$5 Per Month Fee Proposed For Legal Music P2P

sneakyimp writes "Both Wired and Ars Technica have reports on Jim Griffin's proposal that ISPs charge each broadband customer $5 per month to subsidize the ailing music industry. The resulting fund would ostensibly 'compensate songwriters, performers, publishers and music labels.' Although no specific version of the proposal has been referenced, a number of controversies are inherent to the plan: How is the money really divided? What happens when the MPAA, the Business Software Alliance, and various other industry groups want their own surcharge added? What about the supposed majority of broadband customers who never download illegal music? Griffin discussed the plan further at SXSW . We've previously discussed a similar proposal from the Songwriters Association of Canada.

Comments

This is ridiculous.

[Dice]

So, if I'm charged this $5/mo fee does that mean they can no longer prosecute me if I download music? Or are they going to do that as well?

Now, if we were talking about a $5/mo (or even $10/mo) fee to be able to download and listen to, burn, copy, whatever as much high quality DRM-free music as I want.... well, suffice to say that I'd be too busy clicking links and breaking out my credit card to make this post.

$4.99 for RIAA

[eightball01]

$0.01 for everyone else.

Re:Stupid.

[omeomi]

They've pulled this BS before. It's why there's a surcharge on "Music" CDRs. It's not actually legalizing it, it's just their way getting more money. And any time you see a list regarding compensation in this order: "songwriters, performers, publishers and music labels", you know for sure it's exactly the other way around. Music labels will take almost all of the money, then the publishers, then the performers, and last but not least, the songwriters.

Re:Make it voluntary??

[MBCook]

P2P nothing.

If I'm paying you a monthly fee, you are going to be hosting a reliable service. You will have an iTunes music store/Amazon store/whatever.

If I pay you, I'm not putting up with random qualities, names, ID3 tags, missing seeders, etc. I don't care how obscure my tastes, you have to host it for me. That's our deal: I pay, you let me download.

I expect better service than P2P for $5 a month.

Minority/Majority

[techstar25]

They've been repeatedly telling us that the minority of users use the majority of the bandwidth (for P2P). So why would they tax the majority of users then? Of course it makes no sense.

What about non-RIAA music?

[urbanriot]

None of the bands I listen to and download are RIAA members. How will my money get to them?

Re:Thanks for nothing. Just say no.

[hitmark]

hmm, was there not some USA bigwig that ones stated something to the tune that no market had the right to exist for eternity?

the thing about the net and the computer is that in one box and connection one have (to go back to about the industrial age) a telegraph, a printing press and a gramophone all hooked together so that the telegraph can feed of stuff to the other ones.

at that time, with a printing press being a room sized device operated by 1 or more person as a full day job, that would be unthinkable. but today, thanks to the wonders of the microprocessor, thats not only possible, but increasingly common place.

thing is that we are still operating with industrial age laws, when the tech have moved on like no-one at that time could have foretold.

yes, riaa and the rest keeps a whole lot of people with work. but was there not cries about loss of work when the assembly line came to be, and continued on to become increasingly automated?

maybe its time we think about alternate ways of distributing resources? ways not hooked on the idea of scarcity in some form or other for other things then physical resources?

maybe the net, and all that it can contain, should be put under some kind of operation similar to a public library? only that said public library to is a creation of a age where books where a scarce resource, turning their content scarce as well. but today the physical book may be scarce, but the content of it do not have to be. the creativity of the human mind, when not directed towards creating a physical construct, have been set free like no time before.

question is, how are those creative minds supposed to live on? as is, we are so used to the physical media that we cant really imagine a world without it. but if one manage to distance oneself from that idea, then what? what alternate paths do then appear?

to re-imagine the way to launch programs in kde, the developers had to stop referring to the launcher as a menu, this because the very word was loaded with images of ordered lists of items, and one could not shake it.

so it may well be that we have to stop talking about copyright, or any other kinds of rights, as these are now loaded words. words that force our minds into preset paths.