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Warner Music Pushing Music Tax For Universities
An anonymous reader writes "Warner Music is pitching the idea of a 'music tax' for various top universities. The idea is that students would be free to file share, but the university needs to monitor and track everything, create a pool of money, hand it over to a recording industry entity that promises to distribute the proceeds fairly. In exchange, the university gets a 'covenant not to sue' from the music labels. It's not a full license, just a basic promise that they won't sue. It's also claimed that this is 'voluntary' but the Warner Music guy says that they need to include all universities and all ISPs to really make it work. It's basically a music tax, where the recording industry gets to sit back and collect money."
What happens when you graduate and later get busted p2p'ing and then they find your stash from the college days?
I'm one of the minority on Slashdot who actually thinks that file sharers who trade in thousands of dollars of goods deserve to be charged (criminally) as thieves, and even I have to say "fuck you" on this. If they do this, I'll have no problem ripping every DVD and CD that was made by Warner and giving copies to every friend and family member that wants them.
Tax me and spy on me to preserve your business model? That's going way too far and enough to make me say it's time to let slip the dogs of war on them.
The last time somebody did a full-scale audit on one of the record companies, they found that they'd underpaid royalties to over 90% of the artists under contract to them. The idea that this pack of thieves could be trusted within a hundred miles of anybody's money is ludicrous.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Perhaps. The argument is that the average American spends something like $50/yr on copies of movies/music so if we funded that indirectly through taxes then downloads would be legal. (I'm not an American, I'm a New Zealander, but I believe that's what they say).
Richard Stallman advocates for a similar thing, a music tax on ISP connections or blank media. Like a radio station that pays an annual fee and and just reports back what they played so that the artists who were broadcasted get their cut.
The problem of course is that these music companies are the middlemen (they're not the artists themselves) and yet they want the majority of the money. In most cases these music companies expect artists to turn up with premastered CDs, so basically these companies are just advertisers and distribution channels. The internet can do some of that.
Any agreement that goes via these middlemen will probably mean that artists will continue to get the same bum deal except now it's institutionalized. And you just know that the amount will increase every year. And what if the university wants to leave the agreement after 5 years... now what? they get sued because they don't have legal safe harbour? Fuck that. These universities are just conduits or common carriers for what the students do. They can't monitor every bit of traffic. If they sign up to this Warner scheme they're taking responsibility for piracy and that threat will never end. I don't see why the university needs to do this as a whole... why not optionally, per-student?
More to the point, Madonna showed that the big money is in touring (she ditched her record label and went with a touring company, and the touring company now release her CD). Madonna doesn't like piracy (presumably) but for her the CD is a promotional tool for the concerts so piracy can actually work for her. Until these music companies turn into touring companies (which is where they should be going) they'll continue to try and force their outdated business model on the world.
So while I'm generally in support for an artistic tax (of perhaps $50/yr on an internet connection) this is more like a ongoing threat. This Warner scheme seems to be quite different.
I would hope that the EFF and Public Knowledge would support a scheme that gives artists a fair share, not one that propagates this music industry.
[*] there are some musicians who don't tour, sure, but for the majority it's where they currently earn their money.
And what about people like me who don't listen to music? Why the hell should I (indirectly through the university) pay their stupid "tax" (it's not a tax... I don't think anyone but governments can create a tax)?
You must have been living under a rock for half a decade to think that there is only commercial music.
I listen to music all day long ... and every single album is Creative Commons licensed, either from Jamendo (14,000 albums) or from Archive.org (300,000 recordings), so I will never exhaust those catalogues in my lifetime. What's more, the albums are vastly better and more diverse than the charts crap.
And your comparison with public services is irrelevant. Music is not a public service, it's entertainment, so my subsidizing someone else's choice of commercial entertainment is completely without basis.