Report from the ISP Future Content Models and Enforcment Strategies Summit 2008, Kensington, London

The Motion Picture Association (MPA) - the Hollywood trade association - has weighed into the debate around an Internet levy to pay for publicly-funded entertainment with a clear 'no'. Speaking at the ISP Future Content Models and Enforcement Strategies Summit 2008, Ted Shapiro, MPA legal counsel, warned against "turning the Internet into one big compulsory licence". Expanding on what he meant, he said "you pay your ISP a few Euros per month and we all get a cheque.

The possibility of a levy on the Internet is being quietly floated by a number of people as an option to deal with file-sharing, and to generate money for content production. I have mostly heard it from members of the rights-holder community, such as the British music industry, and the French cultural lobby. The people more likely to oppose it, are the ISPs themselves - and that could make for an interesting partnership option for the MPA.

The Walt Disney Co, one of the leading lobby-ists for 'riposte graduee' in the EU and in France, has had a "fantastic quarter" for the first three months of 2008. According to Reuters. Disney outperformed the analysts expectations, with a a 17 per cent rise in operating income, and a 22 per cent rise in profits. Its broadcasting arm, ABC, has claimed a 'double digit' rise in advertising income. The company was rewarded by the markets with a 1.6 per cent rise in the share price on the day the results were announced.

Analysts are even saying that Disney is "recession resistant" and is showing more signs of a going through a boom market than a troubled one.

The question for the legislators should therefore be whether such a firm really needs political support like the French 'riposte graduee' proposals, to underpin it, especially to the extent of changing some fundamental European legal principles such as data protection and mere conduit?

New technologies to improve peer-to-peer (P2P) technologies are appearing behind the scenes - and they offer a pointed reposte to the content industries about how to deal with P2P downloading. They demonstrate ways to solve the problem by technical means. And when you consider this carefully, it means you can demolish the IFPI / MPAA argument that the only way to reduce P2P traffic on the networks is through litigation and sanction - or that P2P traffic can be reduced at all.

P4P is a way for ISPs to tidy up the P2P traffic and reduce the amount of bandwidth it users - P4P is, if you like, a technically neater way to transmit P2P traffic, and will help reduce the network management overhead for ISPs. The core group of companies developing P4P* consists of a number of ISPs, mostly American, hand in glove with P2P companies like BitTorrent and Limewire, plus a few stalwart equipment manufacturers like Cisco. And - this is where it gets really interesting - on the list of observers is - well, you guessed didn't you? - the Motion Picture Association of America, NBC Universal (part-owned by Vivendi), Time Warner and Turner Broadcasting - all the content industry heavyweights.

Read more: P4P riposte to IFPI / MPA muck-spreading