EFF Lawyer Argues For Compulsory Music Licenses

An anonymous reader submits "Fred von Lohmann, lead intellectual property lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, wrote an op-ed in the Daily Princetonian urging compulsory licensing of copyrighted music. The system would allow internet users to copy music freely and legally, in exchange for a flat monthly fee to be shared by artists and record labels. He says schools like Princeton might be a good place to test the approach."

Comments

already in place?

[lingqi]

What about the CDR-tax? can't you consider that a compulsory license?

Seriously though - has any lawyer gave that any kind of thought? To me it's legalizing music piracy since I already paid for it anyway...

btw, FP?

Re:already in place?

[Tinfoil]

If we are paying a compulsory fee of x dollars a month on our internet bill, then it would seem it is no longer piracy.

Granted, I would very much not like having to pay another tax on my bill since I already purchase a large amount of music legally a year. The music industry is behind the times which is making it difficult for them to compete against the instant gratification of the P2P networks. The artist suffers not at the hands of the P2P'er, but at the hands of the dinosaurs running the record companies. Consumers suffer by by being painted a criminal with an overly wide brush, and it seems the only way to prove ourselves is to throw yet more money at a solution that is simply a bandaid fix.

Fix the real problem. Give people a number of competing services that will allow them to purchase music from any company and give them fair use rights with the music they purchase. A Columbia House for MP3's. My mother-in-law doesn't *want* to steal music. She wants to buy the music, but doesn't want to pay $25 (Canuck) for a song, if she can even find it without special order. She wants to listen to it now, not when FedEx delivers it. She wants to put it in her iPod for when she goes out for a jog so it doesn't skip.

It's a novell suggestion and one of the best I have heard so far, but the recording industry will most certainly not go for it. They can't martyr themselves if they make file sharing legal.

Lcenses

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn Apple stole all the i's

But which musicians get paid?

[Arethan]

I can name at least 20 non-mainstream bands that I listen to. Some have recording contracts, some just sell CDs off their website. So how do you determine which of these bands gets any of the compulsory license fees? All of them, since they all sell music for profit? Only the ones with record deals? None of them since they are not mainstream? What is the criteria for getting paid? It seems to me that compulsory licensing would never work, since you really can't even decide on who to pay.

Re:What about other media?

[El Cubano]

And besides, is Joe Sixpack who's never heard of P2P networks or even mp3s going allow his ISP to tax him for this?

Sure he will. Joe Sixpack lets himself get taxed for most things he's never heard of or doesn't care about:

• Taxes on your phone bill to lower the cost of internet access for schools (whether or not you have children in school)
• Property taxes to fund schools and minucipals services (that you may or may not use, if you send your kids to private school or don't have kids)
• Health fees at most universities even if the student is already covered by health insurance.
• Taxes on cigarettes to fund public service announcements to quit smoking (and subsidize tobacco farmers when people actually quit and their crops are not longer in demand)
• Numerous state and federal taxes on gasoline for road construction and who knows what else
• High vehicle registration for highway maintenance (when you either don't use the highways or they aren't maintained well)
• Old airport facility charges on airline tickets and the new September 11th fees for improved security
• The list goes on and on

Joe sixpack will just see it and think, "Oh well, another tax. The government must know best for me."

In reality very few people will be outraged at this. Especially since it will come along in increments of a few dollars at a time, which is no big deal in a relatively strong economy.

Re:Socialist idiocy

[RobotRunAmok]

Artists will have to make a living by doing performing (which is hard work, but hey, look at what the rest of us are doing).

So you won't buy my book, but you'll pay to come over here and watch me *write* it?

Dude, you ARE a strange one. But hey, a living's a living, right?

Show starts at 3AM Eastern. See ya then! (Bring your own popcorn.)

Ends and means...

[jkrise]

Mr. von Lohman's article has more holes than a Service Pack - as Rudy suggests, he doesn't know what the hell he's talking. Some points from his article:

" Suing college students. Forcing ISPs to rat out customers."

Both the ISPs nor the R*AA consider netizens as Consumers, not Customers. Big difference.

"Petitioning Congress for unprecedented vigilante powers. ...and a rather lengthy list of draconian measures... None of these efforts by the recording industry has put a single nickel into the pockets of a musician... And none of these efforts has slowed the spread of peer-to-peer ("P2P") file sharing."

There is no connection between P2P and paying musicians. All these efforts are by the R*AA and their agenda is to increase their profits, not enriching musicians.

"More Americans have used file-sharing software than voted for the President."

What's the point here? People are apathetic to politics, but they are passionate about sharing files..

"Responding to pressure from the entertainment industry, the University of Wyoming is now monitoring ... cadets have been disciplined ...Investment in innovative P2P companies has dried up."
None of the above is due to file sharing per se.

"Some members of Congress.. have suggested that the answer might be to expel, or even jail, college students."
This ought to be condemned directly, rather than tax ALL internet users.

" The hysteria over P2P has gotten out of hand. "
And OTOH, such articles are contributing to the hysteria!

" The problem is that artists are not getting paid. It is time to address the problem."
And that is not being addressed directly by anyone.

"The right answer is obvious: We need to collect a pool of money from Internet users"
This is a gem! Who is 'We'?? Internet users? RIAA? The govt? The artists?
And how can collecting money be a right answer when the problem is one improper distribution of already collected money?

The rest of Mr. Von's article is so full of wishful and Utopian thinking, one wonders how it made to Slashdot!

If such thinking goes on in the EFF, then the FSF would shortly collect money from GNU and Open Source users to pay programmers! And the most 'popular' and 'numerous' programmers wouldn't have written a line of code! Absurd proposal, IMHO.