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$5 Per Month Fee Proposed For Legal Music P2P

Posted by Soulskill on from the it's-nice-to-have-somebody-do-my-budget-for-me dept.

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.

3 of 528 comments (clear)

  1. Stupid. by n6kuy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.
  2. Re:Distribution by icebike · · Score: 5, Interesting

    > This actually seems like a modern, cost effective and fair distribution model to me.
    > Out of curiosity, what about it doesn't meet that criteria?

    How about the bit where they have no content I am interested in, but I still have to pay?
    How about the bit that a private group now gains the right to tax all broadband users just
        on a suspicion that they might some day download something?

    You MIGHT transport my stolen lawn sculptures in your car. Therefore, I want the right to be paid
      $2.35 for all users of the public roadways. Now can you see the problem?

    Somebody mod parent Troll.

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    Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
  3. And I would pay for that. by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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:

    • No client-side DRM.
    • Video in h.264
    • Audio is AAC, Vorbis, or Flac. (I'd accept any of these.)
    • Container format is mkv for video, ogg for vorbis, flac for flac. (Don't care what the AAC is in.)
    • Torrents are well-seeded -- something like S3 should be fast enough and cheap enough. I don't mind contributing bandwidth (since it's so cheap), but you WILL saturate my pipe.
    • No seeding requirement. Some people might be downloading this on a metered connection.
    • Similarly -- watermarks are fine, so long as you still saturate my pipe. It's probably more cost-effective simply to create a torrent.
    • Creators actually published.
    • All media available this way. Not really practical, but do NOT throw up ten movies I don't want to watch and call it a day.
    • Opt-in. If my ISP suddenly tacks $5 onto my bill because I might be torrenting, I will fight it -- I will cancel Internet service at home if I have to. If you make this a reasonable option, I will pay for it.

    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.

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