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?"

Comments

Re:I can't believe the ideas the RIAA thinks they.

[Anonymous Coward]

Once a system is in place to pay money to artists directly, I'll put some money in towards the artists I like.

Bullshit. A thief today, a thief tomorrow. I'm sure you'll find another convenient rationalization for why you won't pay into that system if and when it does materialize. Face it, you're a thief.

Re:I can't believe the ideas the RIAA thinks they.

[b0r1s]

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.

Rationalizing theft. I probably won't win anyone over by arguing about that, so I won't bother.

Once a system is in place to pay money to artists directly, I'll put some money in towards the artists I like

How, exactly, do you expect that to happen? People learn about artists because the members of the RIAA PAY A SHITLOAD OF MONEY to get their names and faces in front of you. You don't know about artists unless they're supported by the RIAA. Aritsts usually aren't known unless they're advertised by the RIAA. The RIAA needs money for advertising, and that money has to come from proceeds made off of the artists.

It's called economics. It's not that difficult.