Industry Trust: Working together in a brave new digital world

Valerie | 25 Aug 2009, 08:00

C&binet comment: Liz Bales, Director General of the Industry Trust for Intellectual Property Awareness

Liz Bales discusses business models for the digital age and highlights the importance of providing legitimate alternatives to illegal filesharing.

The ‘digital revolution’ is at once a great opportunity and a great threat to the film and television industries.  As broadband speeds and capacity increase, so too will the opportunities to download films at ever greater speeds and convenience: the challenge for our industry is to harness this opportunity and develop innovative and sustainable content services which are attractive to consumers.

As with the rest of the internet, there is a desire for unlimited film content, free at the point of use. If this expectation is not met or not challenged, consumers will increasingly turn to unofficial downloading.  It is a critical issue, as ours is an expensive industry, reliant on ticket and DVD sales to fund future investment and to sustain Britain’s world class workforce.

Clearly, the film industry needs to keep adapting, seeking new ways to provide legal alternatives that are accessible and represent good value in consumers’ eyes.  For instance, the launch of ‘FindAnyFilm’, a UK Film Council project, earlier this year, was a positive step towards making it easier to download legally. It is an online search engine which signposts legal content, from downloads to DVDs, and gives the public the option to sort their results by price (http://www.findanyfilm.co.uk).  In this new digital world, such initiatives are crucial if we are to divert consumers away from unofficial sources, like the recently prosecuted Pirate Bay, and towards legitimate alternatives.

More than this though, we need to create an environment where consumers respect and value the contribution made by the content industry and where that is underlined by a supportive regulatory framework, giving consumers a clear benchmark of appropriate behaviour.

Annual research suggests consumer education campaigns can make a difference. After two years of the Trust’s pro-copyright initiatives, for example, the number of UK consumers who think unofficial downloads and file-sharing are wrong has doubled (from 34% in May 2007 to 70% in December 2008).  Moreover, Lord Carter’s recently published Digital Britain Report contained some encouraging steps towards stronger online regulation, something the industry has been calling for.

Collectively, industry, government and our wider society needs to appreciate the value of creative industries.  It will be a significant undertaking, but it is crucial that consumers come to realise that there can be no such thing as a free lunch, even on the internet. In fact, they have a stake in the industry and by not consuming in an authorised way they are making a direct impact.  The general public is part of the problem and the solution – if we all learn to work together, this brave new digital world will be full of exciting possibilities.