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UK Royalty Group Wants ISPs To Pay For Pirating Customers

Posted by samzenpus on from the sins-of-the-user dept.

Idbar writes "A group representing British songwriters and composers will on Wednesday call for the introduction of a levy on broadband providers based on the amount of pirated music they allow to pass through their networks. Will Page, chief economist at PRS for Music, will argue at a Westminster conference that a piracy fee would better align the financial interests of internet service providers with rights holders at a time when the two industries are at odds over who should bear the costs of online song swapping."

2 of 289 comments (clear)

  1. They mean, a group representing big business by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I work with digital sales accounts.

    Every time you download a track from Itunes most of your money goes to, the government as tax (in the UK), the retailer (Itunes in this case), the distributor, and the label. The artist gets maybe 5% of what you pay.

    Unbelievable but that's how it is.

    Don't let these liars and crooks fool you into thinking otherwise.

    1. Re:They mean, a group representing big business by MadKeithV · · Score: 3, Informative

      no usually what happens is the artist gets a lump sum and then royalties on top for each sale. the lump sum buys their rights for cents on the dollar in the hope their work will make it big.

      on their own there's a high certainty of failure for a new starter.

      No. What happens is the artist gets a large "lump sum", but that sum is actually an open "loan" in the small print of the contract, and the label can just keep making shit up to add to the "loan". The artist gets a small amount of royalties while most of the income goes to the label. However, the artist has to pay back the loan out of their royalties (small print!). So basically, the label passes the checkout twice: they get most of the profit from sales, AND they recoup the lump sum loan from artists. Only if the artist sells a LOT of records do they start earning a little real money, and even at that time the label is still making more money than the artists.