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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."
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.
What about me? I don't want to pay any sort of music tax. I spend maybe 20 hrs per year choosing to listen to music of my own volition and all of that is from music I purchased in CD format ~10+ years ago. I don't download music and I don't listen to music radio, why would I want to subsidize those who do?
-Billy
(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
They seem to be careful to emphasize that they see this as voluntary -- a service you sign up for alongside your regular internet service. It's not so much a "tax" as another commenter responded (which applies equally and involuntarily to everyone regardless of interest or opposition), it's a "license" (which applies, in advance, to anyone who indicates they will or might want to participate in an activity like hunting or fishing, regardless of whether they actually do).
This suggests that they will make it very easy and attractive to sign up in the first place, but then make it tedious and difficult to make use of it, and very hard to get out of a contract once agreed to. Moreover, they will use the participation of some people as a weapon against others in their lawsuits -- they will claim not only infringement damages per-song, but also claim that they are undermining their pay service. Damages claimed will surely skyrocket.
Mozart died in poverty and had his body dumped in a pauper's grave, John Fogerty wrote the anthems of a generation and later worked as a DJ while other reaped benefit of his songs. The list of artists who created art that made millions FOR SOMEONE ELSE is legion.
Whatever license scheme is devised has only one purpose and the artist will not gain a cent from, it. PERIOD. Its all about money, its all about stealing it is all about business and not about art.
I personally hold all rights on one song. only one. It isn't something that will stand the centuries like Bach but it is my very own. I decided to put it up on my web site to give it away. That right does not exists for Fogerty, Little Richard, and many others. Fortunately I did not get famous so I could buy back my song, and did.
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
Amusingly, the same arguments used to keep your health care system privatized will be used to keep music downloading illegal. The ironing is delicious.
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
I think it's going to go the same route as wedding photography. In the old days, the photographer would shoot your wedding for a small fee or even free, but you had to pay like $20-$100 per print for the pictures. When scanners and color printers became widespread, people just started to make their own prints from the proof sheets. For a while the photographers tried to do things like print "SAMPLE" over the proofs. But now most of them have switched business models. They give you the prints (or a CD) at cost or even for free. But they charge you a substantial fee for shooting the wedding.
If you think about it, it makes a lot more sense than the old way. The cost to the photographer is not the prints, it's the time, effort, and equipment used at the wedding and in post-processing. Once those costs are paid, they can run off as many prints as they want for almost no cost. So all that's happened is that the cost for the customer is now more closely aligned with the cost for the photographer. I can see the same thing happening with music, where most of the artists' revenue comes from live and commissioned performances. The music itself would be distributed at minimal cost or even for free as advertising for the performances.
"It's described as voluntary. As in, you can pay X to the companies which join the scheme, and then get carte blanche to download music. Or you can just not bother, and continue to buy music from the specific artists you prefer. If it was mandatory, then it'd be pretty dubious."
Riiight. My guess is that it will be "voluntary" like expanded basic cable is "voluntary" - you don't *have* to buy it, but it is almost impossible to get basic cable at the super low rates. It's not listed on the web site, the CSR's don't know about it, and you must go up the chain to get it.
So expect the ISP's to tout "Now includes unlimited music downloads!", and then 3 months later your bill goes up 5 bucks. 99% of the folks will just view it as a bump in cable rates and go on with life. Few will know that you can call up the cable company and go back to the original rate - the CSR's won't know what you are talking about, and it won't be on the website. You didn't throw away that insert that comes with the bill, did you?
Alternately, it will be "voluntary" for ISP's to subscribe to it, but the end user doesn't get a choice. Don't like it? Get another ISP. And ALL the ISP's will subscribe to it.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
you have this backwards, like copyright (copywrong) pundits you don't understand why people go to cinemas. People don't go to cinemas to see a movie alone, however they will watch a movie at home on their own, the reason for going to a cinema is for social events, with friends and colleges or (shock horror) to take a girl on a date. I don't really know many people who will go to a cinema on their own, even for a movie they want to see.
Problems with cinema's are three fold,
1. overpricing, this is because cinemas are charged so much by license holders that ticket sales alone barely cover the cost of operation. Charges for cinemas are so high the copyright holders can make back the cost of production and distribution in just a matter of weeks at worst (the biggest movies can make back the cost of production in single weekend) but yet maintain a 70+ year copyright control over it.
2. Cleanliness, I don't like going to cinema's even with friends or a date because they are dirty, smelly and the staff are just unfriendly. I didn't realise just how bad Australian cinemas were until I went to one in Thailand, ticket was 160 Baht or AU$5 (back to point 1, the copyright holders cant gouge the Thai's like they can with the Aussies) snacks were only 99B or AU$3.30, the lobby and cinema were well maintained and kept clean and staff were friendly (granted this was in the tourist area of Phuket where Farang (white foreigners) make up a significant portion of their business), whilst I could have gotten the same movie off a street vendor for 50B (less than AU$2) it just wasn't the same when taking a girl to see a movie. The movie in question was Indiana Jones 4 so at AU$2 I still would have felt ripped off which leads me into point number 3
3. Quality of movies. Most of the films I've seen recently haven't been worth spending the bandwidth on to download (Indi 4, Clone Wars, Anything with Will Ferrell in it) let alone an A$16 ticket let alone sitting though 1/2 an hour of ads and obnoxious copyright warnings. This is the biggest reason that cinema sales are down in AU, above cost and cleanliness is the fact that movies aren't worth seeing and we get better entertainment out of seeing local musicians and comedians perform in clubs and pubs or going to an actual theatre (plays, with actors from a theatrical society that is grateful for your patronage and doesnt treat you like a criminal).
I'd happily pay an entertainment tax so long as an "Industry Association" doest control it, part of my tax already supports the arts with includes the ABC(Australian Broadcasting Corporation, advertisement free public broadcaster that produces local content and broadcasts many BBC shows) and the AFI (Australian Film Industry) which pays for Aussie films to be produced and distributed (like The Castle, The Dish and Kokoda). Hell I'd pay the MGM and the other movie studios directly (not the RIAA or any RIAA like organisation) if it gave me unlimited access to the movies and shows I want to watch, when I want to watch them, ad free (I'm paying) and DRM free. But the "Industry" doesn't want to do this because they've had a good scam going, being able to set prices and no competition, but the average people have a vested interest in seeing this gravy train end. I can say that I've paid to see more live acts (mostly amateur comedy) in the last 3 months than I've downloaded movies.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.