Slashdot Mirror
Why a Music Tax Is a Bad Idea
An anonymous reader writes with a followup to the story posted last week about Warner Music's plan for a music tax for universities. "There's been some debate about this plan and Techdirt has a detailed explanation of why a music tax is a bad idea, noting that it effectively rewards those who failed in the marketplace, punishes those who innovated and sets up a huge, inefficient and unnecessary bureaucracy. Meanwhile, plenty of musicians who are experimenting with new business models are finding that they can make more money and appeal to more fans. So, why stymie that process with a new bureaucracy that simply funds the big record labels?"
The Boston Tea Party happened because the government lowered taxes, so that the smugglers could make less money. They were protesting against cheap legal tea, not against taxes on tea. Seems like the record company proposal is totally in the spirit of the Boston Tea Party.
Squirrel!
Second off, I'm a musician on the side, and I put out albums on a regular basis which make money here on a local level. If my band's album is downloaded on a college campus, is some of that tax going to go to me, if I have no affiliation with Warner? NO! So not only are they getting money for music that may or may not even be downloaded, they're getting money for content that isn't even theirs to profit on.
Oh don't worry, from the previous /. story:
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.
100-to-1 says this entity is the RIAA and "distributing the proceeds fairly" means funding litigation against students from universities that haven't agreed. You know, just like the "proceeds" from their lawsuits to date. Of course the inevitable end result is that nobody will pirate your music anymore, and you make more money! Beautiful, isn't it?
Darnit, bumped the "submit" button early.
I think the biggest barrier to growth is the lack of music talent now compared to the times past which saw explosive growth in the 70's and 80's.
Not true, not true at all. There is plenty of new music talent out there; the problem is that the MafiAA companies no longer want to promote new talent, because new talent are not interested in selling their eternal souls to crappy slave-labor contracts, MafiAA "creative accounting" practices, and multi-album deals where the labels hold musicians hostage by claiming their final contracted album needs to be "re-done" over and over until they manage to blackmail the artist into signing an extension or giving up any hope of ever owning their own music.
Track the MafiAA's supposed "piracy loss" numbers against the number of new albums and new acts released, and you find a linear correlation that has absolutely nothing to do with "piracy."
But why take it from me? Take it instead from someone who's lived through MafiAA Hell herself.
your 100% right...they arenot funding talent and do not deserve to reap any extra taxes in... record execs have been heard saying james brown would never have been signed in todays climate...thats really sad...