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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."
I'll allow it only if I can sign up as an indie artists and get some of the money, too.
(read: this is ludicrous and will never happen)
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
Ya see...ya just pay us a little somethin' each week and nothin' bad'll happen to ya. It's extortion and I imagine lots of universities will sign up in hopes they won't get sued. And they won't, as long as they pay the yearly protection money. The worst part is that even after the music business finally goes out of business from their horrific management, these protection scams will remain viable assets for legal firms to purchase and manage.
I hate these people. They're already getting a chunk of change from blank disc sales, and now they want Universities to hand over millions of dollars with the (ahem) "promise" that it will be fairly distributed. And it will ... amongst various record company executives and their cronies. Oh, and we probably won't sue you, either. But no guarantees.
We need to stop taking them at their word when they say their going to give money to artists. They generally don't (unless the artist had a good lawyer, I suppose.) Actually, we need to stop taking them at their word.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Now that the cost of higher education is falling and endowments are growing, universities will have lots of money to spend on music taxes!
Alternatively, they could just give every student a free copy of PeerGuardian.
What they are afraid of is the growing momentum against the RIAA at the university administration level. This is a weak and desperate attempt, a grasping at far away sticks by an arm who's body is quickly sinking below the quick sand surface.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
What happens when you graduate and later get busted p2p'ing and then they find your stash from the college days?
You and your fellow record labels are dying dinosaurs. Someday, people will dig up your bones and declare that you used to rule the world. And then it all came to a sudden, catastrophic end. All caused by a comet called the Internet.
Goodbye, so long, and thanks for all the fish.
M.
"That's a nice university you have there -- shame if anything were to happen to it..."
The Italians have a word for it -- Pizzo -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizzo_(extortion)
Ian Ameline
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.
As a career college student, I've seen many new fees introduced over the years that simply weren't there before. The curriculum hasn't changed enough to warrant the fees. If the price is right, I bet lots of universities would be more than happy to pass the fee along to students with a nice helping of obfuscation.
Umm, so the record industry doesn't actually make it legal for the students to share the music, they just require their cut and they promise not to sue.
I hope someone more qualified than myself takes this up because they are trying to extort money from the universities in what appears to me to be a very literal definition of the term.
Seriously...why don't they just sell music online for *reasonable* prices, and screwing around with licenses/DRM. Standard copyright issues would apply (i.e., if you want to make money off someone else's work, you need to cut a deal with the copyright owner), but otherwise, just make it really easy and cheap to buy music.
If they could just do that, I'd actually be buying music - right now I only bother with stuff I can download (legally) for free. Buying mainstream music online these days is generally expensive and/or involves too much hassle/DRM - and the music isn't convincing enough for me to go through all that. I guess I'm just too poor and lazy.
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.
I have to say this sounds a lot to me like a person who is very frugal going out to dinner with a bunch of other people who order extravagant food options and then having someone want to split the bill at the end.
I mostly don't listen to music. $2 to $10 per month is $25-$125/yr or $100-$500 over the course of a four year college. That's about $90 to $490 more than I would have paid if buying a la carte every piece of music I wanted to buy. That's money I could have spent on things that matter to me.
Will you be as excited about anteing up $2 to $10 per month to cover some routine cost that I pay for and that bores you to tears, just to bring my price down?
To employ a musical reference, does the phrase "tyrrany of the majority" ring any bells?
Tell me why it isn't just fair that people should pay for what they use?
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer
Why on God's green Earth would you want to be complicit with this nonsense that's going to create more work for you with no additional pay? Why on Earth would any university condone the use of university personnel, facilities, etc. to do the work of someone else for free? This is extortion and racketeering, almost by definition folks. The RIAA can blow it out their ear. I'd rather they tried to sue and then get hit for malicious and wrongful prosecution than deal with this utterly ridiculous racket.
I'm sorry, I'm someone who loves music, makes music, and last year recorded an independent album that the RIAA can suck on for all I care. We don't need them nor the crappy music they push at us on a daily basis, nor the ridiculous racket of enforcement they are trying to dupe us into believing is their right. It's not and if you believe it is you better educate yourself before you get on the wrong side of a very messy battle that's just beginning to start. I believe in the rights of artists as individuals, not in the rights of unions, guilds, corporations or other corrupt bureaucracies that have only their own self interests in mind.
Don't be that guy/girl! Tell them to shove it and see them in court! The whole point of being "independent" is you are not at the mercy of the RIAA nor any label. You don't need them! WAKE UP!
I work at UMass Amherst and I'm trying to get this implemented
Why exactly are you trying to get this implemented? Somebody told you it was good? Got a phone call from the mafia? Clueless? It will look good on your resume?
Your post is modded informative, but there is nothing informative about it except that you're trying to get it implemented. I don't know what position you hold at UMAss, but this kind of blind following is exactly what the RIAA hopes. Do they not teach critical thinking at UMass anymore? Are you tenured or a guy/girl with an administrative job. If you are a guy/girl with an administrative job then I really think you should do some research and gain an informed opinion. If you're a tenured prof/scientist/researcher or whatever, then you should know better.
I am only asking because I'd really like to know what motivates you trying to comply with the RIAA extortion.
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.
Is this what you meant to say?