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Australian Gov't Lobbied To Implement Media Levies
TheScream writes "Screenrights has been activly promoting its proposal for a CD-R DVD-R levy (similar to that implemented in Canada, as previous reported on /.) with a 5 minute interview on popular Australian breakfast television show Today. News.com.au reports that Screenrights and APRA "...want a recording levy of between 3 per cent and 10 per cent..." and includes highly debateable mis-truths such as "Every kid does it, so let's facilitate some standards in the marketplace.""
Right. Soon we'll be having taxes levied on shower cubicles in recompense for the copyright violations caused by showerees whistling Hit Me Baby One More Time as they clean themselves.
-Mark
I wonder when hard drives will be taxed to death by ignorant government goons?
Most serious pirates I know, don't even put their music on CDs, they just by another hard drive to back everything up.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
This will become law sooner or later. The media companies lobby politicians heavily and usually get what they want, particularly since users aren't typically as well organzied.
The truth be told, most users are rather ignorant of the politics involved in these areas; Slashdotters are on the oppostite end of the spectrum.
What I would like to see howerver is a repudiation of anti-copy tactics currently in place by media companies. If you're going to charge users a levy tax, we should be free to make copies. There shouldn't be any impediments in our way. This will require a few courageous politicians to step up and go against the grain.
Unfortunately for us, courageous and politician are two words that don't often go together.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
I have the same opinion on marijuana. Every kid does it so lets facilitate some standrds in the marketplace. Time for legalization ands quality control. You know the makers of marijuana should levy a tax on the RIAA. Without drugs, there wouldn't be as much quality music in the world. I think Mrs. Rosen should write a fat check to Columbia right now.
Sure, that sounds like a great idea. Swamp the law-abiding users with paperwork, so everyone will bend over and take it.
Of course, the cry that, "We offer a refund!" will be the sound byte, not the 12 page invasive rebate form.
I think I'll hire the people that sign up for Yahoo accounts all day to fill out thousands upon thousands of applications. I might even break even....
Maybe someone should tell them that CDR's are not only used for Music burning but for DATA backup!
And besides that, most people that download mp3s from the internet are not going to burn CDRs from them, they're going to keep it on their hard disks. Thats the whole point of mp3, play it on your PC instead.
Sign, when will these people get a clue?
Levies are not good, but what should music companies aim to do? I just wrote a short piece on a related matter in light of the Verizon decision. Some of you might find it interesting.
"Greplaw's editors, although we are reporting indepently of each other, often tend to criticise the RIAA's efforts to stop illegal music trading online. One may still wonder what a proper action might be."
(---)
"The Internet is a new kid on the music industry's block. From the right holders' perspective the digital domain is often presented as a problem and not an opportunity. In this column, I have identified five possible ways for the music industry to treat this new kid on the block."
Read the entire article.
Regards,
Mikael
Pawlo.com
Just because there are some people that do it, does not mean that everyone else does. Punishing the whole for what only a portion of the people are (as you admit!) does not seem morally correct to me.
At work, we use blank CDs to fulfill orders from customers and mail their data to them. Why should our customers end up paying levies on media (like we're going to absorb the cost? HA!) to have their data delivered to them?
Granted, most of the CDs burned that I see my friends make are for copying software, not music, but you don't hear about the SPA asking for levies on blank CDs.
As for blank DVD's, the only thing that I do with those is convert my home movies to DVD for me to send to my family.
Australia will almost definitely roll over to this type of law given their policies in the past, so anyone living there might want to push their representatives to at least give you something in return.
What they really need to do is levy the AOL CDs that keep clogging my mailbox! Now that's a law I would get behind!
"There's nothing novel in this," Mr Lake said. "Forty-three countries including the US, Canada and most EU nations have enacted private copying royalty schemes."
...and knowing full well how myopic and sycophantic our current Australian goverment are, it will be implemented here as well.
Why the hell should I pay money to APRA when I burn copies of music that I wrote and produced?
My music is art for art's sake (I give my music away for free) and now I may have to give money to record companies, AND the artists whose music I despise the most... and don't bloody listen too!
http://jesus.everdense.com/
We might be able to get the entertainment industry off our backs if we just go ahead and give them some money every time anything happens that could possibly involve proprietary material. In Finland they want to collect royalties from daycare centers because workers sing songs to the kids. No problem. Just institute a daycare tax payable to the recording industry. Churchgoers singing hymn-ized pop songs during services? Fine, just fork over some of that collection plate to the RIAA. Cab drivers playing CDs with passengers present? Gas tax! People going to the bathroom during commercials? Water tax! [You do flush, don't you?] In fact, the simplest thing would be to collect an ongoing daily entertainment tax from everybody to cover any copyright infringement we might commit during ordinary activities. Then maybe the entertainment industry would finally ** SHUT THE FUCK UP ** and leave us alone.
I actually watched the broadcast, and it was disgusting.
The shmuck claimed that "every family" does it, as does "every kid". When asked how much it would be, he said they have no idea yet, but wants it to be worked out in consultation. Obviously thats a lie, as other posts point out they want anywhere from 3-10%.
He pointed out that this levy would make it OK, but not for those who do wholesale copying.
What was worse is the show didn't have anyone else on there representing the other view.
My question is: If a levy is set, does this mean I am free to download any mp3 I wish? Could I borrow all of my friends CDs and have hundreds of thousands of mp3s legally? Cause if it does, bring it on! I will never buy a CD again!
At the moment I don't mp3 illegally (IE I buy my own CDs and mp3 them, but not others), but if it was made legal through the levy, I would certainly burn hundreds of CDs from friends.
P2P wasn't the music industries biggest problem. Do you think that this will really help solve the problems, are people going to buy more CDs because of this. So 5 - 10 cents per CD well a pack of 30 is at the most going to make them $3.00, while the music cd cost $10 - 20. I don't see how your going to recoupe yourself. Also the crap that the RIAA and other organizations like them is trying to pull isn't going to make people want to jump and buy a CD either.
Over the years, I have purchased and used 7 CD burners. I have burned at least 2000 CDs. Of those, about 10 were an original music project I was working on (nothing the music industry had any rights to), about 5 were audio compilation cds made from mp3s I legitatmately bought the original CD (content the music industry does have the right to) and the rest of the batch (at least 1985 CDs) were various data backups, file transfers, etc.
If, the record industry got 3 cents for each CD (that is their minimum here, they'd rather have the 10c) I would (and actually have, thanks to stupid US law) payed the music industry $60. I have not copied any music I have not paid for, bet yet I am taxed the cost of 150-200 more blank media. If it was a 10cent tax, then I would have spent $200.....that is about how much I have spent on my entire music collection (the vast majority of my collection is gifts). $200 is a pretty hefty chuck of money to have paid for the priveledge of transfering my own content to my own media for my own purposes, especially when that $200 is being given to a massive corporation that had absolutely nothing to do with how that media was used, and had lost absolutely nothing in sales to my actions.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
Speaking as ain Australian, I am willing to support the proposal on three conditions:
I've never copied a audio CD or DVD in my life. I have made compilation CDs for two schoolteachers based on CDs that they own for educational purposes (I believe this is legal), but I'm willing to try if this becomes law. I promise to make it fair by adding up the levies that I have paid on blank CDs and only pirating CDs worth up to the value of the levy. When I've effectively paid for a CD, I figure I deserve a copy of it.
What do you think, APRA?
Incidentally, I'm not quite sure how you calculate what is a fair levy to pay for losses which are, in the admission of the CEO of Screenrights, "incalculable". I'd like to see how they managed to work it out.
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Ummm there is a big difference between Corporate Welfare and Social Welfare.
Corporate Welfare is where Businesses, a lot of them in no need of a hand out get preferential treatment from the government of the day through tax breaks, relaxed laws and so on in exchange for what amounts to sweet fuck all.
Social Welfare is where the government supports those members of SOCIETY who are not able to support themselves for any number of reasons, usually in exchange what they get is someone who after they have gotten over their slump gets back into the workforce and starts contributing back to the society that helped him. Sometimes you do get people who take advantage of the system but that happens with every system.
I sure as hell would not want to live in a society that let those less fortunate fall by the wayside. Darwinism no longer applies to the human race and it definitly should not apply to our societies.
You know redistribution of resources is what governments have been doing since the year dot. Its the nature of society. Without it you wouldn't have such luxuries as clean water, law and order or any of the other rights that you take for granted.
As to the moral equivelance I don't see that at all. Giving hand outs to multi-nationals with massive bank balances in no way is the same as helping people who cannot afford to put food on their table.
If you want to live in a governmentless society you're not going to find one. From the simplest family groups to the largest nations there is always someone telling the rest how to use the resources available.
Why not sell CD-RWs with a song pre-recorded on them (this should work in Canada too.)
.sig
I can see three advantages;
1. You beat the tax (I'm assuming they include an exemption for pre-recorded media like Canada and virtually everybody else.)
2. You become a music producer, so you can collect the tax that your competitors pay.
3. You probably have the number one song on the charts, since people will buy far more than
one copy of a CD-RW- basically free advertising.
You could probably sell the title track for money too -
Coke would pay to have the number one song in Australia be a commercial for their product,
especially if they got to pick the name of that song.
-- this is not a
I can't believe the number of comments based around "this is going to happen, there's nothing we can do". Yes there is: CALL (don't fax, write or email) your MP (Member of Parliament). I just called mine and he wasn't aware of it, but was definately interested.
How do you get the number? First find out the name of your MP. Then put his/her name into the search engine here. Call the number displayed. Most likely you will get straight through - at least to a knowlegable side-kick.
Be brief, just let them know what's going on - send them a copy of the URL. Give them your name and address and ask for an update.
Hopefully we'll get some democracy going on this.