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iPod Fee Proposed For Canada
innocent_white_lamb writes "The Canadian Private Copying Collective is pushing for the implementation of an iPod fee in Canada to compensate them for 'losses' when people copy music to their digital music players. They have collected a fee from every CDR sold in Canada since 1997 and now want to extend that to digital music players. From the article: 'Some have argued that once they buy a CD they shouldn't have to pay again and again to listen to those songs — which they already purchased — on a personal compilation CD or on their MP3 player. But for people like Milman and Basskin, it's about recognizing the value of those works. "There has to be some sort of way to compensate the artist for the hours and the sweat and the blood and the tears and the extreme, extreme expense that goes into making music," Milman said.'"
a refund on all purchased music in Canada to compensate :-P
"There has to be some sort of way to compensate the artist for the hours and the sweat and the blood and the tears and the extreme, extreme expense that goes into making music," Milman said.
Yes, and that happenned when you *bought* the song from iTunes. Why would you want some blanket fee for then moving it onto your iPod?
There has to be some way for people to compensate me for having to hear the shit reasons these people spew out for being greedy.
The artist never receives a penny of that extra fee! Damn those pot smoking hippies!
Sarcasm aside I really do doubt that any artist on a major label gets half the money that they should. This Milman guy is clearly a douche (put simply) for trying to even suggest that the fee is for the greater good.
Or when you paid for the cd. Just because you made an mp3 and listen to it on your iPod doesn't mean you should have to pay for it again. You paid to listen to their music, you can listen to it on whatever device you want.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
Extreme expense that goes into making music? What extreme expense? I am an artist and I have yet to encounter this. I recorded an album for about $100 and then posted it for download on the internet. These people want to insert themselves into music and sap money away from artists and listeners, they contribute nothing.
living in suburban wasteland, but I can break out, I can be free.
There has to be some sort of way to safeguard the buyer from undue taxation by private companies given the hours and the sweat and the blood and the tears and the extreme, extreme expense (in terms of time) that goes into making a decent salary.
Isn't that so Mr. Milman?
- "They misunderestimated me."
music isn't necessarily born out of a desire to make $ from it but it sure helps. The problem is not the money, it is how that money is obtained. Right now the middlemen get most of their cut from a corrupt and broken system of copyright law. Artists should be able to make $ from music if they want but the current system is geared toward benefiting the big labels [unless the author lives 120+ yrs after writing the song or is a zombie]
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
There is no natural right to make a profit. You have the right to try. But if you fail, even if you've previously been successful, that's not society's problem: it's yours.
"Grandpa, is it true that back in the old days music didn't have gps location built in? You didn't have to pay the record studio executives a fee when you listened to music in a different room of your house?"
"Hell, back in the day, we didn't even have the skin cell DNA identification built into the iPods!"
"OMG!!! You could listen to OTHER PEOPLES IPODS?? EWW!!! That is just wrong."
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
Bullshit, there are no extreme expenses in making music.
I'll play devil's advocate here: what about the marketing and distribution costs associated with making and selling an album? It could be argued that the present day distribution should be next to $0.00 by doing it electronically however there is marketing and even using banner ads costs money.
Oh, absolutely. And when you can show me the math that explains why the banner ads take up so much of the cost that the artist is lucky to make a penny on the dollar, then I'll agree with you.
Here's my problem with the whole thing - the artist doesn't make any money directly off a CD. He can't, he's signed away his rights to his corporate masters - which is why they want the copyright to go for more than half a century after he kicks the bucket - they'll still be around. He writes the song, he sings the song, and then THEY take the song, THEY sell the song, THEY take the profits, and give him a check for $100,000 and a bill for $200,000 of studio time, half to be paid now. (Oh, they didn't mention that they sometimes shunt expenses off on the artist? Funny how they'd forget to mention that when they tell you that the artist can't afford to feed his kids.)
It's not that the record industry is merely a middleman, it's that they're the company store. They don't pay musicians in scrip, but they make them sign a paper that says they'll only buy from them, even if everyone else is selling at a tenth of the price, so it's no different. They keep artists as slaves, and they want as tight a lock on the consumer. It's why they hate the Internet - they can't force everyone to install a magic program that stops them from downloading or format shifting music, ever. But damn, do they try (cough cough, Sony rootkit, cough). They also don't like it when you - GASP - pay the money directly to the artist. It threatens their existence.
It's all unmitigated, naked greed. If they weren't profiting off CDs, they'd either change their marketing, or raise the prices on CDs, or cut costs, or go under. Nope. They see that the government has this sweet scam called "taxes" and they want in on it. Since raising an army or police force to enforce said tax would be prohibitively expensive, they just want to hijack the existing infrastructure. So they take that money they got from the starving artist, that money you gave them because you thought the artist put out a good CD and wanted to support his work, and they use it to hire lobbyists, and spokesmen, and lawyers, and build a nice big fat expense account for said lobbyists, and spokesmen, and lawyers. So they can make even more money, and hire more lobbyists, and spokesmen, and lawyers, and then invent another way to squeeze more pennies out of you.
They want you to pay for every format shift.
And I want to rule the world. So? Nobody cares about that, why should we care about their wishes?
Because they've got the lobbyists to make it happen.
I don't give a flying fuck about what the content industry wants. They obviously don't care about what I want, the quality of what has been released lately is enough proof of that. Gimme a reason to waste a nanosecond pondering what they could possibly want.
Because of things like the blank CD levy, where you pay even if you don't do anything illegal, or even anything related to them. You buy no music whatsoever but back up your business data onto CD-R? If you're Canadian then congratulations, you've paid them money without even being a consumer of their product. So they add iPods to that. How long before flash RAM and hard drives get added to the list? They've already proven they can get a levy on a form of storage, regardless of what you do with said storage. If you want to pay an extra cent a gig, fine, but my terabyte drive array takes issue with that.
The first thing that will happen if such restrictions appear is that people will break out their digital crowbars and break it. Simple as that.
Which is just another sort of crime, and one which they're pushing for ever stiffer punishments for. Think they'll never catch you because everyone's doing it? Tell that to Joel Tenenbaum. Just because everyone does it doesn't make it legal, it just means they have more targets. And if they can think of a legal gimmick that lets them drag one hundred thousand people through the court simultaneously (or extort settlements out of same), you can bet they'll do it. Then the fact that there's a million people doing it is trivial. Suddenly you're not one of a million, you're one of TEN.
Why? Because they don't care what someone wants who doesn't care about what they want.
Disproven by the CD levy. Since it gets every CD-R, it's safe to assume they've made profit off deaf people.
Illegal? Here's a phone, iPhone, no less, call someone who cares. Crack down? Ok, go ahead. Encryption works like a charm and sorry, that isn't encrypted, that's data garbage from my last HD crash, I saved it but so far couldn't get around to figuring out what this is, but you're experts, right, have fun.
They've threatened people who don't even have computers. Do you really think hiding your data matters? They've hauled people into court on less than an IP address. Flimsy evidence? You bet, but you gotta pay your lawyer by the hour, not by the strength of the opponent's case. If they make it too expensive to fight, then they'll make money on settlements, and the evidence will never see the light of day.
If everything else fails, dear content industry: I can live without music. Can you live without my money? I hope not. Please die.
Again, you could be stone deaf and still required to give the music industry money. They don't even have to produce much music, all they need to do is convince politicians that your entire demographic group is stealing whatever they do produce and they can tax it out of you. Still doesn't affect you?
When you stop to think about it, the music RECORDING industry is actually a parasitic one living off the blood, sweat and tears of the musos. It is a separate industry living off the fading body of one of the most ancient and universal professions.
Before I get modded down, think of it this way. Say I own 15 CD's. The artists received maybe $3 out of that - if that. Those CD's keep me pretty much entertained for a year or two. If we didn't have such ubiquitous mass released music recordings, where would I get my music from? Well, probably to a large degree from live musicians. On street corners, in concert halls, coffee shops. For any decent party I'd hire musicians. Same for big events in life. Weddings, funerals etc where a lot of people now just play CD's. The wealthy would be patrons of music again, sponsoring musicians to play in their homes. Just like in the developing world, there would be a lot more musicians making their living out of performing and writing music.
The big recording labels and organisations such as this one TFA refers to are not helping musicians, but stifling music as a profession.
sudo mount --milk --sugar