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$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.
Presumes you're a criminal otherwise.
And by paying it, you admit it.
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
Or the record industry could stop living in the past and have modern cost effective (fair) distribution model that makes sense to modern internet users.
...to support illegally download music?
For anyone who's interested, I've posted my correspondence with Jim. He definitely seems to be a lobbyist of some kind. He doesn't address the issues, he just doles out some rhetoric.
The solution:
-- There should be a license that you pay for only if you're interested, and if you pay this license you're allowed to download music.
By subscribing to the license, you make a legally binding promise to follow certain simple rules that apply for this license.
-- If you also want to make music available for others to download, you indicate this when you subscribe to the license. This again involves a legally binding promise to follow rules that apply for this kind of license.
-- When you make music available for others to download, you must use software that is approved for this purpose. Getting such software approved should be very easy, because the requirements are simple.
One requirement is that this software record and report statistics about how many times each song is downloaded. The money from the license fees gets distributed to artists and music companies based on these statistics.
Another requirement on this software is that it make an automatic check that the software that requests the download displays a currently valid license.
With this scheme, regular Joes who provide music for others have no economic incentive to trick the system. That's important. It means that lots of software can be easily approved.
Music companies do have an incentive to trick the system, so as to inflate their own statistics. Checks against this will be needed. In addition, because of this, the statistics should probably be arranged in such a way that any number of downloads from the same license counts as a single download.
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
I wonder what would happen if someone figured out how to torrent a car.
We are laying the legal groundwork for that problem right now (albeit unknowingly). With nanomachines on the horizon, it won't be more than 50 years till you will have access to a formulator capable of replicating a car. But someone will still have to design the car in the first place. We will be up against the exact same problems we are now with music. People will be trading atom-level model files for Ferraris over the intarwebs. Toss in your old car, a design file, and a whole lot of power (assuming we haven't hit, or have solved, the peak oil problem by then), and you get a new car.
It will be the end of natural scarcity of manufactured goods, but not the end of scarcity of energy, good design, or the rarer raw materials. While I loathe the current state of Intellectual Monopoly law, it will be necessary to continue to compensate creators (not necessarily labels) for their work, and the fields where the cost of design can be hidden in the price of the manufactured good will dwindle.
The laws that will protect cars 50 years from now are the laws we are using today to attempt to protect music. Maybe cops will ask for "License, registration, and proof of designer royalty payment, please?"
But then, we'll probably just be the computers' pets by then anyway, so no need to worry.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
If the music I wanted was freely and legally available for download from the internet in lossless un-DRMed form I'd be perfectly willing to sell out $5 per month for access to this music. I currently spend about 10 times that per month for my music acquisitions.
If you know how many people the **AA has sued so far, it shouldn't be that hard to figure out how many people would need to sign up (and which would need to be excluded) to make the running of such an insurance pool a profitable venture.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Exactly. This is 100% about getting broadband customers to subsidize their fucking war chest.
Just some clarification: I can and do pay for content, and I am far more likely to when I can get it on my terms.
Just tell me where to sign up to the MPAA-sponsored BitTorrent tracker, and I'll pay for it. Here's my wishlist:
I'm not sure how much I would be willing to pay for that service, but it's at least $5/month.
As it is, there's really no service which can quite replace The Pirate Bay.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
How about this: First of all, I don't think this is "fair" in any sense, but to end all the copyright nonsense these days I'd be willing to entertain this.
First of all, let's get a reasonable amount. Like, say, 25 cents a month. Maybe as much as a buck. The BSA and the MPAA can have the same. So can anybody else who feels their Imaginary Property rights are being violated. But in exchange, two conditions:
1) they accept that they can never again object to any form of private, non-commercial copyright infringement in any way, shape, or form, in any jurisdiction this side of the outer rings of Jupiter.
(2)that they are expressly prohibited from producing, distributing, or employing any form of DRM technology in any way shape or form, in any jurisdiction.
Violation of either of these two conditions will result in them having to repay the amount of money they have received from this "statutory license" (or whatever we decide to call it) X 100.
Let me repeat myself. I don't think this is 'fair', but politics, like life, is compromise. I don't think the RIAA deserves this money any more than a mobster "deserves" his protection money. But to be 100% sure that we'd never again have a single case of grandmother being sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars over a dozen top 40 tracks that'll be forgotten in 10 years, and be able to back up my box set of "Band of Brothers" that I paid $150 for, it'd be worth it.
But not at $5/month. I haven't averaged spending $5/month on CDs since about 1993.
The plural form of "anecdote" is "anecdotes", not "evidence".
Copyright infringement is a civil matter and there is plenty of insurance for civil lawsuits.
I'm merely proposing one more type of insurance. Participating in such a scheme would be tantamount to an admission of guilt. Why? The **AA has already wrongly sued several people.
Less than $60 a year is a small price to pay for protection from a possible lawsuit or a $X,000 settlement "offer".
Shouldn't I be able to protect myself against such risks? The RIAA would prosecute to the fullest any person with this insurance instead of extending settlement offers like they do now, so calculating the insurance based on current settlement values would not work. The RIAA doesn't know shit about the people they send Pre-Settlement Letters to. You forward the letter to your insurer and let their lawyers deal with it. This is how car insurance works, how medical malpractice insurance works, etc etc etc. Judges would not look kindly on it either and would likely approve the maximum possible penalties, which as I'm sure you know are ludicrous and could probably easily bankrupt the insurer. You are assuming this goes to trial, which defeats the purpose of the **AA sending out Pre-Settlement Letters. But if it makes you happy, your insurance policy can have a "go to trial" clause setting out a fee structure for legal services.
rm999 said "That's a cool idea, but if it actually happened I would be really bothered. I know this is sad, but I would rather my money go to the RIAA than lawyers/insurance salesmen."
That's okay, we can accomplish the same goal in a slightly different fashion. Form a non-profit organization and a separate non-profit insurance company that the club hires to insure its members. Make a tax deductable donation to the club in return for membership and if you get sued, you can apply to their 'free' insurance program. While we're at it, how about we buddy up with the EFF, make the goal of the organization copyright reform and hire some lobbyists to achieve that goal?
A. Pay a $60 per year RIAA tax for as long as you have broadband
B. Make a $60 per year (or less) tax deductible donation that goes towards protecting you from **AA lawyers and lobbying for a fairer copyright model
Which would you choose?
Of course, this assumes that the **AA doesn't get pimp slapped by the Courts and their unlicensed "investigators" don't get bitch slapped by the States.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I think it would be unfair to mod the parent as troll. True, the comment ignores the fact that art adds a lot to people's lives, is an historically important form of artistic expression, has cultural value as a tool for cohesion and relationship-building, and is very enjoyable. On the other hand, it picks up on some important points. Firstly, music as a commercial product is, in the end, a luxury item. The amount of time and effort spent trying to get around paying for it would only make moral sense if it were something like food or water. If you can't afford to buy it, you can still hear music on the radio, the TV, in bars and clubs and pubs and many free live venues. You can make it yourself, on your own, with friends. Secondly, the amount of money paid for the works of top artists is pretty extortionate. Why is Paul McCartney so rich when people who teach, nurse, clear our garbage, can't afford to pay their bills? I would suggest it's because we have a pretty screwed-up understanding of value.
These two points might seem to contradict each other. But they both add up to the fact that we place too much importance on commercial music (which is a different thing from music as an art or an abstract idea.) So I think the parent deserves better than to be called a troll, even if the phrasing of the comment is unfortunate.
A closed mouth gathers no foot.
We actually haven't come all that far technologically from the Romans, either. The only real thing we've got over them is heat engines. Everything else falls into place when you burn stuff to do work instead of whipping slaves.
Another problem is determining which song writers/performers/publishers/labels should get the money to begin with. Do they pay people more who get their music pirated more? Do they pay people as a ratio of radio air time? Do they just evenly distribute the money? Like - if that's the case - I'm going to start putting random samples into a synth that just chops them up and spits them out, use every computer controlled sequencing feature, and then demand my fuckin' cut.
If the team moves so far away that the local fans can't support it, that just opens up an opportunity for someone to start a new team.
except the team needs other teams to play and the leagues survive on artificial scarcity of teams and the teams often have trouble obtaining the services of talented players. Our city is Hockey town, we are the permanent home of the International Silver Stick hockey tournament, 65,000 players and coaches participate in the international amature hockey tournament. I doubt there is more than a handfull of NHL hockey players who haven't played hockey in Port Huron, we'll probably loose our third minor-league Hockey team real soon.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
The ultimate in marketing is to make your product compulsory.
All of the examples given and the subject of the fine article are about making products compulsory, therefore they are all related in this way.
There is no reason why a free citizen should be compelled to purchase the product of a private company in order to get or do some unrelated thing. It's just wrong. If I were to propose some constitutional amendments, one of them would prohibit this.
If auto insurance and health insurance are that important they should be nationalized. I'm really not opposed to that. I personally know how hard it is to get treatment when you can't afford coverage. I'm sure there's a government bureaucracy out there that can compute the ideal rate of new physicians that makes the career worthwhile without leaving the country shy of enough doctors to serve the need, and nationalized health care can abolish the lawsuits that drive much of the expense just by barring the claims. Leaving the sale of it in the public market and the marketing of it done by government agents with guns, without regulating the flows that drive the cost is just dumb. That, and it doesn't really solve the problem because it does quite the opposite of the necessary steps to get the costs back down where most people can afford it.
The fine article points out what happens when you start down this path: absurdly unnecessary industries would like to make their products compulsory too, and there is no limit to the influence their billions can buy. Will fast food conglomerates demand fair play in federally funded school lunch programs? Will the cell phone industry demand citizens be required to carry their products for their own safety? Will deodorant manufacturers get stinky pits added to the list of public indecencies? There is no limit to this compulsory product madness. There is, however, a limit to how much of this the poor can endure before they drop out from sheer necessity and get their business done outside the formal economy and that's bad for all of us.
Help stamp out iliturcy.