Slashdot Mirror


$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.

12 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.
    1. Re:Stupid. by omeomi · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

  2. This is ridiculous. by Dice · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  3. $4.99 for RIAA by eightball01 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    $0.01 for everyone else.

  4. Re:Make it voluntary?? by MBCook · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
  5. 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.

    --
    Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
  6. Minority/Majority by techstar25 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  7. What about non-RIAA music? by urbanriot · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

  8. Thanks for nothing. Just say no. by inTheLoo · · Score: 5, Informative

    You say that as if duplicating your CDs was ever against the law, here or in Canada. Copyright is supposed to be a civil matter between private parties about the right to commercially publish works. Applying that to personal coppies has always been a stretch.

    I recall some controversy about artists never got their cut of the digital media tax, not even RIAA signed artists, and it hurt local artists. Looks like it never got better.

    I expect ISP fees to be exactly like that. In effect, they will outlaw what's already allowed and steer yet more money to an industry that has long ago ceased to perform a useful function.

    --
    No calls now, I'm ...
  9. 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.

    --
    Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
  10. Re:Thanks for nothing. Just say no. by poopdeville · · Score: 5, Informative

    Let p2p run rampant. Don't sue anybody. Then watch and see if the music/movie industries up and die. If they do, then consider whether or not legislation is needed to revivify them. If they do not die, then admit that the legislation was never needed in the first place, and just don't bother with it.

    They won't. This was the biggest year for the MPAA ever.

    --
    After all, I am strangely colored.
  11. Re:Thanks for nothing. Just say no. by hitmark · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm