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Rosen Floats ISP Fee Idea -- Charge Everybody!
iconian writes "Hillary Rosen of RIAA wants to impose a type of fee to ISPs which in turn will be passed to all their customers indiscriminately to recoup supposed damages done by file-sharing. The RIAA considers downloading music illegally over the Internet to be the moral equivalence of stealing. I wonder then what is the moral equivalence of the RIAA taking realized cash from people who do not download music?"
So in the analogy world, is that kinda like...
The RIAA charges NJ Transit because apparently, some people from NJ are going to Tower Records in NY to steal CDs... but the thing is... They're using NJ Transit to do it!!! Bastards!
Heh... so... is that the appropriate analogy here? Any other fun analogies out there?
Guess they REALLY need that 6% back huh? heh.
Like Teddy with an elephant gun.
Pretty little packages...
This whole system is funded by the money given to the government by the taxpayers. What, exactly, are you doing by having prisons? You are, in fact, paying to support people who have committed crimes. Is this fair? Of course. If you didn't pay for prisons, you would have dangerous murderers, rapists and potheads walking the streets and terrorizing the populace.
Similarly, in this system, you are paying the RIAA for the continued service of providing music. Like it or not, everything musical you purchase has an association with the RIAA; if the RIAA goes bankrupt from the rampant internet piracy of their intellectual property, the whole world will suffer, because all sources of music will dry up.
This is certainly something I wouldn't want to see, and I can imagine only the most ardent philistine hoping for such an outcome. So do your part to support music. Entertainers have families to feed, too.
--sdem
Pete Townsend? Is that you?
"The image is a dream. The beauty is real. Can you see the difference?" -- Richard Bach, Illusions
Ha! It's not theft if I pay 10 bucks a month to my ISP to pay for it.
...the RIAA PAY A SHITLOAD OF MONEY to get their names and faces in front of you.
Shit! Why didn't you tell me earlier?! I would have stopped buying CD's a decade ago if I had known that the RIAA might not have been able to afford advertising for more Britney Spears CD's!
Umm.. can you go and do that on some /other/ lifeboat? I'd rather the power source you're using be used on this lifeboat for.. oh.. I don't know.. keeping the rest of us warm etc. Unless.. you're /really/ burning cd's .. which I think is dangerous... what if the lifeboat catches fire? I think, all around, you better go to some other lifeboat.. and stop endangering me.
IBM owns the songs "2" through "9" and "A" through "F" and "SmileyFace", Bell Labs owns "-128" through "-1", "*", "#", and "13" through "127", the CCITT owns "128" through "255", Control Data owns "Negative 0". Digital Equipment owns "-32768"-"-129" and "256"-"32767", except that John Draper seems to have aquired performance rights for "2600" and somebody scribbled on the documentation on "31337", IBM owns "32768-65535", and by now that's covered all the songs you can play on CD. If they're thinking about using other standards, remember that the IEEE currently has all the floating point numbers, plus and minus infinity, and "Not A Number", so there's no place for the RIAA to hide except back in Analog Land.
And, surely if the music industry can tax us for possible downloads, we should be able to tax them for showing computers in their movies and using "computer hackers" in their plots, because they MIGhT NOT HAVE paid the Cyberspace Society of Computer Programmers, Hackers, and Stereotyped Nerdy Teenagers for using them. The tax obviously ought to be paid in movie downloads.
Besides, as a spokesperson for the Cable TV industry (I own about a 3-millionth of Comcast) it's important to remind the RIAA that most of the Cable Modem companies have strict policies against copyright violation, so our users would never do anything like that and she therefore can't tax us for it, and most of them also have strict policies running anything server-like, including file sharing software, which is bizarrely and suicidally clueless (Duhh, why do you think people buy broadband?) but also means that none of *our* users are doing this. However, we do know that the record labels and their "agents" often use the telephone to talk to their artists, so the telephone companies are as much a part of the music production process as the RIAA is, and we'd like our cut now, please.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
It has been known for a long time that the best, most profitable music and movies are made by people on drugs. And while most artists bear the financial burden of drugs through direct charges, insurance increases, legal fees, and shortened careers, the largest reward is reaped by RIAA executives who enjoy the fruits of artists labors without the associated early Cocane burnout. This is not a fair arrangement.
Therefore, it is proposed that middle-level management and above in all music-related fields be taxed at 4% of income, for the express purpose of using said money to fund such worthy prehab programs as Raves, House Parties, Bashes, Shindigs, Galas, Grateful Dead tribute concerts, and the city of Berkeley, California. In such a fashion, artists and music would be supported by those who have so far stolen their work without returning their fair share.
This levy would, of course, be void for any executive that could prove solidarity with the plight of the musicians through nosebleeds, swollen arteries, ADHD, or the propensity to use the word "Dude" as if it were insightful.
The ______ Agenda
it would be 'pollution'.
You'd get a nasty fine and have to clean it up. There'd also probably be a civil suit from a group of local fishermen who want damages. The tea company that happens to make the brand you used will also take you to court for some sort of defamation. Last - once this hit the press, PETA would picket your house/place of business for abusing fish.
Cake or Death? Cake Please!