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Kazaa, Verizon Propose Compulsory Music Licensing
akb writes "USA Today is reporting on an interesting new alliance between Kazaa, the dominant file sharing network, and Verizon, a company with revenues of $67 billion. The two companies are floating a proposal to ISPs and the computer and manufacturing industries to lobby to force the music industry to license their music. Royalties would be payed to artists directly, thus circumventing the stranglehold the RIAA has on the music industry."
My first thought: this is far to sane to actually take place. Then I read:
Sooo, let me get this straight: it is riciculous to directly pay the artist who produce the music.
Well, this is very telling. I sincerly hope compulsory license comes to be... it seems about the only way to tame the RIAA beast. Maybe it will even save internet radio.
Recording Industry Association of America president Hilary Rosen calls the proposal "the most disingenuous thing I've ever heard. It's ridiculous." Oh theres a shocker... someone comes up with a decent idea that doesn't involve the RIAA making more money and Rosen calls them disingenuous. Ha, what the hell is the RIAA then? Like they really serve a point by paying the artist pretty much nothing and profiting on other people's work. Yeah whos the insincere bastard here. Ironically this idea, no matter how crazy it is... might just work. I'd be willing to give an extra dollar a month for internet if it meant i could download music without worrying about the RIAA or kazaa using spyware (which I'd hope would dissapear if they actually had real money exchanging hands, that and i'm sure Verizon can spare some change).
can't sleep slashdot will eat me
This still presupposes that the consumers of the above items are going to engage in 'illegal' copying.
I think we should adamantly refuse to support any proposal which presupposes guilt - I think it's a dangerous precedent.
MjM
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XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
Artists will be able to make money off albums, but they will have to do it the right way. They will have to make you want to buy the album. Include original artwork etc (take a look at old records, some of the artwork that was on the sleeves of those is probably worth more than the album itself. People also like to have original copies. Artists can make money off albums, but they're going to have to cost a lot less. That's where self recording comes in. The technology availible today should alow most artists to make a record their own albums well enough to get popular, and then be able to use that money to sign the recording company, not the other way arround.
However, I do agree that the real test of artists will be in their performances. That's where they will need to make their money.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
What we have now: "The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." -- Hunter S Thompson
Compulsory licensing is a great idea. We have that now with radio play and with some kinds of patents. We would apply directly to the artist, or to the artist's designated representative, for a license. Instead of a band making 2 cents an album, it would get all the money.
This may be a great idea, but there are definite consequences.
The proposal is similar to what's being done with the blank audio cassette levy in the US (see Title 17, section 1004) and the Canadian CD-R Levy (see this random link I found on Google).
But the question is: how does the collected money get back to the artists? There are two ways:
1. Use the BMI or ASCAP system that already exists to pay artists for music rebroadcast.
Of course, this has problems of its own (see ASCAP & BMI -- Protectors of Artists or Shadowy Thieves?). This is unlikely, because the sampling method used to dole out royalties is even less valid for the Internet than it is for rebroadcast and live performances. Additionally, it's unnecessary because they could just...
2. Track actual downloads from the Internet.
Think about it -- to accurately divide a >$2B pie will take a very thorough analysis to get all parties comfortable. It's easy to legislate: either all download sites or sharing systems aggregate their download data in a central database or they will be considered illegally supporting piracy. IMHO this will very shortly be a part of the proposal.
Note that this could use unique IDs, assuring that your actual music listening habits won't be tracked, etc. But do you really believe this will happen, when there's yet another advertising vector to exploit? Think about the metadata that could be gained from this data...the licensing opportunities...the marketing...the potential for privacy intrusion....
Who would control this big usage database in the sky? Who would you trust?
Who remembers the DAT tax? Before doing digital audio on computers was made practical by mp3 and cd-r there was DAT. And the music industry clamped down hard to prevent it from becoming a consumer product. So they got a tax placed on DAT media and devices and had a chip implanted in every DAT device to prevent copying.
;)
Thought it was relevant to this, but didn't think the slashdotters would let me do a feature
Anyhoo, here's some reference links
The right way to tax dat by RMS
Phillip Greenspun comments and gave testimony before the Senate.
What happens to the money that the Library of Congress collects.
Its about making fans pay for access to new music. why shouldnt a musician be able to take a box to their concert and like a vending machine people download mp3s into their portible players from these boxes.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
What's the best way to tame the best? Revoke its corporate charter. I am certainly no proponent of a generalized corporate death penalty, but the courts should have the Supreme Courts should have the discresionary power to summarily revoke not-for-profit corporate charters based on the history of the organization. The RIAA has a history of legal terrorism against any potential threat. It wields state force as a weapon via the courts in order to maintain the status quo, a strategy irreconsilably at odds with free market capitalism.
What should terrify the RIAA is the possibility that the USSC will pull a Roe v Wade re copyright law; that suddenly out of no where it will take a fish hook to copyright law and essentially disembowl it. That is what Roe v Wade did to abortion laws. There is far more constitutional ground to oppose the DMCA than old anti-abortion laws.....
That ruling on virtual child pornography should have been a wake up call for the RIAA and MPAA because it shows that there is a hardline utilitarian streak to the current USSC. That ruling showed the public that utility matters to most of the justices, especially ones like Scalia that typically rule against big government (which is what the DMCA really is, an excuse to increase police powers).
A good legal argument to use before the USSC against the DMCA is that it violates the first amendment. The bill of rights was ratified AFTER the body of the Constitution. Therefore federal copyright law must be restricted by the first amendment since it came AFTER the clause in Article I, Section 8 establishing IP enforcement powers. Since the provision that "Congress shall pass no law abridging freedom of speech" came after said section, it naturally follows that said section cannot restrict freedom of speech.
(Now what would really be nasty is if the USSC ruled that because local governments and corporations are both chartered by state governments, the states can legally hold not for profits like the RIAA to the provisions of the bill of rights)
Compulsory licensing, where the copyright holder has to license on statutory terms, is reasonable. But taxing the Internet to support the music industry is not. It's important to distinguish between the two.