcomes aren’t very helpful, the smart landlords will pool resources to develop and share best practice.