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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?"
Hey - I'm all for it! If I'm charged a fee for downloading music, by golly, I'm going to download music!
Once I pay $0.01 in loss 'fees' to the RIAA, I consider myself licensed to download whatever is available. If I'm prevented, they should be prepared to be sued for failure to deliver a service for which fees were imposed.
This is as absurd as taxing every blank digital medium that gets sold in America, in case they're used to pirate music!!
oh.
Wait a sec.
But what do I know. I'm just looking for anonymous gay sex.
Then I'll start downloading pirated music, which I don't do currently. I don't have a single file-sharing app on my PC (unless you count MSN, FTP, et alius) and don't use those for much other than moving around source code..
But if they make me pay an ISP fee to download pirated music, and they reap profits from that, isn't that the same as selling me the right to download said music? As far as I'm concerned, it is.
-- If it ain't broke - overclock it more.
Charge me $10 a month for pirating, and I'm licensed to download what I want. Let's see if *anybody* buys music once it's legal to download it. I can't see how this is going to make them extra money. In fact, I think they'll lose money. Why would -- hey...
Let's let them do it! Would you pay $10 a month for a year if it made the RIAA drown in their own stupidity?
"The image is a dream. The beauty is real. Can you see the difference?" -- Richard Bach, Illusions
Let me see if I get this right:
1. Complain about piracy
2. Lets charge per tape because we have our music pirated.
3. ??
4. Profit!!
5. Complain about piracy
6. Lets collect tax from ISP because we have our music pirated.
7. ??
8. Profit!!
9. Complain about piracy
10. ??
11. ??
12. Profit!!
What we see depends on mainly what we look for. -- John Lubbock Now search for that bug slave!
Here's a better article.
:P
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-981281.html
In it, HR's more sane suggestion is to urge
"major music labels, which include Sony Music, Warner Music, EMI, Universal Music and Bertelsmann's BMG, to ease licensing restrictions, develop digital copyright protections for music and invest more in promoting subscription download services."
Sounds like a good plan to me.
The only thing she forgot was the "oh and offer music at a fair price"
Sometimes it seems paraphrasing is the main source of news on Slashdot.
Yo Grark
Canadian Bred with American Buttering
Canadian Bred with American Buttering
The recording industry already has a tax on most computer media in Canada.
It's already 21 cents per CD, and is going up to 59 cents soon. There's also a fee of 21 cents/megabyte for digital camera memory and tiny HDs because they can also be used in mp3 players.
Taxing ISPs is probably just the next logical step up here
Jason
ProfQuotes
They already have gotten away with that (them and the MPAA). They got a price markup on audio cassettes and video cassettes, to pay for the pirating, and no one complained about it.
Imho, this sort of thing just makes me doubly motivated to go out and download all the music I want. If I'm going to be paying a markup for it, might as well take advantage of it.
Oh, and I haven't bought a single music CD in the last 3 years. And I'm proud of it. Once a system is in place to pay money to artists directly, I'll put some money in towards the artists I like. Until then, I ain't paying squat.
Daniel
Carpe Diem
wrt Kazaa and the like:
"It's clear to me these companies are profiting to the tune of millions and millions of dollars. They must be held accountable," Rosen said.
When did I give Kazaa money again...?
"just makes me doubly motivated to go out and download all the music I want"
and ths makes me triply motivated to rip and put up my CDs for download. until now I used to allow only 1 user at a time to download from me, but now I will make it 10. look for kazaa user oggfan.
I own a car - but I don't go randomly running over people or property.
I own serveral fireamrs, but I have never killed anyone or anyting with them. (Except for some out of date Coca Cola)
I own a camera, but I don't go kidnap little girls and make kiddie porn
I own several knives but I have never cut anyone but myself with them...
Yet if I own a computer, a cd burner, cd-r discs and have an internet connection I am automatically a music pirate? (Or worse?!)
I guess I can now download 40GB of MP3s, this is getting really annoying. I can't even rip any of the new albums I've bought, it's made me less motivated to buy albums and just download them from the internet.
Free means no restrictions, ironic the FSF's GPL forces restrictions, isn't it? What's your definition of free?
My mother, a standard consumer with nearly no knowledge of how to go about pirating music or burning CDs, pointed out something very simple to me. She said that the price of CDs was the big problem, not the economy so much, and not piracy.
She pointed out how when Wal-Mart or K-Mart or Target have sales on CDs where the price drops quite low, say $10/CD, they sell out of the popular CDs. She also pointed out that in order for everyone to get paid reasonably, the cost to produce a CD would be about $5.
So, when you spend that incredible $20/CD, what are you spending that money on? Padding the pockets of shareholders and paying lawyers chasing "piracy".
My suggestion? When the CDs go on sale, buy 'em. Buy when they're low to show that you WOULD buy them if the were reasonably priced. Of course, getting the CDs you want may be tough then. Additionally, buy used CDs. Buy whenever the music hits a price you consider reasonable. Continue to support your favourite artists by buying t-shirts and going to concerts.
They should really teaching these marketing people some real economics courses. Supply and demand aren't just a simple cross on a chart when you add in alternative methods of obtaining materials. Sometimes crime does pay. Maybe we should have politicians look at it too.
"People are inherently selfish, but still they like to look morally upstanding in others' eyes. No one wants to be the bad guy." -me
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - G.B. Shaw
Most of the artists I listen to have nothing to do with the RIAA, and most of the music I listen from them doesn't even come out in CD form. For instance, I listen to a lot of swiss trance and progressive trance, and most of what I listen to in that genre is live sets recorded from the radio. The RIAA has done fuck all to put that in front of me (thank god, maybe it would sound more commercial if they had).
As for the so-called artists à la Britney Spears that the RIAA does expend a lot of effort on, to get them in my face whether I want to hear about them or not, those can go rot in hell. If they all go bankrupt I'll be happy. Finally the airwaves will be free for the types of artists which don't need multi-million dollar marketting campaigns to be listened to. And there's plenty of those, believe you me.
Anyway, in answer to you and the AC before, you, on the theft thing: Theft would be for my benefit - I'm doing this to do my bit to help the RIAA go bankrupt. I'm not making any financial gains by letting other people download my music, so if I'm stealing, where's it going? Huh?
Daniel
Carpe Diem
Wouldn't it be nice if Red Hat or Mandrake or Suse sued the governments (in those countries such as Canada and the U.S.) where funds are given to "musicians" for every cd purchased. I don't file share yet must pay a fee for each cd I purchase ... 59 cents each. At 3 cds each for my Mandrake and RedHat distributions (which I can download for free but must pay a "musician" to burn) that would muliply quite rapidly when you consider the number of North American open source user.
It is quite ironic that an Operating System is offered to me free of use but I must pay a "Musician" for the right to copy it. Mandrake goes bankrupt. These may not be large number of dollars but the fact is that they are being "pirated" by the music industry from the Open Source community.
1.) The right of taxation is reserved to governments only. Private organizations (like RIAA) do not have the right to tax. So, your "taxation analogy" is out the window.
2.) A large portion of the money you pay when buying a CD goes directly to RIAA. Now RIAA is proposing that ISPs force their users to pay a fee, however indirectly, to RIAA. So, you the user are being forced to pay twice for products you've already bought. To follow your "taxation analogy," this would be called "double-taxation," which is illegal. Again, your "taxation analogy" fails.
3.) RIAA is not accountable to the tax-paying public, because they are a private company. You and I have no voice in how RIAA performs its functions, yet they are demanding the right to "tax" us for merely using the Internet, which -- I might add -- they had no hand in creating or maintaining. Once more, following your "taxation analogy," this would be called "taxation without representation." Your analogy falls flat on its face, mortally wounded.
4.) You state in your argument that, for your taxes paid, you get a set of services in return provided by the government. True. This is the balance of taxation. However, you get nothing from RIAA in return for the fee they propose to force upon you. That is not taxation; that's theft. So, once more, your "taxation analogy" is bogus.
"The dead do not shoo-bop-aloo-bah." -- Kai, 'Lexx'
isn't this what happens with sale of any other product? I mean when you own a store and lose a certain percentage of revenue to shoplifting, etc. typically you raise your prices to compensate the additional overhead to your business. In that way, the other consumers pay for stuff they didn't steal.
I don't want to see this happen either, but ther is precedent for it.
"It's comin' back around again..." -RATM
I must admit it's not insane to try to distribute a burden across a wide group of people, even if they object to the ultimate purpose. It's called taxation, and makes a lot of sense for a public good. Say, for example, a fuel tax to pay for the roads. Not perfect, but not insane.
:)
Maybe we're not taking socialism seriously enough. Here's a proposal: If the various labels want to impose a tax and distribute it amongst themselves (an entirely inappropriate and possibly unconstitutional thing for the gov't to be doing, redistributing for a private "good"), why not go whole hog and socialize the music industry. Then they'll get their tax, and we, through Congress, can decide how much of the take they get. No profits, of course.
Symmetry? Everyone happy? No one happy? Well, that's the point.
Except he was justifying copyright infringement, not shoplifting and/or robbery.
Copying music is legally wrong. It is probably morally and ethically wrong. It is, however, not the same sort of wrong as theft. The problem is complex enough already: nobody needs your loaded analogies muddying the waters.
And whose fault is that? Why does the RIAA collect money from blank CD-R sales to make up for piracy, but not give that money to the artists?
"Imho, this sort of thing just makes me doubly motivated to go out and download all the music I want. If I'm going to be paying a markup for it, might as well take advantage of it."
The way I see it, if they charge me like that, then I'm paying for a service. They're basically saying "It's all okay". So yes, I agree with you, I'd take advantage with it.
What really irks me is that they've provided 0 way of legitimizing any MP3s we all have. They don't acknowledge that if you have a CD of a song that you're a legitimate user. They don't give you a way of purchasing a certificate or license for a digital copy of a song or CD. And if you delete your collection, they don't do anything to subtract that from their 'piracy' reports.
So yeah I'd love to pay a small fee for this, they'd have little room to bitch afterwards.
Too bad they won't try to make money by giving people an opportunity to legitimize what they have.
...what is the moral equivalence of the RIAA taking realized cash from people who do not download music?
I dunno, but so what? Feelings of moral superiority, by themselves, seldom carry the day.
Seems to me this is just an attempt to scare big ISP's into doing the RIAA's dirty work for them. At that, there'd certainly be a few challenges in court that would gum up the works for at least a while.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
It's well known in the industry, and heavily commented on by some musicians that *some* record labels have been known to rip off their musicians' music and other record labels have failed to adequately promote their artists' music. To make sure that that doesn't happen and that artists are properly compensated and promoted, Congress needs to pass a law requiring record labels to pay bands up front and not rip them off later and record labels to pay the internet industry to distribute anything that isn't in the Top 40. This is heavily documented statistically - the decline in Billboard ratings of almost every song that was in the Top 40 five years ago clearly demonstrates that the lack of adequate promotion by the record industry is interfering wtih artists' earnings and recognition. Furthermore, almost everything that *is* in the Top 40 is there because of record industry promotion, except for a smaller number of artists that achieve that popularity because of their artistic abilities in spite of the rampant failure to adequately promote them, and a much smaller number of songs like the Macarena which are clearly statistical outliers or badly collected data.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Just a small point:
/anywhere/ are begging for free content... if, at least, they weren't contractually bound not to play it. Which, sadly, I suspect they are.
I might be atypical, as I appreciate my TV consumption is well below the average, but the following comment holds as true before and after I made that particular change in my life; I never learnt about artists because 'the members of the RIAA paid a shitload of money'. Generally, I almost always find new artists I like - in order - by word-of-mouth from friends, by chance (eg. turning up at a random gig or other and discovering I like it), by poking around the record store, or, recently, by internet.
Occasionally, I do find new artists I like off the radio or television - very occasionally - but really, if the RIAA are PAYING significant $ to get their acts on advertising-sponsored radio then I think they're doing something wrong (or, more likely, are victims of the payola they almost certainly imposed on themselves).
One thing that I know for sure is that at least in Europe, the idea that a musical act has to pay radio stations - especially small, local advertising sponsored stations of the few-hundred-thousand-listener variety - should by all logic be laughable. Like local newspapers, most local institutions
The point of all this being that, frankly, your RIAA - advertising - economics theory is part wishful thinking and partly true, but much of what makes it true is fall-out from the bad behaviour of the RIAA and its European cousins.
Absolutely agree.
If I go into a place like Circuit City or Best Buy, wander over to the CD section, and buy the soundtrack for a movie such as The Fellowship of the Ring, I can expect to pay about $17.99 USD. Yet I can now wander over to the DVD section and pick up the DVD for that same movie for $19.99 USD -- and there I get the whole movie plus commentary tracks, deleted scenes, documentaries, etc. The soundtrack is only a couple of bucks less and all I get is the soundtrack.
And yet Hillary Rosen and her goose-stepping Gestapo at the RIAA complain about falling CD sales figures and they have the nerve to act surprised. What's that you say, Hillary? CD sales are off? No shit, Sherlock.
The fact of that matter is that 90% of what the RIAA puts out is complete garbage and 100% of it is overpriced. They're well aware of this fact, but really don't care; they're more concerned about preserving their ancient sales model and revenue stream than they are about putting out a high-quality product for a good value. Perhaps that's why DVD sales are skyrocketing and CD sales are flat. DVD movies are cheap, high quality, and offer a lot of bang for the buck.
The fact that DVDs are outselling $20 CDs that only have one or two decent tracks on them should come as a surprise to nobody.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
"the typical /. poster sure smells like someone who just wants free music. So much for the moral high ground."
No, I don't want free music. I want reasonably-priced good music.
Last time I bought a CD, it cost me $25 canadian. That's WAY too much for a college student (one of the largest CD consuming groups) to be paying. If the RIAA is trying to price-gouge a group of people who have no money, that's just nuts.
If CD's were $10 CDN, I'd buy much more music, even if I only like 1 or 2 songs on the CD. Since they cost so much, unless I like the whole CD, I'm not buying it.
And that's another thing. If a CD sucks, I can't return it to the store, I'm stuck with a Frisbee/coaster/arrow target/whatever. The CD's that I have bought, I had on MP3 before I bought them. I bought the CD 1) so I can get better mp3 rips and 2) for cover/liner art.
Dear Mrs Rosen,
I was planning on purchasing two CD's tonight from TranceTrax.com The latest Orion and Leviathan releases however, after reading the tales of your latest bullshit I decided to donate $25.00 to the EFF. As a result I no longer have the extra cash to spend on those two CD's.
I purchase two CD's each month from TranceTrax.com which helps pay for the audio feed provided by philosomatika Since I an not doing this I will simply donate $10.00 to philosomatika instead.
Have you ever thought that maybe it's you who might be directly responsible for the 6% drop in sales?
PS: Check out www.dontbuycds.org
Making sweeping statements about the average slashdotter and using your generalization to judge on their morality makes as much sense as assuming broadband users are a bunch of 'pirates' and using your generalization to charge them money.
I have never, repeat never, downloaded any mp3 that wasn't clearly licensed by the artist allowing me to do so. The RIAA is charging me, with every blank CD-R I buy, for acts of copyright infringement I have never committed, and are now suggesting a scheme which if it passed would likely have me pay a monthly maintenance fee for those same acts which I have never committed.
Hell YES I have the moral high ground!
No, that's still not the same.
When you steal the groceries from the shop behind the corner, you take it from the owner of the shop and he loses money spent on it. When you take someone's car, you take away his posession. When you photocopy a dollar bill and circulate it, you take away a bit of value from every single dollar bill on this planet.
When you copy music you don't do any of this. You don't deprieve original of its value, you don't take the money spent on its creation. There is very questionable point of lost revenue, but thats just it: it's questionable.
Go figure...
Robert
Bastard Operator From 193.219.28.162
Most artists that I know that have signed to a label did so when they were very young, 19-23, and had no clue about how business works. The the labels get A & R reps, who are "cool"-seeming young dudes (usually guys who were in signed bands that broke up) to hob-nob with you and convince you that the label is different than all the others.
Then these A & R reps get you to sign a "deal memo" which they will tell you you don't need your lawyers to read, it's nota contract. And it's not, but it's still legally binding. All it says is that you intend to sign a deal with the label.
Once you've signed, you're in and you can't really get out. The deal memo means that you can't sign with another label, and if you can't do that you are pretty much at the mercy of what contract they give you.
Sure, you could probably get a lawyer and get out of the deal memo, but a) these people are young and don't have lawyers or big money, b) the labels have better lawyers and bigger money, and c) the fear that other labels won't want you if you have a reputation for being litigous.
All in all, the deck is stacked towards the labels.
I know this analogy is still slightly flawed; it's more like growing your own Monsanto roundup-ready-canola without paying Monsanto for the seeds. But it is nothing like stealing actual vegetables from a store.
Incidentally, you might want to do a web search and read up on roundup-ready-canola. Monsanto is just the kind of company that might propose a tax on farming equipment to cover their 'seed piracy'
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