It’s a fair point and a big problem. Australia’s internet service providers ISPs (on whose networks the infringements typically occur, but without the ISPs’ involvement), do not in any way condone or authorise online copyright infringement and support the need for rights holders to enforce their copyright.

There have been concerted attempts in many countries around the globe to address the ‘online piracy’ issue. It is a complex dilemma: how to balance the rights of content producers against the rights of consumers, while maintaining the freedom of the internet. How do we also ensure that people can have easy access to affordable and legally available content when they want it?

The latter is a crucial consideration, because online infringement is very often prompted by the fact that consumers are frustrated by the lack of a legal way to get hold of the content they want, and therefore turn to less noble ways of obtaining it.

Rights holders claim that availability and pricing of content is not the problem. If so, why is piracy falling in the US where content is more widely available and better priced – but not falling in countries such as Australia that still suffer the barriers of geo-blocking? Interesting evidence comes from the music industry’s soaring revenues for music streaming businesses such as Pandora and Spotify that – guess what – make the music available and affordable.

None of the so-called ‘graduated response’ schemes created overseas has proved particularly successful. Some have been very costly – such as the scheme implemented in France – and have been substantially wound back. A definitive recent study by Monash University’s Prof Rebecca Giblin, examined such schemes in place in seven countries and found no correlation between the graduated response schemes and the level of infringing activity.

Communications Alliance and Australia’s major ISPs spent 18 months negotiating with rights holders (in discussions facilitated by the Attorney-General’s Department) to attempt to reach agreement to launch a trial graduated response scheme, to run over an 18 month period. It was designed to test the effectiveness of such a scheme in Australia and hopefully to build evidence for a business case to create automated systems to track down infringers.

The talks foundered on one basic issue – the insistence of the rights holders that ISPs should wear the costs of running the scheme – i.e. the internet companies should pay to enforce the rights of Hollywood studios and the like (costs that would ultimately be borne by law-abiding Australian broadband customers). The rights holders claim that online piracy costs them $1.4 billion per annum in lost sales in Australia alone, yet were unwilling to contribute even $1 million to address the problem.

Australia’s ISPs remain willing to negotiate for a fair solution, and indeed the CEOs of Australia’s biggest internet companies wrote to Senator Brandis very recently to underline that desire.

What is needed for that to move forward is:

• Agreement by rights holders to reimburse the reasonable costs that ISPs will incur in helping to protect copyright.
• Agreement to jointly engage in a public education programme to warn consumers that their activity may be illegal and where they can legally access content.
• An assurance from Government that Australian consumers won’t have their rights or privacy compromised, and won’t be placed at risk of being disconnected from the internet as a result of an allegation – and that ISPs legal rights are protected.
• A recognition that infringing technologies are evolving rapidly and that any ‘solution’ must be designed so that it is not rendered obsolete by technological change.
• An ongoing commitment to continue growing the digital content market, including concrete steps to break down content-availability barriers that still exist.

ABOUT JOHN STANTON//

John Stanton is the CEO of the industry umbrella group, the Communications Alliance, and is a seasoned communications industry executive with over 18 years of senior management experience. He is a former CEO of People Telecom, a former President of Intelsat, and former senior executive at Telstra.

The post How to sink online pirates appeared first on iStart leading the way to smarter technology investment..

But a few years ago the more common topic of collective post-prandial outrage was the poor customer service performance of the nation’s telecommunications companies.

Not that it was universally bad – many Australian telcos have built their business success on the strength of their customer service. Nonetheless, almost everyone, it seemed, had a story – or knew someone who had a story – about an unexpectedly high phone bill or the difficulty of getting a problem resolved with their telecommunications provider. Complaints to the telecommunications industry ombudsman (TIO) had reached record volumes and the Government and regulators were on the brink of implementing harsh new standards and regulations.

The introduction of a stronger new Telecommunications Consumer Protections (TCP) code in 2012, combined with a genuine change of mindset within the industry and a shift to make customer service excellence the new competitive battleground, has seen marked improvements during the past two years.

Complaints to the TIO fell to a six-year low in the last quarter of 2013 and a swathe of new products have hit the market, designed to prevent so-called ‘bill-shock’ – particularly that stemming from mobile data and international roaming charges. Mobile customers now receive mandatory spend alerts as they near their monthly data allowance and have access to other tools to help them manage their spend.

A quarterly survey of telco customer satisfaction, conducted by Roy Morgan Research on behalf of Communications Alliance, is showing a slow but steady rise in satisfaction levels. Telcos are no longer as unpopular as banks (OK, it’s perhaps a pretty low bar, I concede, but progress is progress…).

Research recently conducted by the industry regulator (the ACMA) found that consumers are finding it easier to compare the different plans and products on offer in the market, thanks to the stronger and more standardised requirements for product-summary information to be given to consumers pre-sale.

The ACMA research revealed that 82 percent of consumers had found helpful the new Critical Information Summaries (a standard format description of all the key attributes of a product plan, including price, inclusions and exclusions, performance characteristics and termination conditions) that service providers are making available to prospective customers in their shopfronts and on their websites.

Many consumers believe, however, that it is still difficult to reliably compare the customer service performance of telecommunications companies before deciding with which provider to sign up.

Help is on its way. The Communications Alliance is with working with the TIO to create a regime that will track, over time, the comparative customer service performance of individual communications service providers.

Under the planned scheme, the complaints lodged with the TIO against individual service providers during each quarter will be converted into a ratio of complaints in relation to the total relevant services that the provider has in operation at that time.

In this way consumers will be able to see a graph tracking the comparative customer service performance of individual telcos, their competitors, and whether the achievement of each is trending in a positive or negative direction over time.

Already seven service providers – representing collectively a large majority of the total market – have volunteered to be part of the programme, which will initially operate for 12 months before having its effectiveness reviewed.

It’s up-Kimono time in a way that has never before been seen in the sector. It certainly risks bringing telcos back into the dinner party conversation, but hopefully on a more informed and positive note.

ABOUT JOHN STANTON//

John Stanton is the CEO of the industry umbrella group, the Communications Alliance, and is a seasoned communications industry executive with over 18 years of senior management experience. He is a former CEO of People Telecom, a former President of Intelsat, and former senior executive at Telstra.

The post Telco complaints laid bare appeared first on iStart leading the way to smarter technology investment..