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EFF's New File-Sharing Scheme
carpoolio writes "Wednesday at the Future of Music's Music Law Summit, the Electronic Frontier Foundation proposed a new licensing plan so file-sharing sites can operate, and musicians can get paid. The idea is based on the ASCAP/BMI radio music licensing schemes. But still, the RIAA seems happy to continue suing, and wait for iTunes and Napster to catch on more."
1) In regards to getting artists on board, their solution for people who don't want to participate says to me: don't join, and don't get money while people take your music, and fellow artists get paid for your work. That's harsh. What if the artist has an issue with the collection agency?
2) The payment system: how is this any different than Napster's subscription? It's somehow less expensive (only 5 bucks, estimated), and has access to more songs (everything instead of 500,000 tracks)? How does that work? I understand that most of the costs of distribution will be absorbed by the fact that P2P puts the loads on peers, not a central server, but is this even realistic? I am skeptical.
3) Wait a minute...If you stop paying, do you lose the rights to the music you downloaded? I scanned the document twice, and please correct me if I missed something, but it seems you can only legally use your music if you're still paying out to the industry. That's my primary reason for disliking Napster 2.0, and it's enough to sink this idea, in my mind.
I love the EFF more than butterscotch and jellybeans, but this proposal gives me the creeps.
Auto-reply to ACs: "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
...who after reading the article thinks that it might not work with Freenet very well?
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
Will it really be the musicians getting paid or the Labels?? If it's like CDs than it will be mostly the labels making the money.
Evolution or ID?
It's not enought to say "we have an alternative scheme." It's probably not even enough to say "we have an alternative scheme by which you can make equivalent money." Instead, you need to credibly be able to say "we have an alternative scheme by which you can make superior money." If you can't do that, you got nuttin.
"If everyone is paying $5 a month, that means that 'Ice Ice Baby' has as much value as the Beatles catalog does. And I just don't think that is a wise or logical thing to do." -David Sutphen, RIAA vice-president Up Next: Vanilla Ice has released his new title: "Fuck you too RIAA" on the web
Artists need to be compensated for their work
(except the ones that show you how hard they live on cribs , the show that rubs the consumers face in how much they fleeced you for)
Just wondering, if an artist didnt have a record company to promote their music, just how well would they really do?
As things stand at the moment, artists without a record contract don't seem to do as well, but in what ways will this change? who will promote them? the artist themselves? or the filesharing system?
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
The premise that you could get a significant number of file traders who already know and understand that they are in violation of copyright law to voluntarily cough up five dollars to pay for the 'right' to file share, when not paying has no consequence except the user's guilty conscience, seems to me to be a little more than optimistic.
It is a good step in the right direction to show the record labels new and interesting ways to make money, but in the end any solution must rely on the power of the law to enforce the payment of artists.
I have been pwned because my
Personally, I do not really support this kind of soulution. The problem is that I cannot see how the money can be divided amongst the rights holders in a reasonable way. The same goes for taxes/fees on blank media, by the way. How can anyone know what I download or copy? If they cannot know that they cannot distribute the money fairly and if they can . . . Well, then there are serious privacy implications.
IAAAL - I am actually a lawyer
...but the last article regarding "the edge" has a lot to offer this topic. Why would the RIAA agree to a licensing scheme like this, despite prior precedent in this country and countries like Canada, when they can conspire to control the content with those that control the delivery of said content.
Who are you? The new #2 Who is #1? You are #617565. I am not a number, I am a free man! Muhahaha.
What's the problem with these guys? The music industry should support the online music services that already work, such as iTunes and Napster 2.0 . Suing people left and right will not help, on the contrary, sooner or later everybody will be so fed up with lawsuits against kids that the rights of the music industry will be curtailed. Wait till the first annoyed judge throws out a case as frivolous.
The music industry decides what licensing scheme to choose. And they'll surely take the one with which they can squeeze out a maximum of profit out of the hip-hop and goth kids.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
as with ASCAP, etc in the radio market, I'd say it wasn't possible. With that precedent in mind, I think it (or something similar) will happen, just not very quickly because of the politics involved.
1. RIAA is busy [over]reacting to file-sharing
2. RIAA will never be able to stop file-sharing
3. There's gotta be a compromise. Maybe this is it.
Considering their real problem with file sharing is not the loss of money but loss of control over music distribution, anything that tries to tackle their public complaint whilst not addresing their real beef is bound to be rejected. Kudos to the EFF for trying but I think this is still 12 to 24 months ahead of its time. Congressman Boucher and Congresswoman Lofgren to the white courtesy phone please...
I'm still weirded out every time I see Napster as a company that the RIAA likes. Am I the only one?
EFF, that.
iTunes and it's imitators work. They are popular, past any analyst's imagining. What possible percentage is there for the RIAA to climb back up atop that great hill they only recently cleared just to piss in the well?
You know as well as I that for every existing P2P client system that goes legit, two more "rogue" systems will pop up because "Music Must Be Free!"
Through intense marketing, clever user interfaces, relatively lax DRM, and brutal scare tactics and legislative knuckle-dusting, the RIAA has begun to put the genie back in the bottle. You think they're ging to throw in with their ol' friends the EFF now? Sh'yeah...
The trouble with blanket licensing is that there's no way for punters to say "I like this more than this". If everyone and their dog download a particular ditty for their phone's ring tone, does it make it more valuable than a movie soundtrack which only a few people really love, but love a lot?
Why should a quick tinkle on a xylophone be better rewarded than months of work on an orchestral masterpiece?
A better way of capturing music's artistic value is to auction it directly to the interested audience, e.g. using The Digital Art Auction .
The software and video game industries also continue to show strong growth and profitability. Each one of these industries has taken steps to adapt their business models to the realities of file sharing. In what way did the gaming industry adapt to p2p filesharing?
xb0x
It seems to me that if the bands and recording studios could make distribution agreements directly with iTMS/Napster/etc, the whole RIAA can be avoided and declared irrelevant. As it stands, ~60 cents of the purchase costs goes to the label, of which a few pennies go to the band. Bands could increase their cut 10X and the price per download cut in half. Everybody wins.
/best/ music on line in the last few years and none of it is available at a music store.
/easily/ be done away with. MTV, the sock puppet for the industry, makes money by worshiping the 'stars' promoted by the labels. Heck, when was the last time you saw a music video on MTV? When was the last time you saw a 'music star' actually sing? It is not about music anymore. MTV can can get flushed down the crapper too.
The record labels only exist to market and distribute pop music and those functions can be completely done by other means now. I have found some of the
To take this even one more step off-topic, you can argue that the whole MTV half-time boobie stunt (which has now mutated into a weird free-speech thing)was simply to steal the thunder of the iTMS/Pepsi/arrested-by-the-RIAA commecial. It shows that the labels are not needed and can
All music related marketing and distribution can be done on-line. The old business model is dead and not needed or wanted. The first major band to sign directly with iTMS/Napster/whatever will turn the tide.
Clearly, I need to calm down and have a cup of coffee. Sorry for the early morning rant.
Hey, leave comments about my mother out of this!
Lets hope Riaa will co operate in the name of everyone AND Riaa's survival in an age when hard distribution is no longer so important.
Consider:
.mp3 files flying by, than the ISP makes a nice little bounty by turning you in to the collection agency.
* The percentage of downloads that head right to static IPs in dormrooms -- the artists would get paid by them, via their universities (after all, $45 per year per student payment to not have to deal with the RIAA harassing the sysadmin of a univ is a good deal). Besides -- they'd just charge the students via fees anyway.
* That ISPs will market this in with their products. Using lots of bandwidth? The ISP monitors you to determine if you've signed up for their (+$5 for music) plan. If you aren't and you've got lots of
Between universities and ISPs, methinks that there would be payment from the users responsible for the majority of downloaded files. The majority of users? I don't know -- perhaps that as well.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
The premise for any proposal that promises musicians be paid for every download, seems missplaced. It's the Digital Age, stupid - - - - a mantra that must be repeated 1000 times anyone thinks BMI/ASCAP offer even a remotely legitimate role in our society.
Performance rights can easily be handled through Digital Age Fan Clubs, who better, right? Time for ASCAP/BMI/RIAA/MPAA to disappear. Musicians are doing just fine, thank you.
The Internet is the independent musicians' radio. Why take it away by imposing old business models on it?
Tom
Your problem is better known in economics as "The Labor Theory of Value". Karl Marx was a huge proponent of the same. Predictably, Adam Smith & other capitalists totally disagree with it.
:( My labor has value because the market wants the end product. Your labor has value only to yourself. Deal with it.
You ask "Why should a quick tinkle on a xylophone be better rewarded than months of work on an orchestral masterpiece? "
Why ? Because that's the way the world is. If you spend 8 hours a day building a highly creative straw statue in your backyard while I spend same 8 hours mindlessly slogging in a corporate IT outfit, guess who gets paid at the end of the month ? Your creative impulses are fine, but nobody wants your straw statue
That's a pretty good idea. They're just missing one thing. I wont pay. I'll never pay. As long as someone besides the person who writes and performs music is making money from that music I will not pay a half a cent for it. That's all there is to it.
The business model of the future is the penny arcade/homestarrunner model. Acquire a large loyal fanbase. Actually BE good people who make quality art and gain the trust of your fans. Allow your art to be distributed freely all around the globe without a care in the world. Make money from merchandise, voluntary donations from fans, and "legitimate" advertising (google and PA style advertising NOT weather.com or superbowl style advertising).
The real problem here is this. The RIAA can think of a ton of business models that work considering new technologies. While the organization as a whole is "evil" the people that make it up are not all stupid drones. They know. The thing is that there is no longer a business model which will turn musicians into multi-zillionaires.
Musiciains can live with a new business model and make enough money for food and rent and all that. What they can no longer do is make millions of dollars at the same time some record company also makes millions. It just wont happen anymore. Until the record company accepts that, they are going to keep suing us.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
Rules must be internalized - they always are. When's the last time the EFF composed a song, or signed up an artist ? The only rules that'll get accepted in any industry are ones that emerge from within that industry - not from outside. Now if a bunch of EFF folks join RIAA as management, and then propose these rules, that's different...
Please go read the artcile yourself.
The 3 billion is overstated through, as it does not include lost sales via other sales channels like cd's etc., nor does it include the investments that the record companies need to make to produce the music.
The other reason I think it will not work is because it is very disruptive for the established industry. It directly states that it aims to cut out the middle men like record companies and retailers. These people will not like to be pushed out of the way/job, and will defend the status quo with hand and tooth.
On the other hand: it would be cool, as plain cd's will fall out of the market, they will have to offer something tangible that can not be shared over p2p networks instead. Record stores will transform into clothesshops?
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
... but it's not limited to encrypted P2P networks.
It won't work with any P2P application that is not providing detailed downloads/uploads statistics to the music industry (or any other third party that is supposed to determine how much of the cake is each artist entitled to get): they can't possibly monitor every exchange on every P2P network.
I think using a Nielson-like scheme to determine the value of works is inherently flawed in this system. It relies on sampling a relatively small number of households who have access to a relatively small number of potential choices. This will inherently concentrate value towards the handful of songs and artists preferred by the sample group.
For this to produce 'fair' results, all paying customers would have to be part of the sample group.
Instead, perhaps the distribution of money should be left up to the license purchaser. If I want my $5 this month to go to 'Ice Ice Baby', then so be it!
P2P software & media players could, by default, record downloading & listening habits to form a basic percentage allocation, which I could modify each month, if I felt like it.
just had a brain explosion! despite my total lack of musical talent I have just knocked up a 3 minute sound file of a bell ringing. I AM NOW AN ARTIST, as soon as this idea get off the ground Ill drop my latest work onto one of the P2P sites, and await my royalty cheques... lovely.
serenity now!
[the RIAA]summarily dismissed the EFF's proposal as too "drastic"
Article here
When it starts carrying music I'm after. To me the whole point of this electronic format thing is trying to hunt down music that I can't get in stores because the stuff is out of print. Beyond that, I'd rather have CDs since I can't afford an MP3 player and I like to listen to music when I'm not at the computer, too. As it stands, I spend about an hour trying to find something I want every time I get a winning Pepsi cap. I'd try finding new musicians, but the samples they provide are so short there's no way to tell if I'm going to like the song or not - even if it's 2 minutes long and meant for the radio, at least give me a verse and not just a little bit of the hook.
Then again, I'm the kind of musical reject who actually buys Klezmatics CDs and has never actually heard "Hey Ya" all the way through (not through any effort of my own, it's just that I don't listen to the radio that much). I guess I'm really not their target market. But God Forbid I download MP3s of music they haven't published since the 1970s, because somehow copying something they aren't selling is stealing their profits!
is that the broadband providers would in effect finance the music industry: they would provide near illimited bandwith to the consumer, at a fixed cost ($40/month) to allow the 'evergreen', ever growing, revenue to flow to the pockets of the music industry... Somehow, I don't think they'll go for it.
In the past couple of weeks, the anonymous Freenet has started working like gangbusters. Freenetters have been seeing incredible speeds.
From said article:
"They (movie studios) learned that, by lowering prices (of VHS tapes), they made more money and eliminated much of the piracy problem. In other words, reasonable pricing makes the system work for everyone."
Oh my god, cover the kids' eyes, Captain Obvious is just raping this quote, he's raping it hard. And uh oh, Here comes Ironic Boy and Sarcasmo Man, they look like they want a piece of the action too. Dude, this ain't gonna be pretty...
(Parentheses, bold type and tasteless rape reference added by me.)
This is not a troll. I really am interested in your logic.
How about these.
You bring your car to the garage. It gets fixed and the bill comes to some amount of money. You are expected to pay the mechanic this amount. Lets say it was all labor as well and no parts were replaced. You use your extra key and get your car back some night without paying the mechanic for the work he did. Did you just steal from him or did you just violate his right to collect the money you owe him. What is he no longer in possession of in this example? The car was always yours, you just took it back without paying the bill. If the answer is nothing then you did not steal from him although I think a court would disagree.
The following argument is a bit absurd but the point is made. Don't think about the details, think about the concept. Ignore that the charge uses $20 worth of electricity or the outlet is on the street.
Since many people claim that theft can only occur when a physical object is taken then how about electricity. Assume a city produces their own electricity via a solar grid. Say you are walking down the street. You see an outlet. You decide that you need to give your cell phone a quick charge and plug it in. You leave your cell phone there (because this is a perfect world and it won't get stolen) and it charges. When you get back there is a city employee there holding your cell phone (He unplugged it to plug his whatever in) telling you that you owe the City $20 for the electricity you used (your cell phone takes a lot of juice to charge). Did you just steal from the city or not? You didn't take anything "physical" from them.
Hey moderator, this is not offtop.
Test 1 2 3 4
Thank you.
I must say, I'm not particularly impressed by this proposal. It strikes me
there are two major problems, both related to the fact that the system is
voluntary.
First, how do you make the majors join the collective society? Those with the
most popular catalogue have the least incentives. I cannot image a major
label releasing a major act under such a license unless it's fairly clear
that the collective society has real money to distribute. But if the most
popular acts are not included, users could face the problem of having paid
their fees and still being sued.
The second question is: How do you get users to pay? The EFF suggests that all
the 60 million people now using p2p networks will pay. This is, to put it
mildly, very optimistic. Because, really, what's the incentive to pay? Users
can still download, regardless whether they pay or not, and if a user doesn't
share his music files, then the RIAA will never know what he have on his hard
drive. In other words, a few 10 thousand people willing to share their large
collections would make it possible for a few millions to simply download and
then disconnect, gaining all the advantages from the network without paying,
and, importantly, without risk of being sued.
A number of studies have shown that p2p networks are, indeed, not all that
p2p, because a small number of nodes serves the vast majority of content. But
if only that small number of people are actually paying, it will make majors
even more reluctant to release their content.
But, on a somewhat more positive note, the failure of such a voluntary
proposal would make the case of a compulsory license more stringent (which
also the EFF sees as a possibility).
Like, free legal downloads for $6 a month. DRM free. The artists get paid. We explain how...? This article is interesting because it breaks down $ amount for revenue lost by *aa and the cost for an agency to collect fees to arrive at this amount.
I am a member and big fan of the EFF, but their treatment of this topic leaves me unimpressed. The RIAA are fighting to maintain the status quo and their increasing irrellevance in the digital age, and they will continue to use any sleazy means at their disposal. Those of us on the other side are fighting to destroy them. I support downhillbattle.
Test 1 2 3 4
Seen in this light, if the artists were to make a quarter of the money that the RIAA/MPAA makes off of the artists, they would probably see a massive increase in their finances.
Remember, 100% of 8 dollars is better than 5% of 12.
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
We complain about how the media conglomerates restrict choice, produce fewer artists every year, cheat the artists they do sign, and then overcharge us to boot. We complain about the mainstream garbage and the same six songs on ther radio over and over again.
We complain about how file sharing gets restricted and the draconian and inconsistently applied copyright enforcement tactics.
So you're telling me that there's all these musicians out there that can't get a fair shot at public response, and if they did they'd get a rotten deal and lose their copyrights to their creative works.
So you're telling me there is this new technology revolution that can put scalable analogs of broadcasting into the hands of the people for, essentially, pocket change.
So you're telling me there are all these internet "radio" wannabes who can't do their thing because THEY're charging too much for access to content and saddling it with a bunch of foolish rules and restrictions.
And I'm supposed to get all tingly over some scheme to make it so we can insist that THEIR artists can be file-shared against their will? So I can go out and download that damn song I can hear a hundred times a day on the radio?
What is needed is not a new scheme for the existing body of media conglomerate-controlled, RIAA sanctioned, ASCAP administered content. What is needed is a whole new body of fresh, unrestricted, artist-owned content and an alternative to the RIAA and ASCAP for the artists to use to publish their work in a whole new way that takes advantage of technologies like file sharing instead of shunning them. The question is - how does it get started?
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
Everytime you masturbate, an artist loses more money.
Of course the RIAA is happy with the situation. The new webcasting licenses, which the Copyright Office just finally installed this month, puts all webcasting license administration in the hands of SoundScan, which is an RIAA spinoff. They have completely screwed BMI, ASCAP, every artist, and (of course) you: they get to charge a toll on every passage of a copyrighted work across the Internet. And most important, they get to control the entire IP world, not just collect the money. The structure of the fees means that the RIAA member companies remain an exclusive club of publishers, with no threat from DIY publishers on the more level playing field of the Net. So the rich get richer, and the content-holders get more content (pun intended). This is the most monstrous monopoly yet, with the RIAA owning the rights to control and profit from every IP exchange across any network. The bad guys have won. Unless, perhaps, this EFF proposal (or one like it) can bring power back to the people while keeping content makers (artists) adequately represented in the compensation loop. Send a postal letter to your Congressmember/MP/second-cousin-Prince/UN-minister supporting a fair share plan, before you have to buy RIAA stamps.
--
make install -not war
We all need to get it thru our heads, the *IAA industries are no longer interested in supporing their customers.
They would rather restrict and sue custmers ( and bilk artists as well ). this is their business model, not 'customer service' or ' product value'
Creating 'yet another' payment system for P2P does not intrest them at all. And why should it? They have a virtual monopoly built on screwing people out of their money..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I've been systematically ripped off by the music industry practically all my life. For years, I built a CD collection that was overpriced, and like so many others, I was a victim of price-fixing. $13.86 just doesn't cover all the CD's I've bought.
Then, they tell us that those CD's aren't actually our property, to dispose of as we wish, but really licenses to listen to the CD. Fine - So where's my free replacement when I scratch my disc? Or if its stolen, like so many were from my college dorm?
And, if it is a license, why do I have to buy a new copy of Dark Side of the Moon every 5 years? If I bought one, shouldn't I get the remastered free?
These are all legitimate, albeit beaten into the ground, points. The music industry can't have it both ways. They can't use bigchampagne to data mine P2P networks for sales promotions (hence, generating income) at the same time that they say every person who downloads a song is costing them money. This breaks a fundamental law of economics - some people will only 'buy' something when the cost is substantially lower than what they're charging.
So, f*ck the RIAA. F*ck them in their stupid asses. F*ck radiohead, f*ck pink floyd, f*ck metallica, f*ck dr. dre, f*ck them all!
I'll support the artists in the best way possible - buy their concert tickets!
They are, after all, 'performing artists' aren't they?
How would you have heard of these bands if it wasn't for the RIAA promoting them via albums? How would they be able to go on tour and draw crowds?
evil adrian
So long as they pay, the fans are free to keep doing what they are going to do anyway -- share the music they love using whatever software they like on whatever computer platform they prefer -- without fear of lawsuits. (emphasis mine)
The EFF doesn't propose you pay to download. Without all that DRM and junk, that'd be stupid. What they suggest is that you pay if you want to share - the default mode of p2p software, the most detectable use of p2p software, and the only thing anyone has thus far been prosecuted for.
Why should I pay 5 bucks for something I do anyways for free? Here's the only options I see: 1. Because the RIAA nazis will sue your ass if you use anything else. (Problem is, it's just another way for RIAA to propogate their monopoly, just using a different scheme.) 2. Because it's a value added service that has better searching and higher quality content. (I can almost buy that, but then you'd have to charge $10 a month to support the network, people and applications which provide those values.) I have to agree with the RIAA on this one.
The meek shall inherit the earth, in 3 by 6 plots. - Lazerus Long
Thinking back to when I was a college student (uhh... nine months ago?) I could've (and probably would've) come up with $5 a month, but I refuse to give a penny to the RIAA vampires. And I refuse to pay to support a model under which powerful corporations continue to own everything and I just license it (the same reason I'm using OpenOffice.org instead of MS Office; not so much the price as the ridiculous assertion that they own something I bought). And, sure, who can complain with free as long as I'm not paying anyways? But I'd rather see artists paid than see me not deprived of my $5.
The great majority of students I've met could afford a small price like that, simply by giving up some other entertainment -- really college students exaggerate their poverty way too much; the solution is just to spend less. $5 is what, a beer? A sandwich? Geez, I'd skip lunch one day a month if I really had to.
Freedom isn't free; its price is the well-being of others.
And of course, a lot of people will claim some sort of moral protest to justify thier actions if confronted, but I'll give YOU the benefit of the doubt.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
I'm not quite sure why so many people are runing around trying to resolve the leaking ship that is the music industries business model. Surely I'm not the only one who thinks that the burden is upon the music industry to produce a new model that is to the liking of it's customers whom they wish to part from their cash.
People got used to saying "vote with your wallet" as some sort of wise-crack. Guess it came as a shock when millions did just that.
*shrug* I think the idea of trying to persuade the music industry to patch its leaks and to offer 101 different ways in which it might patch its leaks is odd... it is however crazy while said industry acts in such a petulant fashion.
Let the music industry worry about it's own leaks. The music industries lost billions is not something that should cause the EFF sleepness nights, and there are frankly better things it could concern itself with than where Popstar X is going to get their next gold plated toilet seat from.
"Remember, 100% of 8 dollars is better than 5% of 12."
That's only a benefit to the artist if they happen to have the time and the cash necessary to record, engineer, master, produce, distribute, advertise and promote their music.
Some artists don't want or, frankly, don't have the skils to be businesspeople. They really would rather concentrate on making their music, and get somebody else's help to get that music heard.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
The labels would be licensing to P2P users so under the EFF proposal the majority of artists would receive a larger percentage of revenue.
Internet service providers, touting high-speed Internet access, could incorporate the monthly fee as part of a broadband package that includes unlimited downloads.
We all know about Unlimited Bandwidth...
Mediachest.com promotes file sharing the old fashioned way. You find someone near you and borrow stuff from them. It makes sense because if you live in a dorm, there are so many people you can share with.
How would you have heard of these bands if it wasn't for the RIAA promoting them via albums?
That's the beauty of the Internet and P2P. I am constantly following links from /. and other web sites to independent musicians. Some I like, some are okay, and some are not my cup of tea. The fun is in the exploring.
Yes it takes work to look for oneself instead of letting the RIAA tell you what is "good", but the results are worth the effort. I have discovered groups such as Fitehouse (Go check 'em out if you like Rock). You can download some mp3s for free, and buy the CD directly from them. I have 2 Fitehouse CDs at home, cost me around $18 shipped, all $ to the artists, none to the RIAA. I ripped the tracks and have them on my laptop for my listening pleasure.
With the RIAA being so boneheaded, it looks like that this is the future for me, at least for now. There's plenty out there, it just takes a little work.
Beware of Sleestak
Behind every great fortune is a great crime.
Yes, there is such a thing as incentive in capitalism. Obscene fortune has nothing to do with this however. This is what wealth redistribution is about. After a certain point wealth stops being an incentive and starts to be theft from the masses.
Photos.
What about the non-RIAA labels? Will they get nothing?
The document neglected to mention quality control. People accept the current quality and problems of download via p2p because the benefits of FREE outweighs the time to search and lack of quality. This will change when people start to pay and start wanting quality service that they have purchased. And when both consumers and the artists want quality control over the digitized entertainment, how are we going to offer it to them?
The document says that
"... the fans do a better job making music available than the labels. Apple's iTunes Music Store brags about its inventory of over 500,000 songs. Sounds pretty good, until you realize that the fans have made millions of songs available on KaZaA. If the legal clouds were lifted, the peer-to-peer networks would quickly improve."
but how do the fans get the music in the first place! Currently, p2p networks are populated by a small amount of people who rip massive amounts of CD's and make them availalbe to share. As people start to download, the files get distributed within the network towards the edges and the files become redundant and easily located by the majority of downloaders. When (if) a voluntary licensing scheme takes effect, who is going to buy CD's anymore? And if no one is buying CD's, who is going to distribute music on CD's? And if new music isn't distributed through CD's, how are they going to be ripped and put onto the p2p networks? Well the labels will just upload their music to the p2p networks directly right? Well then why can't someone else upload a file with the same name and metadata as the artists' containing false data (like the labels actually do now to make people download bogus tracks and get frustrated and stop illegal downloads).
How does one assure downloaders that the song is in fact the genuine copy released by the artist. If you go on to any file-sharing network and try to search for a song, you will get many variations of song length, title, artist, bitrate, etc. In fact, downloading a song that appears to have the correct artist/title name can be something entirely different. What happens when your son or daughter tries to download a Britney Spears song that appears to have the correct song title, but then happens to be a sexually explicit adult novel.
Metadata databases, checksums, etc. can fix these problems, but who can enforce them?
Possibly not, but don't sell everybody short out-of-hand. If nothing else, there's probably some latent guilt for a lot of them -- how many of us were in bands, or wanted to be, or even dreamed of being a musician? You'd probably be able to squeeze $5 for a couple months out of at least 75%, I'd say, but it's all theoretical jibber-jabber really...
Freedom isn't free; its price is the well-being of others.
I have just knocked up a 3 minute sound file of a bell ringing. I AM NOW AN ARTIST
Well done, you've reinvented techno.
Da Blog
In what way did the gaming industry adapt to p2p filesharing
There are a few reasons for the enormous success of MMOGs and online gaming in East Asia. Partly it is to do with population density and government-led broadband initiatives.
The primary reason why the games companies decided a few years ago to concentrate on online was the extent of piracy.
In most Asian countries you simply cannot expect to profitably develop and sell packaged, retail one-shot software. So the smart companies made a decision a few years ago to move to a service revenue model, adding value through their network subscriptions. The not-so-smart ones, the ones that focussed on US-style packaged software? Well, they are no longer here, or are tiny and struggling.
Da Blog
How about RIAA dies and goes away, then we can all put our $5 in the online tip-jar of whatever artists we want to encourage?
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
No, they are not all performing artists. Songwriters who only write songs only get paid by radio play, licensing and CDs sold. If you download music without paying for it, they don't get paid. Not that this would matter to someone with an attitude like yours, but where non-performing songwriters are concerned, downloading is not a victimless crime. Oh yeah, it's not a crime--it's copyright infringement. Whatever.
Why is there so much talk of making sure the RIAA still rakes in as much profit as they currently do? The majority of RIAA profit does not go to the artists, but instead goes to a bunch of jackasses who don't deserve it. The main benefit of this sort of system is that we as a society will receive as much if not more good creative music as is currently produced, while paying less for it. This DOES NOT mean the artists will be making less money. RIAA profit DOES NOT equal artist profit. Eliminate the RIAA, eliminate the powerful influence of ClearChannel, strengthen the ability for artists to be discovered because of their own merit, and wall-la you will have just as much great music, in fact probably lots more, at far less of a price.
Despite the fact that many of you don't pay for music at all right now, there are people like me and others who still buy tons of CDs (luckily I prefer non-RIAA artists so as not to support their evil empire). As a whole, I think we are STILL spending way more on music RIGHT NOW than we should be. The problem is most of that money is not going to the artists. We need a system like this to help eliminate the RIAA/label middleman. Artists won't even need a label, all they'll need is a studio. Just register music into the system, start playing shows, and watch the money roll in if people like it and start trading it. Again, I can't stress enough that the artists will make way more money than they currently are via this new system.
Now the potential problems I see: The system needs to be set up to where it is pretty much free for an artist to register their music into the system. The system operators will take what is needed from the monthly payments to operate, but that is it. Artists should be able to register as much music as they like for free and receive a flat rate per song downloaded. To keep down operating costs, perhaps we would limit artists to 20 songs max or something until their music starts to get a teeny bit popular. Of course they could unregister those 20 songs and replace them with 20 others if they like. But I'm getting carried away with little details now...
The other potential problem is devising an accurate means for determining which songs are being downloaded more than others. It would probably work best if traffic monitoring was done at the ISP level using residential customer downloads and university server data only. It would be much more difficult to implement than simply monitoring it at the main P2P server level, but that way it would be difficult for labels, artists, or anyone else to try to artificially make their music seem more popular than it really is.
Another way we could keep costs down for users is this: If a particular artist's recording has been on the system for more than 6 years or so, it can no longer profit that artist. BUT, when calculating how much money goes to each artist for each song, those "expired" songs could still receive a piece of the money pie, but those pie pieces would go directly towards operating cost. That way new artists would have a better chance at making money, users could pay a bit less, and retired artists wouldn't be living large off of that one huge successful recording that everyone loves for 80 years.
Obviously this system is VERY open to exploitation by whomever is in charge of it. It would be very easy to come up with different pricing schemes to turn a huge profit for the operators. So hopefully it would be a heavily regulated, non-profit sort of organization whose income and artist payout is a publically available and voted upon scheme.
I have brainstormed many hours with other huge music fans like myself, and we have been talking about a scheme similar to this EFF proposal for months. Let's hope we can make this happen!! And be wary, if the RIAA gets involved and ever decides to support something like this, we need to fight it. The RIAA has NO PLACE in this plan being the wonderful thing it could be. Although I'm sure they'd LOVE to be in control of such a system.
Copyright is amoral any - keep getting paid for work you did ONCE? Does the plumber get paid everytime you use the forcet? Hell no, any digital representation of music should be free - they want to make money? Make them work for it - ie, give concerts. That's fair enough. One job, one paycheck.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Personally I think everyone should just stop buying any music from the major Labels. Give them a quick and painless death.
When I want music, why not just go directly to an artists website and grab the albums MP3's? If the artist want's to charge? That's their choice. They collect 100% of the money if they do, and they deal with a bit of piracy as a result. The more they charge, the greater the piracy, the less they charge, the more people who will just pay up. The more endearing a band, they more people will pay...
A laptop, some software, a net connection and some talent is all it takes to create music these days.
We have no need for the traditional labels as they were in the 20th century.
Lets just move on and not look back.
What if I don't want to participate in this system? It would be a violation of my copyright to force me to participate. Why can't I choose how much I get per download? How do they decide how much of the $5/person I get? iTunes, new Napster, etc. are moving in the right direction to legally obtain music online. The EFF proposal is an attack on freedom of the copyright holder. How would the EFF like it if someone paid $5 a month to violate the GPL without legal ramifications?
Vote for Pedro
The way I understand it (as an artist who has had a tiny stint of regular airplay on a couple of local stations) is that BMI and ASCAP collect station playlists in a relatively random manner. From there, they determine who gets royalties for airplay. So, for a little guy like me, there were NO royalties paid because we didn't get enough airplay to secure ourselves a spot on the playlist for the time period BMI or ASCAP collected lists for. A P2P environment can ensure much more exact tracking under this scheme.
So, how do we do that? The CDDB is an excellent start. But what kind of tracking scheme makes sense for Joe Schmo musician who is producing his own singles and self-publishing? Some kind of registration database? Product code assignment for each track? There are millions of possibilities that I won't list here.
The biggest obstacle would be the standardization of meta data that would be necessary to say that X people downloaded Y song. I look at mp3s that i download and even original ones I create and see that there is zero consistency to the way the files are tagged. Song titles are misspelled, artist names may be misspelled or even inaccurate, no year data, no genre data.
Anyway, the end result would be, "Here you go BMI/ASCAP/[Insert new rights management company here], an accurate listing of downloaded songs." They plug it into their database and update their clients' accounts. If the artist makes more than $5.00 in a given month, mail 'em a check.
This would equalize things a bit more between high-budget and low-budget artists; a good song is a good song, big label/RIAA or not.