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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, you're saying "since some people don't steal music over the Internet, then the RIAA has no right to take their money from them"
That's the silliest thing I've ever heard. Perhaps you are familiar with another system that works like this; we usually refer to it here as taxation. You, the user, turn over a certain portion of your earnings to the government and, in return, recieve services from them proportional to your need. There is nothing morally wrong with this - you are helping out the poor and disadvantaged by doing so.
Similarly, through paying this fee to the RIAA, you will be able to continue to enjoy the music that you listen to. What would happen if the major record labels ended up going bankrupt? You certainly wouldn't be able to get music anymore. Odds are, you would be a lot more pissed off than you were when you found out you just had to pay a fee to compensate for the crimes committed by others.
Hell, I can draw another parallel to taxation here: if you think this is so goddamned unfair, then what are you doing by electing officials who continue to support the concept of imprisonment by the state? You are, after all, paying the upkeep for other people who have committed wrongs. Surely, they should all be executed at minimal cost to you, the taxpayer, because you shouldn't be paying for their mistakes. Or should you? I certainly hope nobody here is heartless enough to support such a position - we have enough people imprisoned already for frivolous drug offenses, the last thing we should do is start executing them.
So really, when reflected upon, this isn't such a bad thing. What you are really doing is paying for a service rendered by the RIAA. Sure, there may be some who don't listen to music, but by and large, such a luddite probably doesn't have an internet connection, either.
--sdem
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.
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.
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