Slashdot Mirror
Support Grows For Blanket Music Licensing
Anti-Globalism sends in Ars coverage of a speech by Jim Griffin, who is a consultant for Warner, one of the big four music labels. Griffin is encouraging dialog on the idea of blanket licensing of music — a topic heretofore more likely to be heard from the EFF or the Barenaked Ladies. "Taking music without paying for it may not be 'morally voluntary,' Griffin says, but he admits it has become 'functionally voluntary.' No civilized society, he adds, can endure 'purely voluntary payment for art, knowledge, and culture.' So Griffin's job is to help Warner monetize digital music, and he's convinced that the issue of payment for music is nothing less than 'our generation's nuclear power.' Griffin's most intriguing idea, and one he's been pitching for some time now, is a voluntary, blanket music license; essentially, bringing the collection society model to end users. In this model, consumers would pay royalties into a pot (by paying an extra monthly fee to their ISPs, for instance) and would then have access to all the music from all the labels that participate in the scheme."
Under blanket licensing, how do I reward artists with good music preferentially to those who suck? Frankly, any business model that has talented artists like Radiohead, NIN, etc earning the same amount or less than crappy acts like Britney Spears is fundamentally broken. I will not give one penny to those talentless pop stars.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Confucius say "Man who spend time thinking about monetizing music need to spend more time listening to music."
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Some of us prefer to pay for music. I know you all think I"m crazy, but being a former recording artist, this stuff isn't cheap to make or distribute. I don't mind the iTunes model. But if that's my preferred method, why do I need to pay into a fund?
"Our generation's nuclear power?" Seriously? You're comparing finding a way to sell music with SPLITTING THE ATOM?!?
How do I know that the artist(s) I like will participate in the blanket license? How do I know that a current artist won't jump ship and I'll miss out on future albums? How does this account for people who "consume" more or less music than others?
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
In other words, the amount of money paid towards works will "liberate" that work for public consumption and the money will go towards the artist to create additional works?
Twinstiq, game news
What about those of us who don't want to pay Warner because none of the music they put out is worth listening to, much less paying for?
Lets call this what is really is, an involuntary forced payment to one of the most evil and hated organizations in the country from many people who have absolutely no interest in downloading bad low quality music at all and never will.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
They'll allow those the artists who don't pay more money than they'll ever earn through royalties (or anything else for that matter) enough to make up to get their royalties right? They wouldn't just steal the money from those who deserve it right? Right?
Confucius say "Companies who invent terms like 'collection society' never bring good dishes to pot luck."
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
I tried to read TFA and got as far as the first paragraph but I refuse to read the rest of it if they are going to make such ridiculous analogies.
At least one of the labels is seeing what the future holds: The end of the major music labels.
With an "ISP Tax" they can maintain their businesses as a more or less useless parasite on society, getting large amounts of income and still holding the power of saying who is to become a star and who is not.
Another problem is the small, independent labels, not to mention musicians who manage without a label. Think they'll get any money? Think again. The major labels have decades of experience lobbying government, so who do you think will end up administrating this?
It will also require registering and logging what music is downloaded, which will be a hard task in itself... unless music on the internet is centralized.
I'm a dreamer, the world is my playpen. But hey, I'm a serious person, I can't dream all the time.
Um, over my dead body.
Hasn't this idea come up before? With CD-Rs? Someone was proposing that every CD-R purchase was used for illegal music CD copies, so a "music label" tax would be applied to all CD-R purchases.
This is basically the MPAA asking the government to enforce its copyrights yet again. Copyright is a CIVIL matter, not a CRIMINAL matter. The criminal judicial system has no business helping the MPAA enforce its copyrights.
I don't buy music because I don't care about music that much. I listen to online radio stations because I don't have time to manager a personal music collection. I have a small music collection from a few years ago when I had the time to do it. But the last piece of music I obtained was over a year or two ago.
I owe the MPAA $0. Zip. Zero. Nada. And there's no reason for me to pay an ISP tax to them.
I'm looking forward to playing improvisational jazz on the lids of garbage cans and raking in the money from their big pot o' cash.
Fine and dandy, as long as I've got the option of not paying the fee and not getting access to the music. I don't care for most of the stuff the major labels put out, and I'd rather not pay for something I've no interest in getting. If I want music from them I'll pay for the items I want, thank you very much.
What is this "Blanket Music" of which you speak and why would I desire to license it?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Ugh, I meant RIAA.
I don't pirate music. If this went through, I'd feel like a guy having dinner with a bunch of friends. He has water and a light salad while his friends get steaks and drink expensive wine. Then they say "let's split the bill evenly."
No thanks.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
I would wholly support an added $5/mo charge (or something similar) onto my internet access bill if it would just stop all of this horrendous RIAA lawsuits going on.
Cracks are developing in the "Making available" argument. Recently, that whole $220k verdict may be coming apart due to a mistrial.
The RIAA/MPAA have nothing to lose by having all of the ISP's offer a manditory levy. If they continue to get consumers with balls who stand up to the courts, they could lose everything. It's just that simple.
Look at what happened with Ma Bell. They brought it to the courts, lost.. and now we have answering machines, fax machines, etc. If they had just left things alone, we all still might be paying rental fees on anything connected to the phone network. (That would suck, I know..)
I think something needs to be rephrased, the guy meant to say:
"No record company, he adds, can endure "purely voluntary payment for art, knowledge, and culture."
' No civilized society, he adds, can endure 'purely voluntary payment for art, knowledge, and culture.'
Really. Because I'm pretty sure that almost every society on the planet Earth has had art, knowledge, and culture work that was for several millenium, if not longer. I'm reasonably sure nobody paid the guys who made cave paintings. Art, knowledge, and culture - the REAL stuff, as opposed to, say, Brittany Spears and the line, are produced by volunteers in their spare time. They do it because they have a burning passion to do so, and financial considerations tend to be secondary, if not tertiary.
format, and if Time Warner expands their bandwidth metering trial, then I'll be sticking with CDs thank you.
"In this model, consumers would pay royalties into a pot (by paying an extra monthly fee to their ISPs, for instance) and would then have access to all the music from all the labels that participate in the scheme."
Haven't we already voiced loudly what this kind of shit leads to?
music gets their cut,
tv demands their cut,
radio demands their cut (because everyone records the non-music time),
movies demand their cut,
video games demand their cut,
book publishers demand their cut,
magazine publishers demand their cut,
news sites demand their cut,
etc etc etc, repeat this for EVERY possible industry.
And don't forget, they'll START at a "reasonable" fee. But then every year or two bring it to court saying "that's too low, the market's grown and so should the cost!" and "inflation!!! we need to increase the price to keep the same value!!!" and before you know it that reasonable (let's say $5) fee, has grown to $25 in the course of 10 years, and continues to grow at that rate forever. (See the canadian's blanket tax on CDs/cassettes/etc)
Nobody can afford internet anymore due to the collective $500/month royalty charges, america goes offline. (or bankrupt... and then offline.)
Meanwhile, they'll still find ways to rape you in court if they can.
What? There are blankets that play music? And you gotta get a license for that?
The only music you'll hear out of my blanket is "zzzzzzzz..." and on a good night, "bow-chickabow-chickabowbow...". *
* OK, maybe the ocasional "tuba" blast if I had the burrito with wild onions.
But I don't use much music, and most of what I do are not members of the RIAA cartels. Why would I want something like this?
I prefer my ISP to be like a utility, and not a content provider. And if history tells us anything, most other people do too. Remember AOL, Compuserve, and Prodigy all had their own exclusive content, but in the end the consumer didn't want to pay for that content, all they wanted was a link to the Internet where they could choose their own content.
I Heart Sorting Networks
I have said it before, and I will say it again.
I am not going to pay a monthly fee on my internet connection or anything else to "excuse" me for all of the copying I don't do.
I don't download music, I buy music. I buy a lot of music -- this year, about $800 on CDs so far, most of that from 3 record labels, and not mainstream ones. The artists I listen to aren't covered under your Brittany-where's-my-panties-Spears tax, and aren't on those labels who are trying to benefit from this.
The last thing I want to see if some *(&^%(*& monthly surcharge on having an Internet connection to help offset the losses to artists I don't listen to.
Everybody who proposes one of these surcharges really needs to be fed their own head in very small pieces, because it's a stupid idea, doesn't address the issue, and won't be paying the artists I listen to. It basically is an attempt to have their revenue stream guaranteed by law.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
How about they stfu and go out of business forever? K thx bye.
(1) They have a guaranteed, mandatory monopoly forever.
(2) And they don't have to produce anything anymore.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
I seriously doubt that support for this will be growing here!
sigpending(2)
This looks like a pretty interesting (dare I say, good?) scheme to get us consumers to actually pay for the music we get off the web. However, the problem I'm feeling from it is that this is still very label oriented. What about musicians who want to make a living off their music online but don't have a label? How do they get involved?
Another sticky wicket would be dividing up the cash in the pool for the artists. A good point had already been brought up by a poster to whom I replied earlier. How can we consumers use this system to benefit the artists we like, and avoid lining the pockets of those we don't? Is there some kind of download tracking? Registration (or other tracking) of songs? And then, do all artists get the same share of the pie, or does it vary based on number of plays, actual play time, or some other scheme?
If the questions get ironed out, and this is something which can be opted into (as opposed to being unilaterally fobbed on us) I wouldn't mind paying a bit extra each month to support my favourite acts. But only if the concerns about how it works are answered.
Christopher S. 'coldacid' Charabaruk -- coldacid.net
Exactly.
This isn't trying to be friendly to consumers, and work out a common ground.
Instead, it's music execs trying to figure out how they can continue profiting from mediocrity, while also making it even more difficult for independent artists to find an audience and be compensated for their work.
How do you think this is going to work? Most likely, the pool would be divided among the RIAA member companies, and allocated based on the artsts whose music got played or downloaded more. Considering that they are going to be the same artists that are going to be promoted by the RIAA, and the same artists whose music will be forced into my skull through paid arrangements (do we really deserve the punishment of hearing the same song on the radio 20 times per day?).
Under such an arrangement, RIAA can just deposit their "proteges" into the playlist by paying the radio stations, and then proceed to collect 99% of all money from the pool, which will then be allocated by them - 99% to the company, 1% to the artist... and only a few artists are going to see that 1%. In other words, the system will be even more skewed and broken than it is now!
I think this should be tagged "suddenoutbreakofcommonsense". Truthfully, though, I already do this. Its called Napster. I pay $15 a month, download as much as I want. From what I understand, royalties are based on the amount of downloads a song gets. I may be completely wrong about that, but that makes sense.
There is no reason for unlimited access to a catalog to be tied to ISPs. Consumers already have the option to pay for services they desire over the web. Emusic and Napster (among others) already operate on this sort of model.
This comes off as a transparent attempt for the RIAA to control the web market by tying its members to the points of access.
The RIAA thrives off of the misconception that it represents all music in the US when in fact it represents a small fraction.
Let us ignore all the various government intrusions that try to subvert the real market laws: supply and demand.
When you have a limited supply of an item, and some demand, the price tends to go up. When you have an unlimited supply of an item, and some demand, the price tends to go down.
Music, or any content that can be distributed digitally, can have near infinite supply. The price, in such a case, may fall to zero. Some people will have some "moral imperative" to paying the original artist, but in reality the current distribution does NOT pay the original artist. Look at how the coward monopolists at BMI distribute royalty license fees.
There's a great catch, though, and one that I've used to help small bands make a pretty decent buck: find out what you have that can be sold in limited supply.
For musicians, their live performances are always going to be in limited supply. The music, since it is infinite in supply and has a value of zero in terms of quality between licensed and unlicensed copies, should be a marketing item.
Make your money the way most of us here make it: by doing new work for new customers. Your old work, as ours, is a great portfolio tool to attract new clients. Once you've gotten the clients' attentions, offer them value added items. Instead of hoping to get $15 for a CD that they can download for nearly nothing, offer an autograph session and only autograph your CDs. I own an offset print shop, and we can do custom CD runs for almost nothing. Sell collector's items, autograph them, and you've got a valid limited-supply product. Sell limited-run T-shirts. Offer personal time for your wealthy fans to hang out back stage, at a fee, or even offer online or IRL lessons to groups of fans.
A person's pay is not for work they've done in the past. No one pays their plumber a license to flush their toilet. No one pays their plumber a fee when they use the plumber's tactics to fix their own toilet again. Past work is relatively worthless if it can be mimicked by others, easily.
Copyright only exists today because of the momentum of it. It is dying a quick death. There are artists out there who moan and complain about it, but they're the ones who just can't see the forest for the trees: writing music, creating drawings, etc, is no different than going to plumbing school. Your labor of creation is the lesson time you spend to figure out a way to sell your future labor. Write a song, learn to fix toilets: they've both education. YOu don't get paid to learn to fix toilets, you don't get paid to write your own music. Both steps take you to the next level: finding customers to sell your services to.
of involuntary payments being collected by ISPs and transferred to a private sector entity such as SoundExchange. There's zero acccountability in a situation like that. Forget it. My tax dollars are involuntarily collected (well, I can refuse to pay them and go to jail) but the media companies are not the government and it's ridiculous that they should be treated as such. They have too much influence in Washington as it is.
Furthermore, this idea that ISPs should have to serve as Internet cops and tax collectors needs to be put to rest. Their job is connectivitiy. Period.
If I burn a Linux boot CD to a Music CD-R, where do I go to get my media surcharge refunded?
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Let me subscribe to services such as Pandora and let the make money on advertising that I can ignore. I do not want to pay a fee for something that I don't use. I have always thought that the radio model of having a station pay to play a song is backward. The music publisher should be paying the radio station. Most bands would never have been heard of and could not sell music without airplay. One exception was the Grateful Dead. They were successful due to work of mouth.
Sounds like the listener license from Tales from the Afternow...
It's all beginning.
Sure it can. Artists are supported by those that appreciate the work at the level it's worth to the benefactor. The "problem" is that the music isn't worth that much to many people. Perhaps free/stolen is what it's worth. Artists get over yourselves and/or create a better product.
I don't download music/movies (free or paid). Why shuold I be forced to pay a tax (excuse me, fee) to support something I don't want or use over a voluntary access medium (like the Internet)? Why should my Grandmother? Artists, create something worth buying or get a real job.
Music isn't nuclear power, it's fucking music. Griffin's idea isn't "intriguing", it's asinine. A blanket music license is just a universal tax on an unnecessary product to suppport a failing business model.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
So I have to pay for shit I dont use now?
Maybe they should start charging ridiculous prices at their concerts to make up for the lost CD sales?
Then the artists could make money by performing!
And maybe charge 20 dollars per t-shirt while they're at it?
As pointed out, why pay for crap artists? There is a simple reason. When painted into a corner by their business tactics to date, they have decided that we'll cave and pay them for whatever music they want to give us if they stop suing kids and grandparents. The intent here is to maintain a tight fisted grip on distribution at any cost, even if that means taking a cut in revenues. That way that can keep making money from crap artists and telling the public what they should be listening to. NIN will still sell individually as will other bands so you have to pay twice if you pay an RIAA tax to your ISP because that tax does NOT pay for ALL music you might download.
It is a plan to rob all Internet users. pure. and. simple. They are shit scared to sell it by the song. iTunes already set the price and it's too low for them... even if they could break into the digital content distribution business with any kind of success. If they sold it by the song, there is EVERY chance that their current cash cows would flounder, and fast.
I, of course, am all for watching that floundering happen. Hoping for such is probably cathartic as a hobby, and we all have to have some of those.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
It's called subscription music services - like Rhapsody and Napster. Keep it voluntary. I don't like the idea of having to pay the RIAA protection money to access the internet.
Power does not corrupt - power attracts the corrupt.
I'm deaf so where do I get my waiver? I guess I get to download movies for free then. ;)
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
I don't listen to music much and certainly don't download it so I object strongly to a "tax" on my ISP charges (already high as it) to pay for something I don't use and don't want.
Dr. Frank J. Nagy Fermilab Computing Division Authentication and Directory Services Group
If we will be paying the flat rate and have access to any content, what role could labels play in this scheme? Will they _not_ sue us, _not_ block modern distribution technology, _not_ steal money from artist etc.?
Why wouldn't they just stop doing that right avay and disappeared in a puff of logic?
...a stunned silence fell upon the hall.
Indeed. Do people with hearing deficits get a refund? Or do they have to subsidise others?
To me, this sounds like they're re-inventing the radio license fee, but without having to provide extra programming paid for by that fee.
Or like charging everyone a high yearly library fee, and then expect people to build their own library buildings and populate them with books. Um, sorry, no, I won't have it.
For a fee to be useful, the record companies would have to produce something for the fee. Set up a library I can access, and keep it populated. And those who do not read or listen should not be forced to pay.
from people who still don't understand how the fundamentals have changed
recorded music is now nothing more than an advertising vehicle for artists. if some old timers have a problem conceptualizing that, imagine the business model of radio: it gave music away for free in order to sell ad spots and create buzz. got that? apply that concept to recorded music now. welcome to present day reality
artists: no more coasting on royalties. you'll have to do regular work, concert gigs, to make a living like the rest of us mortals, or be spokesman for advertisers. you'll still be disgustingly rich and get lots of blow jobs from eager female fans. i don't exactly empathize with your plight of losing royalties
distributors: the internet has replaced you. you can't compete with free, sorry, enjoy your extinction
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
If they could do this for anime I would be very happy pay a low tax. Just so long as I can get fansubs/subs, But as for now my fansubs are something you can get 'busted' for. Anime industry needs to release worldwide subs at the same time as in japan. Dubs are useless waste of time and American companies are too cheap to pay for decent Voice actors. This of course will never happen, just plain reality that companies suck and don't listen to their consumers.
I think you're overstating here. This might be perhaps the end of multi-millionaire rockers, maybe. But file-sharing wont be the end of live shows and merchandise. So there's still plenty of revenue sources for the artists.
If by "professional musicianship" you're referring to the top-40 detritus on MTV and Clear Channel, let's hope you're right. I certainly wouldn't want to preserve that system with a federal tax.
I have a revolutionary idea! Maybe we can go back to people making music they love because it's what they love to do.
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
Will someone please give these clowns a clue pill?
No civilized society, he adds, can endure 'purely voluntary payment for art, knowledge, and culture.
That might be true for things like sculptures or books or theater tickets, but that's only because all those things are scarce and have a marginal cost to produce. If I can take all the books or paintings in a physical store home with me without paying, then yeah, that's probably not going to be workable. The marginal cost of a digital music file (or movie, or ebook) is basically zero.
Methinks, tho doth protest too much.
The way the major labels have it set up, unless they go platinum, musicians don't see very much revenue from record sales. They make their money at concerts and through merchandise.
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
What about me? I don't listen to music. I don't own any music. I don't download any music. I don't listen to music on the radio. I don't listen to music in my car. I don't listen to any music at all. *
* Unless some music is playing somewhere, where I happen to be passing by, or if it is part of a TV show or part of a movie that I am watching.
I live in Canada, so I suppose it doesn't apply to me (initially) Of-course, when they introduced the tax on the blank data media, I had to pay the money for something I don't do.
If my ISP tries to do this to me, I'll freaking sue.
You can't handle the truth.
In Canada we have that Blank CD tax.
Millions of $ have been collected.
NOBODY, artist-wise, has gotten a penny.
Even Avril Lavigne hasn't gotten her check yet.
Even if this Music Tax, collected via ISPs, was enacted, Artists would still get $0.
It would eventually turn anybody signed by a record label to be on music-tax-welfare! Imagine the quality music coming out then. It's bad enough as it is!
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
*Again*, this is the same buisness model as radio royaty, and public TV in the country where it exists.
People pay a fee, the audiance of each artist is measured using polling (TV audiance is not exact), and then you give the money according to that repartition.
Last time this was discussed, I was modded into oblivion for simply pointing that the majors were changing their stance on this (before, they hated it). We'll see if slashdotters have smarten up on this.
Look at how different p2p statistics and box office are for some movies: this would be a better system, because at the very least the medium is not controlled by the guy who sells the stuff. Also, no more bullshit about causing 10,000$ dammages for one song.
Don't take my posts literally; it's just code to control my botnet.
Why do we still need a "music industry"? What value do intermediaries add? In the days of physical music distribution, they produced and distributed media to retailers. They bribed###### marketed the music through limited and expensive marketing channels (radio and later television). That's all changed. It's time for musicians and consumers to tell the industry "Thank you, your services are no longer required".
[Insert pithy quote here]
OK, I understand they are finally realizing that they cannot make money the "old" way?? MAYBE?? but to tell someone that they have to "share the costs" of ALL music is just down right stupid!!! What my tastes in music are are 1. My business and I will support them. 2. Not anyone elses bussiness so why should I support them.
Another reader commented on supporting "good" grousp and "crappy" grousp at the same level. And why should I support them equally. According to that, then Joe Smoe's music is at the same level as Bach/Beatles/BNL/etc (whatever you believe is a "good" band vs the local Middles schoolers that can barely pick at a guitar much less make music. (And yes I believe some of the younger crowd is very talented.
I guess we need to apply this to ALL creative endevors then, hmmm no more big profits for NYT Best Sellers List since ALL authors would be paid the same regardless of the works.
Also no 1st place in sports either since we pay an admission to the gate to see the sports, so shouldn't all the participants be compensated equally???
Sorry, I stopped buying music a while back (my bands are long gone) and I will not stand for paying for someone elses music.
I have some direct experience with blanket music licenses, and they work well.
Churches are big users of music, both traditional and modern. They have to deal with issues of duplication and performance rights for 6-10 songs, every week. The level of effort needed to clear copyrights song-by-song would be impossible.
Ten years ago, the Church Copyright License was created, representing the catalogs of 120 publishers. After one year, they had 9,500 annual licensee holders. They now have over 170,000.
The churches pay a very reasonable annual fee, and get blanket permission to reproduce and perform any songs in the combined catalogs. There are sensible limits on what can be done legally, all basically to the effect of limiting the use to a normal church service.
A random sample of licensees are sent an audit form each year, and they record all the music they've used during the past few months. CCLI also provides software to do the accounting work, so the audit can be completely automated if the church wants.
Payouts to the copyright holders are done in proportion to the usage audits. The payout ratio is very fair. I know several song writers and performers who receive royalty checks, so I know the system really does work.
I've written some hymns myself (New Hymns for Worship), and have looked over the CCLI contracts in detail. They look pretty clean (but IANAL). Although I ultimately decided to publish under a Create Commons license instead, if I had wanted to make money, I would have definitely signed up with CCLI myself.
So, blanket licenses can work. They don't need to be expensive. They let consumers roam freely through whole catalogs of music. It's a good model.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
The guy who runs the digital music money grab... Film at 11.
Isn't that pretty much Rhapsody's business model? What happens when I stop making payments?
Okay, Here I go again.
If you want government intrusion for ideal #1, but not ideal #2, then you're a hypocrite. It doesn't matter what #1 or #2 is, or the sub-groups that propose them are.
Whatever argument you make in support of #1 could be used to support #2. The problem is that NEITHER is right, because they both entail FORCED TAKING by the hands of the government to support a small minority group who can't make it under the current system.
The only difference is that some people think that one is okay, but the other isn't. Who gets to decide which one is okay?????
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
They are not a collection agency for the MAFIAA.
This idea will die.
That's absolutely correct. A civilized society cannot endure any form of payment for art, knowledge, and culture. These things, by their very nature, are -- and should be -- free.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
No, I'm pretty sure that nukeular power is this generation's nuclear power.
I'm a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar...
-Lucy-
What ISP would voluntarily charge their customers more? How would they compete with ISPs who don't participate in this "scheme"?
And no chance the government would do something so stupid it would cause an uproar.
Seriously? You're comparing finding a way to sell music with SPLITTING THE ATOM?!?
The quote is from Jim Griffin, a consultant to Warner.
From his perspective it's no doubt a bigger issue than nuclear power. Nuclear power only impacts him by a small effect on his electric rates. Figuring out how to continue monetize music as recording distribution transitions from sale of physical recordings to internet distribution of music-as-data affects his big-bucks income and the fortunes of his 56 billion market-cap employer.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
You become unable to listen to your downloaded music 1 month after you end your subscription (if you ever do). Choosing classical music is a bargain, with thousands of references.
Neuf Telecom belongs to Universal, a reason why they could propose this offer rather quickly last year.
Signature omitted in order to save space. Thanks for your understanding.
If the downloads aren't encoded in a lossless format, and if Time Warner expands their bandwidth metering trial, then I'll be sticking with CDs thank you.
CDs are not a lossless format - They're sampled at 44.1 kHz and digitized at 16-bits. DVDs do a little better. But the only lossless format is live and unamplified.
I realize that you were probably just saying that your minimum quality standard is what's available on CD, but some of the lossy formats are damned close and I'm convinced that most people who complain about compression effects in high bitrate lossily but intelligently compressed music are just experiencing psychosomatic effects and probably couldn't tell the difference between the compressed version and the CD. (Some audiophiles with super-human hearing that have trained themselves in what to listen for may disagree.)
It's all about deciding for yourself what level of lossy is acceptable under the circumstances.
Now that all that's out of the way, most of the streaming music services fall short on this front and do not meet my minimum standard of quality on the music they deliver. (If somebody has a suggestion of a service that really delivers, my ears are wide open.) So, for the time being, I mostly just listen to stuff that I've ripped and (lossily) compressed from my CD collection (fairly large and almost all acquired used back in high school). This 'blanket licensing' thing, assuming the same level of streaming quality I've experienced with the services I've tried, would really do nothing more for me than provide a mechanism for previewing music that I may want to acquire later. And, given that it would all be RIAA stuff, I'm not sure I'd find many gold nuggets while mining through it...
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
This will become the law of the land & about 3 months later the porn industry will try for some of the "pie". The bible belt will *love* that!
How does my paying a corporate tax into a collective pot supposedly allocated for artists I don't listen to help me? And what the hell is a private entity doing collecting taxes across the entire spectrum of society? Isn't that a function typically reserved for government?
Particularly loved the comment that books are hard to digitize...
http://www.baen.com/library/ (author's commentary, who's made a lot of sells off of free distribution)
www.webscription.net -- no DRM at all, ebooks in choice of formats as often as you want. Still making profits.
Freeware distro cds... (search for baen cds) ... and Baen's making money just fine! :-)
Music isn't at the forefront... ebooks are, and the problem seems to already have a good solution.
We already have unlimited copyright for individuals ever since it went beyond the life of the artist. Copyright was supposed to be a limited ownership of your writings/creations. I fail to see why artist's children should be able to live off the work of their parents. If thats what the creators want then they should have setup trusts or wills or whatever to take care of their spawn. When copyright is fixed, and by fixed I mean actually expires and creations start entering the public domain, then I will recognize it again. But hell all the music I listen to is older than me, I don't see why these dead artists need to keep getting royality checks.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
Why can't/hasn't this happened through a service offering? Where is the traction from Napster or Zune style unlimited music offerings for a monthly fee? It's obviously unfair to charge the masses rather than actual consumers, but why has this model failed so far?
I think it should happen at a label level. If I'm an indie label, I would happily offer an unlimited subscription service and probably try to deliver my music through bit torrent to minimize costs.
If, ultimately, most labels end up using a similar system, there is competition between them to sign the most valuable acts - and negotiating leverage for those acts. The entry cost is low enough that indie labels can get new music out there. The major labels have been stripped of power but can still sustain.
"In this model, consumers would pay royalties into a pot (by paying an extra monthly fee to their ISPs, for instance) and would then have access to all the music from all the labels that participate in the scheme."
I don't download music illegally. The only music I've downloaded is freely provided by the artists for distribution or the occasional CD I've bought but it has gotten damaged (where you could argue I've already paid for a "license"). Why would this tax-based service be of any use to me? As far as I'm concerned the idea of imposing an "ISP tax" to fund the private music industry is horrible, not merely because I won't use it. It's one thing to fund public roads and hospitals with taxes, but quite another to line the already-golden pockets of the media industry with a tax.
If they want this kind of service to exist then they should set up some kind of low-cost subscription-based service that will provide music. Make a deal with ISPs to bundle it for a reasonable cost, and see if people sign up. It might even become a selling point for the ISP's service. Unfortunately, many such services have discovered that there is a wide gulf between what people are willing to pay and what the media companies wish to charge.
Here's my offer: I pay nothing, and I take nothing from you. Take that option away from me by imposing a "media tax" on top of what my ISP charges and you can kiss goodby all the substantial profits you already earn from the CDs and DVDs I currently buy, because I will not pay for the same thing twice.
No civilized society, he adds, can endure 'purely voluntary payment for art'
So charge for concert tickets, t-shirts, trinkets, datastream subscriptions, and so forth.
You only need a licence if you require some of the rights the copyright holder has (beyond fair use).
You buy a CD, you don't "licence" it, you own the copy. You buy a book, you don't "license" it, you own the copy. We don't need the copyright holders permission to read, play etc the copy. Fair use doctrine says we can even make copies for our own personal use.
So which of the copyright holder's rights do we get by "blanket licensing?" If it's just to download, it's more a blanket subscription, and I thought the current RIAA mantra was that distributing (via p2p) was the core violation of their copyright, not downloading. If we got licenses to put them on p2p... that would be different.
"No civilized society, he adds, can endure 'purely voluntary payment for art, knowledge, and culture. [...] Griffin's most intriguing idea, and one he's been pitching for some time now, is a voluntary, blanket music license;"
Wait. Voluntary payments don't work, so here's a voluntary payment scheme?
If you globally replace "society" with "recording industry" in the article, then statements like
become correct.
I guess I missed the part where society is critically dependent on the recording industry.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
The idea advocates a
(X) technical ( ) legislative (X) market-based ( ) vigilante
approach to fighting piracy. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)
(X) iTunes and other legitimate uses would be affected
( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
(X) It requires maintaining a subscription to it forever
(X) Users of music will not put up with the necessary DRM
(X) Apple will not put up with it
( ) The police will not put up with it
(X) Requires too much cooperation from ISPs
(X) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
(X) Many lawyers can't afford to lose business
( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
(X) Lack of centrally controlling authority for music
(X) Asshats
(X) Jurisdictional problems
(X) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
(X) Huge existing software investment in MP3
(X) Susceptibility of DRM schemes to attack
(X) Willingness of users to use only "Approved" players
(X) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
(X) Eternal arms race involved in all DRM approaches
( ) Extreme profitability of piracy
( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
(X) Dishonesty on the part of RIAA themselves
( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
(X) ISP filtering of P2P traffic
(X) People hate paying over-and-over for the same thing
(X) Non-participating copyright holders suing anyway
(X) How to allocate the revenues to the acutal artists
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
(X) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever
been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) Media formats should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
(X) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
(X) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
( ) All music should be free
(X) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
(X) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
(X) Temporary/one-time licenses are cumbersome
( ) I don't want the government reading my music preferences
( ) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
(X) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your
house down!
Anything digital is subject to piracy. Why does music get some sort of compulsory license deal? What about Movies, Games? What about lesser known/less publicized piracy, such as books, or 3D Models, comics, and so on?
If I'm out there grinding to produce, for example, a 3D Model of a chair that you can import into 3dsMax and I sell it online, why do musicians get compulsory licensing for music, but I can't get the same for my 3D Chair?
For that matter, if I'm providing a website, and a bunch of people are viewing my content while running the AdBlock plugin, shouldn't I be able to get a compulsory license fee from the ISP for their users viewing my content?
It's fairly absurd. It's not that I don't sympathize with artists getting paid. I'm involved in a digital content business, and piracy is hurting us. I know artists, struggling to make enough to do their art full time. And I know there are people out there who opt to steal the digital stuff because they *can't* go steal a coffee. And while the digital copies are "free", and it's easy to say, "They wouldn't buy it anyhow", that's not true. Some wouldn't, but some would pay if that *had* to, they just won't if they don't. And that's what this is all about.
But in the end, the RIAA and the Music industry have proven themselves broken; they're willing to bury services like Pandora rather than utilize them.
Statistical sampling allocates the funds. (They don't mention it, but I'm sure "after an enormous cut for the licensing agency" is a given.)
Definition of "SCHEME" : a plan or program of action; especially : a crafty or secret one.
The *IAA is always trying to squeeze another penny, most of the time using some scheme to do it. This is just another example.
I would like to think "ignore them and they'll go away", but I don't think we'll get that lucky any time soon. But the article does point out one interesting thing... even the *IAA folks know that their days as media-overlords are coming to an end. If they can just squeeze out one more scheme in their dying breath...
You discover that music causes cancer.
The only time you see these labels try to do it like the customer wants is when they are in a nine line bind. Other than that it is screw you. You can't get a refund on something you don't like of theirs.
SoundExchange has shown just how successful the model of sampling and paying artists are; that's why they say they can't find so many thousands of artists to pay them. They conveniently don't mention that any money not paid they get to keep.
The majors don't want to pay the artists for digital downloads, often making it the exception to royalty payments. This appears to be another method to collect the money for free, make you think you're getting some sort of bargain, screw the artist over, and claim it's all for the best; sort of like it's been going on in the past.
Traveling troupe shows during the middle ages worked well, long before the recording industry came on the scene. It will work just as well today without them. They are nothing but a vampire business riding on the backs of the artists and sucking the financial life of out any that deal with them.
Better to let the whole house of cards fall in, so that we can hope something else a good bit more fair to the artists might rise from the ashes.
Every one of them is likely to include DRM. It's the only way I can see to get around many of the questions involved but it's going to leave some consumers high and dry for a lengthy period until some bugs can be worked out...
If they're paying artists on a per-play basis this is a good way to shed the deadwood. But that means tracking plays. And that means having players that can track plays. So if they introduce this service, much like an ala carte iTunes, and they support iPod, Zune and a couple of other large players would this mean that people driving their 1992 Cavalier are going to have a tough time playing without either a replacement for the car stereos head?
Will it support multiple platforms? What about people without PCs?
If this is run like Rhapsody will I be given the option to still buy an album with an unlimited plays/time of play? Will that be DRM free?
20 bucks a month for open music listening is a drop in the bucket compared to what I paid for my personal collection. And the DRM wouldn't cause me too many problems in most likeliness. But that's only my situation.
Either way, I'm glad to see that it's a dialog at this point. There is a ton of possibilities and the fact that labels still put out new material means that there is still some value there. To snub the labels making in-roads to a new model seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face, IMHO.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Blanket licensing is nothing more than Yet Another Blank Tape Tax.
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_Home_Recording_Act
How is this any different than any of the PlaysForSure unlimited download, rental services, other than being potentially regulated by the government (that'll fix it!)?
These services have failed individually repeatedly, but now because we give it a new name I'm supposed to want to rent my music from my ISP instead of Napster, et al.?
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
I might not actually mind signing up for this. Seems easier than worrying about getting swept up in another RIAA lawsuit one day for something I may or may not have done or owned. If this would legitimize my mp3 collection completely, I'd be all for it :) Call me lazy or a lapdog, but I'll happily pay a reasonable amount monthly to not ever have to worry about a lawsuit because I like music.
nt
. . . it has to be. You heard it here long ago. As well as from about fifty other sources. Blanket licensing is the only logical solution.
(Why, yes. I am a Vulcan. Why do you ask?)
The word is "racket."
Tweet, tweet.
In an Alternate Reality(Score:4, Interesting)
by Hangtime (19526) on Friday December 12, @01:21PM (#7702447)
(http://slashdot.org/)
(AP) Paris - 12/12/2003 10:53 AM
Vivendi Universal today was among the host of media companies with record company subsidiaries reporting record profits for the third quarter. Jean-Marie Messier, CEO of Vivendi, attributed the stellar quarter to the company's partnership with the Napster Inc. Napster, a software program used to share and download music, started out as a way to pirate music, but turned legitimate in December 2000 with a broad licensing agreement between each of the five major record labels. Since that time, Napster has made agreements with 6 of the 7 largest US ISPs and OEM deals with computer manufactuers Hewlett Packard and Dell Computer to either install or give users the right to download music from the network. In the case of AOL and Earthlink subscribers, each customer pays an additional $10 a month to share and download from the network. In addition, deals with most of the top indie record labels have followed since 2000 giving Napster users the right to share and download those record label files from the Napster network.
"While we ceratinly were anxious at the beginning of the Napster "experiment", it has truly taken off. It is our hope that even more users will join the network, we are already seeing wonderful penetration in Europe." This past spring, Napster opened its gates to European users in one of the biggest product launches in history. "The network almost doubled the day we opened up to Europe. We are now seeing concurrent usage approaching over 500,000 users with nearly 100 Terabytes of files being shared on the network." explained chief technology officer Shawn Fanning. "With our improved distribution system, we hope to push on into Asia sometime in the 2nd quarter of 2004 once we reach deals with many of the labels there."
The success of the music industry stands in dark contrast to the rest of the economy which grew at an annualized rate of 1.2% this quarter while revenue among the five largest record labels was up 11% from last year. When questioned about Napster Messier replied "Napster has truly been an innovative product and has rewarded Vivendi shareholders and most other media company shareholders immensely."
Since kids listen to music anyways. We can just take 20% of the education budget and give it to the four biggest recording companies.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
...to know that I won't be participating in this.
I like the idea of a 'blanket' license, kinda like an all-you-can-eat plan. But it won't satisfy me on one important count: Duration. I like having an essentially perpetual license to the music I purchase. I have scads of CDs, and they are, so far as I can tell, perpetually mine to listen to.
A subscription via my ISP doesn't do much for me at all, since changing ISPs could leave me with a whole new 'library' of licensed music. What if I want something my 'old' ISP had but my 'new' ISP doesn't?
What if I want to take my music to the gym? Can I copy it to my player? Why does it matter what sort of player it is? I can rip CDs to my player just fine now.
Not interested. I can see where the RIAA would be interested, though. Geting paid for nothing is nice work if you can get it, and getting paid for the unpopular as well as the popular is their bread and butter.
Keep at it, gangsters. You'll get it right, right after we ditch your product completely.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
"No civilized society, he adds, can endure 'purely voluntary payment for art, knowledge, and culture.'"
Flawed logic: he's implicitly arguing that artists make art for money.
Even were I to cut him some slack and read it as "artists need money so that they can quit their more economical endeavors and employment and solely pursue creation," I'd also point out how inherently flawed that argument is.
Long story short, this article is a waste of time.
Well, how's it going where the support really needs to be? For instance, where do the Harry Fox agency and ASCAP stand on the proposition?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
I end up paying Blank Media Levies and the only thing I burn to CD/DVD's are family photos and Linux Distros.
Hear! Hear! What we need is some sort of direct download, or install from USB system instead of having to burn a CD every time we want to install Linux. After all, why should Celine Dion get any money from me just because I want to upgrade my operating system?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Blah blah blah Warner consultant blah blah blah mandatory payments to Warner blah blah society cannot otherwise survive blah blah blah here's my invoice.
If record corps just used free distribution of music to promote the live concerts, T-shirts and other physical transactions they can actually control, and licensed hits to cross-promote other merchandise like in commercials, they'd have an excellent business model. Without the arbitrary overhead and guaranteed profits (despite terrible business work, and mostly terrible "art").
Just admit that the record contract and sales model was a ripoff from the start that could last only a century, and harness the power of fans directly promoting the products they can sell. And stop insulting us with claims that "what's good for Warner is good for America".
--
make install -not war
he adds, can endure 'purely voluntary payment for art, knowledge, and culture.'
And he has peer-reviewed proof of this, of course.
If Warner wanted to offer blanket Warner-music licenses, they could start offering it right now. They don't need to persuade anyone but their customers.
Griffin wants more. He wants ISPs to be part of it. He wants them to collect the money on his behalf, and it's not hard to guess who would have to implement the dubious "statistical sampling techniques."
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Has Maury Markowitz shown up to tell us how bad we are for wanting to steal music and about how artists will starve without the RIAA?
Here's a link to Courtney Love's rant that i posted yesterday in the Electra v Barker thread:
http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love/index.html
One bit worth noting is that of the 30,000 albums released in a year, only about 30 go platinum (1 million?). To me that suggests that there are many talented artists who just haven't been blessed by the powers that be. Some of those 30 platinum albums might have utterly flopped without massive marketing campaigns.
In other news, Jared Leto's band sold 2 million copies of its album and received nothing for it:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7569924.stm
i can't vouch for it being literally nothing, but 2M sales should net them something.
As i said yesterday, data (and anything that can be converted to data) is worthless. Finite Demand/Virtually Infinite Supply = $0.00 Value. Sell something that is finite, like t-shirts and tickets to shows.
While we're at it, stop forcing artists to make albums. Release a few singles with B-sides (another obsolete idea, but that's what we call them), then once in while bundle them and call it an album. There is no reason to require a band to record 3 singles and 8 tracks of crap no one wants to hear. If the artists wants to do some kind of conceptual album like Santana's Supernatural of Floyd's "The Wall", so be it. But there is no *real* need to record an hour of music when all you have is 3 singles. Abandoning the album requirement will take pressure off the artists. Release something when it is ready. Think of all the studio time wasted on one hit wonders. For the listener, it means buying only what you want instead of the other stuff. Win/Win!
This is one area of life where letting the market decide might be the right thing to do. Get the RIAA out of the picture. Let artists retain the copyright of their own work (novel idea, huh?). Treat the cost of recording as part of the advertising budget. Let file sharing be your marketing campaign. Let servers be your warehouse. If you're worth a shit, your next show will be sold out and angsty teens will be buying your shirt at hot topic.
btw: piracy is armed robbery on a boat. Pirates often killed people. Napster and Torrent haven't, AFAIK. Well, aside from Kid Rock:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28467
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
What about people who do not listen to music, don't download it, don't buy it, ever?
Are they going to have to pay this tax to the ISPs as well? If yes, can't they do something about it, like a lawsuit?
You can't handle the truth.
Morals are relative.
And lets say this thing flies, What about those of us that don't listen to RIAA backed music? What happens to the non cartel tied bands and labels?
This sounds like just another way to cut indie groups/labels out of the business, and stick it to us non-customers to me.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Dudes you will never see my money... ever. You have used up you goodwill 5 years ago.
That just how college students make grilled cheese, when they don't have skillet and hot plate handy...
Not like they ever use those iron things on their clothes anyway.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
I really like this idea, I don't like going to concerts but I like the idea of YOU paying for MY music buy purchasing concert tickets, THANKS!!!
Instead why don't they just get corporate sponsers and "sell-out to the man" by doing endorsements (imagine Marilyn Manson pitching Downy fabric softener). With corporate America funding the recording/distribution/promotion there wouldnt be any need for a record company, oh wait corporations would become the record company.
Ultimately, expenses are required to produce and promote any music otherwise no one will ever hear it and the artists certainly wont be able to make a sustainable living as musicians. Someone has to pay for that, and in the end it is hte consumer of those goods, in this case listeners.
... at Magnatune with their membership plans.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
If it's opt-in.
If it isn't I'm flatly against because it is a new tax, and an unjustifiable one. ;)
Even if most music is rubbish. If all companies agreed to it and we received decent versions (ie preferably something like a 256 bit rate mp3 or better) and you can opt in and out of it then yeah why not?
If the system is fair then those who have more of their music listened to would receive more money which sorts out shit artists but unfortunately also under appreciated artists.
This would've had potential potential (ie some potential, not a typo) 10 years ago when Napster was just starting to growl.
In the present, why? Short of a legal mandate, there's little motivation for the ISP or device mfgr to raise prices, in order to cover something that their users already effectively have complete free access to.
Great idea but, unfortunately, little feasibility in today's market
First of all, it's blanket schemes like this which have allowed the existence and/or assured the continuation of the various music mafia groups -- RIAA (particularly in its SoundSource guise), ASCAP, and BMI to name three.
Second, these blanket schemes often seem to somehow get manipulated to benefit not those who are better, or even more popular, but those who are best connected
Third, where they do benefit those who are more popular, they do not do so proportionally; the superstar gets an even greater portion of the spoils than his superstardom should indicate, and the little guy gets not the little bit he should but nothing at all.
Fourth, they ain't called the music mafia for nothing -- they're known for their shakedown tactics. With this, in addition to shaking down small restaurant owners with the temerity to host a band, or anyone with an IP address, they'll shake down ISPs as well.
And finally, why the hell should I, as a person who does not listen to music, pay for you music-addicted freaks who can't put your iPod (oh, excuse me, Ogg Vorbis compatible music player) down for 10 seconds without withdrawal pains? You want music, pay for it yourself; you've got no legitimate claim on my money.
If you're using a BT line, they aren't seeing the ads on your page anyway: they would see Phorm's ads.
Chase them for it. ;-)
...then only artists would get money for music!
That would utter KILL the music copyright industry.
It's hard to know if the music copyright industry actually serves the interests of the artists. It is unquestionably true that the massive marketing muscle of the music copyright industry makes marketed artists "famous." And it unquestionably valuable to the artists. But where the problem begins is where the artists compensate the marketers by assigning [exclusive] copyrights to their music. Marketers have a right to be paid, but I have to disagree with their right to sue without the approval of the artists.
To that end, I don't believe copyrights, and especially the rights to sue for violation or infringement of copyrights, should not be transferable. If this were to happen, I believe sanity could be restored to the whole problem of the industrialized copyright where a copyright can extend to 99 years after the death of the artist ostensibly to take care of the families of the artists which we know is utter crap since it is not the 'families' but the copyright industrialists who are collecting the royalties on copyrighted material. So while the duration of copyright is still tied to the status of the creator, it is still all about the copyright holder, more specifically, the copyright industrialists who aren't creating anything at all. This goes well beyond the intent of copyrights which, as far as I understand it to be, intended to allow an author to benefit from his works exclusively for a limited time. Instead these extensions of copyright are serving and is in fact the basis of the copyright industry.
And while many artists dream of becoming the next "big thing" I would argue that they don't deserve it. The best art has always been for the sake of good art and should always be for that reason. There's nothing wrong with being the next "big thing" if it happens to go that way and your work merits such recognition on its own. But the damage caused by the marketing muscle of the copyright industrialists has also caused the truly deserving to be ignored by thrusting the likes of B.Spears or whatever the current bubble-gum-pop-artist-of-the-day may be. So now the copyright industrialists have succeeded in creating an environment owned by them and controlled by them, and the price of admission into their world is that they must own everything you create... your life's blood. (Prince learned this all too well didn't he?)
So much of this whole issue could be cleared up by taking away the ability to transfer copyright and leaving it, and derivative works forever in the hands of the original creator. Would their still be a "music industry?" Yup! There certainly would. And would they find ways to keep abusing artists? Most likely. But when the right to sue is removed from the industry and placed squarely in the hands of the artists, I think we would see a different kind of industry emerge... and one that would be a lot more friendly to the fans. (Imagine how the public could turn on an artist the moment a lawsuit is filed against a fan... the fans would fall away and "fame" would become notoriety and disappear.)
Why is sanity so hard to achieve and so easy to lose?
Sean Kennedy's great sci-fi radio novella Tales From The Afternow follows your basic wanderer-traversing-the-post-apocalypse-wastelands story line. But it's not the apocalypse part of the story that makes your hair stand on end.
Before the apocalypse the major media conglomerates created a joint discount card. Use your discount card and you get 75% off retail. See a $10 movie for $2.50. Buy a $20 DVD for $5. MP3s, books, magazines, paintings, it applies to nearly all media.
Of course everyone signed up. Two years later the card becomes a legal requirement. Want to see a movie? Download music? Watch TV? Get a book from the library? You need your card, otherwise you're locked out. If you commit piracy, your license is revoked and you're cut off from all media.
In the totalitarian post-apocalypse world, the license is required for anything involving information, and any unregulated use of information is illegal. Private ownership of a microphone or a camera is illegal. Speaking English requires the license. "There used to be a time people could sing openly without being worried about licensing. There used to be a time when you'd be able to a read a book or tell a story. Of course the books are gone. And you can still lose your license by telling stories. Its dangerous business being creative."
Just sayin'.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
Companies like Warner really shouldnt be surprised that people place no monetary value on music when they themselves are pumping it out at such low quality/high quantity that the actual value of it is not far off a flat zero.
The present system financially rewards the moronic and supresses meaningful creativity through the demand on musicians to whore themselves. til that is fixed its pointless people standing around scratching their heads wondering why people arent paying for music.
Napster offered to become a PAID SERVICE and to share the majority of their profits with the labels. You history is (as we say) 180 degrees out of phase!
You all WANT this sort of thing? Tracking? Government (or worse an *IAA) following your every on line move and download.
May God have mercy on your heathen souls.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
True, there is a lot of public domain music out there. There is even an international project dedicated to finding public domain scores and publishing them on the web.
However, music tastes are very generational. I can take a public domain tune, write a modern arrangement, and copyright that. Or, I can take a public domain text and write a new tune, and copyright that. This happens all the time, and it's a good thing -- it keeps the great music alive from generation to generation.
But, anything rewritten or rearranged since 1920 involves a copyright search. And, since anything put into a "fixed form" is automatically under copyright protection, anything any musician creates also involves a search and permission. It's a TON of work.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
No civilized society, he adds, can endure 'purely voluntary payment for art, knowledge, and culture.'
When I go to the Symphony, and listen to "Pictures at an Exhibition", I'm voluntarily paying to listen to a piece that I probably have half a dozen copies of already.
Is the logic here that the symphony isn't culture, or that it's not art, or that it's not civilized?
...it is probably a camel's nose for a compulsory scheme wherein all Internet users would pay a "tax" to the RIAA.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
you PAY for stuff you like.
sadly no-one does.
meh.
While I understand the sentiment (as I once had it), I really have to ask: so what?
Consider the economics of the record industry vs. artists. The record industry owns production facilities for records, together with distribution and promotion networks for selling the content. These things are in extremely high demand: millions and millions of folks out there would like to contract with the record label to do this. Of these millions of folks, let's assume that 10% are actually good enough that others would be willing to pay for their music; let's also assume that this number exceeds the amount of music that the public is actually willing to buy (or even have time to listen to!). What follows is the following: the record label sells products and services for which the demand far outstrips the supply, while the artist sells something for which the supply far exceeds the demand. You can guess who loses.
So the problem with your sentiment that the artist should be the most highly paid part of the chain that lets you buy music is that you're asking us to exempt music from the laws of economics. For every John Fogerty that the labels do hire, there's a bunch of other folks that would have been just as good, but were never hired. This is why John Fogerty couldn't command a high price for his work: the label could have hired somebody else.
There's one major consequence here for artists: they should evaluate what services the record industry is providing them and at what cost, and rationally decide whether the cost is worth it; for example, whether they can do stuff cheaper on their own. Music is a business, and artists who wish financial success from music must treat it as such.
Are you adequate?
. . . as long they don't try to get the government involved in collecting money for them.
Wait those iron things are for clothes? I thought they were just something cheaper than a hot plate.
You're thinking small. Why miniaturize the laser, when we could instead enlarge the sharks? -John Searle
Someone violates any other law, and we talk about the details of the case. Here, we rebut the law with a strategic viewpoint on the society. Interesting change in tactics.
It bothers me greatly that a handful of men have now outlawed the singing of "Happy Birthday" in all public places. Thanks to YET ANOTHER FABULOUS FLAW by our Men in Black(TM) at the Supreme Court though, the Interstate Commerce law means that the Fed has the power to poke it's powerful and blind nose into even backyard garage sales. And that gives the RIAA seriously malicious power.
At the same time, artists need payment for their craft; they, too, need to eat.
I like the idea that Steely Dan choses. They actually PROVIDE their ancient tunes on the net, since they can't be had anyplace else. It helps to bring along fans looking for their roots. And they don't mind the bootlegging- they know that actual fans who *can* pay the price would rather get the good stuff, not the crappy copy of a bootlegged camera brought in under someone's hat.
The artists should get EVERY PENNY of concert profits. Physically performing the music is not only exhausting, it's costly, too. But let's not forget where this started: Elvis, Johnny Cash and a couple of other performers used to drive their own cars, before that, too, became a business. Now it takes a $1,000,000 bus, 'handlers' and all this other stuff.
Using the Steely Dan, pay-for-play and high-quality record sales idea, there's room for fans to share and 'tune in' their friends. There's money for the hard parts of moving from city to city. And no one has to go to jail because they whistled Happy Birthday at a Denny's. :)
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
He's clearly been looking at his counterparts in the U.K. TV industry for ideas. In plan language, it will lead to U.K. style mandatory taxes and fees.
For instance, if you own a TV set, they know it and require a license. And will fine you hideous sums if you don't cough up the fees. And they run around in vans that can detect if you have a radio or TV in your home.
Do we really want that for our music? I sure don't.
Radio and TV are slightly different, in that you don't get to choose what to listen to when (you can timeshift, but still there are other conditions that go with broadcast licenses that prevent whole albums being broadcast in one go or for the schedule to be known in advance down to details of what tracks will be played when). But allofmp3.com was shut down by the RIAA for using the exact business model that is being mooted here. Even though they eventually won their court case in Russia recognizing the legitimacy of the licensing body they were paying, they have not been able to reopen due to being blocked by all major credit card vendors, paypal and other sources of payment.
Personally, I think the seeds of a great idea are in here. Specifically:
A bunch of artists get together and start their own download service. For a monthly fee, you can download whatever you want from them, and do whatever you want with the music. After the costs of the service are downloaded, the contributing artists divide up the rest in direct proportion to how often their tracks are downloaded.
Throw in a rating system so that good music gets recommended and downloaded more, and good artists would be rewarded, and record labels can go on driving themselves into backruptcy with an outdated business model.
I understand that they say this is a voluntary thing, but I've seen this pitch before and there are some major problems with this.
First, as someone who works in an ISP NOC I know that it is not the duty of an ISP to collect fees for 3rd party companies. We give access to the internet, and although play a role as gatekeepers to the worlds information, we are in no way obligated to collect fee's or really try and control data flow such as throttling p2p traffic on pirated material.
Secondly, is that even though it says voluntary you know they want it for everyone. If record labels can tax you for piracy what about software companies, the movie industry, and anyone else who wants their piece of the pie? How long would it take before we're seeing 30++ dollars of taxes go to 3rd parties every month to cover their piracy problems.
My last thought on this is that these people are just desperate to try and keep bleeding their talent for everything they're worth. It seems to me that many newer artists are finding cheaper and better ways to produce and distribute their music without the need for getting owned by some suit at the RIAA. What we have here is another effort to keep their bad business model floating and it won't work unless someone starts "Lobbying" (read bribery) our government officials to enforce this.
We already pay money to the RIAA in the form of fees on all recordable media, from CD's to cassette tapes.
This is another money grab for RIAA. Dumbasses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy
"is a voluntary, blanket music license; essentially, bringing the collection society model to end users. In this model, consumers would pay royalties into a pot (by paying an extra monthly fee to their ISPs, for instance) and would then have access to all the music from all the labels that participate in the scheme."
-----Yeah. I'll bet those monthly fees will rise faster than cable and telephone fees combined. One the fees is agreed on, the ISPs and labels can raise it at will, and customers will take yet another kick in the nuts.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
Ogg went around discussing ways to contain meat.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Unit pricing does not support small scale.
Songs are merely advertising for bands/artists- set them free!
And send money directly to the artists you want to support- in tens and twenties- because they are worth it!
Steam Powered Studio
There is nothing new under the sun. This proposal (I only RTFSummary, of course) sounds just like the surcharge that is applied to blank media (blank cassettes or "Music" CD-Rs), just expanding it to get it to apply to more digitial media.
Why, oh why, didn't I take the Blue Pill?
In a way Canada already does this.
For some time now Canadians have been paying a fee on every ipod, on every piece of digital media (CDR's and DVD-R's etc...) due to the supposed copying of music. These fees were then supposed to go to the Canadian version of the RIAA, which would then in turn disperse the monies to the artists.
That is my understanding anyway. I wonder how that is working? I wonder if a single cent has ever made it to the artists themselves, or if this has just been basically filling the lobbyist's war chest for lawsuits and paying off political officials.
By my tone you can probably guess how I think it will turn out.
I am not sure these blanket schemes are the way to go. Perhaps if the wording was stronger and the enforcement more profound, then perhaps.
Houston's public funding for the arts is negligible. The Symphony wouldn't be in business if it depended on public funding, particularly after the recent floods, and many arts institutions in Houston are entirely privately funded.
But really, I kind of set a trap here. Oh, it was accidental: I mentioned the Symphony because that's the kind of event I go to, and I'll happily admit that I'm an outlier in that respect. Because this is not really about "public funding" versus "private funding". It's about "performances" versus "recordings": you can't "pirate" a performance, just a recording of it. On top of that, most of the arts and culture (including pretty much all of the arts and culture that the RIAA members are involved in and that Griffin is talking about) is not "fine art", it's popular art... and performances by popular artists are not only privately funded, they're also profitable.
If the profits from recorded music dropped to zero, many artists would see little if any difference in their income, and some would likely see an increase as the quantity of new recorded music dropped, and attendance at shows increased.
If you can't comfortably profit with a seven year monopoly, then you aren't trying.
How does music and audiences benefit from giving artists and their friends a free ride?
we already have this in Canada. It's called the cd-r media Levy tax and we take advantage of already being profiles as "thieves".
Thanks to technology an artist today has all the tools they need to get their music out there.
Back in the day before fast PCs and inexpensive, hifi audio gear you had to go to a studio to get a good recording, then you had to pay someone to mix and master all your songs for outrageous fees (no one really understood the process except the pros so they could gouge artists). And of course they were in bed with the labels who were loaning artists the money they needed to record an album anyway, so it just seemed like "the way it was done".
Of course once we wised up and realized it was fueled by greed like any business that lacks oversight smaller bands and groups of artists would rent professional equipment and learn how to use it. Fast-forward to now and for about $1000 you can get a quad-core PC and all the audio gear and mics you need to record professional sounding music. You just need to put in the time (of course you still have the option to pay someone) to mix and master, but nowadays the price for these services is not so ridiculous and the software has improved enough to make it simpler to learn.
Last step nowadays you have many ways to get your music heard through the internet, youtube, myspace, etc you have cdbaby and whatnot. You are not a slave to the label anymore and that's why many up-and-coming bands are saying f the labels we'll do it ourselves.
And people that really like music and don't want to pay for derivative crap are seeking out unsigned bands and giving them a listen. And if they like the music they are much more inclined to pay $6-10 for a CD or music download that they know 80% of will go to the actual artist.
F the labels. If you continued to deliver a useful service and did not get greedy you would not be so totally screwed now. You are living on borrowed time. F the labels.
We basically have this system in my country, the Netherlands. There is a small fee on every blank CD you purchase here, which is meant to cover royalties for music (whether the CD is used or not to burn music on it...). Our country is one of the few where downloading music files is illegal (it is to upload music files though).
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem delendam esse