"When I saw him speak, he pointed out that copyright was set up to encourage writers (and at first it was ONLY writers) to continuously work and release stuff out into the creative commons, where in a limited period of time (conservatively, more list 7 years instead of the lifetime of the artist) it would be released out to open for everyone to use freely."
To amplify the above, this happened in 1790, and books, maps and charts were the universe of items that could be copyrighted. The term was 14 years with the priveledge of renewing for another 14 years.
It wasn't until 1831 that musical works were added, to protect against unauthorized printing and selling of sheet music. The term was increased to 28 years at the same time.
Plays were added in 1856 and photos were added in 1865.
"I do not understand why individuals and companies consider it a right to be able to control the use of their invention or demand extravagant or prohibitive compensation for its use."
This is the free market economy at work. If I create a work and charge too much for it, it won't sell. If I charge too little, I don't make enough to stay in business.
I ocasionally with a well-respected analyst firm that publishes an annual seven-year forecast report for a particular industry. This report is eight pages, and costs $4,500.00. Yet it is considered by many to be a fair price. I know that many people reading this will simply not comprehend why on earth an eight page report would be sold for $4,500.00, but trust me on this one.
If that analyst firm can write something that people want to buy for $562 per page, then they deserve that money. It is their right and prerogative to charge what the market will bear.
"An idea or work of art, once formulated should be equally available to everyone to build upon."
If tomorrow we enacted a price control law that said that a publisher could not charge more than $X per page, then there's a good chance that the analyst firm would simply no longer publish that particular report. This would be a loss for everybody.
"Determining what is or isn't prohibitive is trickier though I think we'd be able to do better than the current broken system."
I disagree here. The free market works incredibly well in this case. If nobody buys their report this year for $4,500.00, then they'll lower the price next year. And so on. By allowing the analyst firm to charge whatever they like for this forecast report, they are ultimately in control of their business. Putting price controls on copyrighted works is not the answer.
"Correct. Copyright violation is a civil offence here (AU), not a criminal offence."
Some copyright violations in Australia carry criminal penalties. Some examples:
Pirating software for the purpose of selling it
Advertising the supply of pirated software
Additionally, the court has the power to put somebody jail on a first offense in cases of pirating movies, and on second offenses of pirating other types of materials.
I learned the above by Googling on "Australian copyright law criminal" and then viewing This PDF.
There's also a wikipidia entry on Australian copyright law that has a few references to criminal cases, including a case in November where three Australian students received criminal convictions.
By the way, a lot of Americans also (incorrectly) think that there's no criminal provision in US copyright law, either. It seems to be one of those "I read it on/. so it must be true" falsehoods that extends across borders.
"By adjusting the compensation given to artists we could increase the amount of new art being produced - favor those who produce original, fresh material. Instead we reward those who recorded a few popular albums years ago and sold a lot of plastic disks that no longer exist. Worse, we reward the people who had nothing to do with the art but managed to negotiate the rights to other people's works of art."
Thank you for the reply. If I understand you correctly, you would like to see the production of art move away from a free market, demand-driven system, to one in which there is third-party control of the earnings that artists can make. The music business in this country would become more like Canada's socialized medicine program, where the government steps in to control who gets what. Am I summarizing your view correctly?
For what it's worth, I don't think the existence of older material that's still in demand by consumers (such as The Beatles) is putting an unreasonable burden on newer musicians. Then as now, water seeks its own level -- if you're a talented musician and you record something that people want to hear, people will buy it -- and if you don't have the skills, they won't. If the consumer is choosing, say, Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon over your CD, the impetus for you as a musician is to create work that the customer will choose over Pink Floyd. As nonsensical as the sentence I'm about to write may sound: I don't think it's the government's job to protect musicians from Pink Floyd.
"It is quite easy for a musician to sell millions of albums and come out with a profit of around $50K. The actual financial benefit coming to an artist from an RIAA authorized CD is around $.05-$.25. The lions share of the rest of the $16-$20 goes streight to the RIAA with a small bit given to various middlemen."
Do you know of any CDs that have gone double platinum for which the artists have netted only $50K?
Artists' royalties are higher than you state. Mechanical royalties alone, when they apply, can be up to $0.70 per CD. Depending on the label (indies pay more), royalties can be between a buck and three bucks.
Believe it or not (and many people don't), the average selling price of a new release is down to $13.42 in the US. The sell-in price to the retailer is about eight or ten bucks. Anything beyond that eight or ten bucks is money that the record company doesn't see.
The difference between the artists' royalties and the sell-in cost does not go "directly to the RIAA." It pays for the engineering, production, duplication and distribution costs of the CD. It goes toward advertising and promotion. In short, it goes to salaries of all the people who are necessary to produce a CD. If the CD sells enough copies the record company will eventually make a net profit that will not immediately go to somebody's salary, but they're not required to pay a tithe to the RIAA.
By the way, major label records typically need to sell about a million copies of a CD before it breaks even. The indie labels, whose overhead is much lower, need to sell only about 100,000 pieces.
"I think that a "pay the musicians internet tax" is a very bad idea, as are taxes on blank media. The main reason is that a) under the current setup the money goes to the RIAA, not artists,"
It's a bit of a complex read, but US copyright law does clearly define who gets the money from the tariff on blank audio CDs. Most of it goes to artists and musicians. Some goes to record companies. None goes to the RIAA. By the way, that tariff is only on blank media and hardware sold expressly for audio recording. Stick to the regular blank CD-Rs and use a CD-RW drive instead of a Philips set-top CD burner, and you'll avoid the tariff.
"I do know this though: if we can find a way to get even $.50 to a band for every album downloaded they'd be making double what they make now."
Have you checked out the iTunes music store? The selection is reasonable, the DRM is easy to live with, and artists get a cut of each track downloaded. If you download an entire album, the artist will make about $1 - $3. This is an excellent deal for the artist compared to Kazaa, which pays the artist nothing.
"Do Beatles^H^H^H^H^H^HMichael Jackson need any more money out of the Beatles recordings made in the sixties?"
Michael Jackson's apparent fondness for little boys aside, does this bother you? In other words, do you resent it when people make what could be considered to be too much money?
"Why do artists have expectations of recording one album and living off the proceeds for 30 years when nobody else has that kind of realistic expectations about their own work?"
It's this hope that causes many people to become artists. Trying to make money as an artist, as opposed to a boring-but-steady career as, say, an accountant, is a tough, tough business. For many artists it means a life of poverty. That chance of making it big with that one hit song or that Pulitzer-prize winning book is what makes the profession unique. I don't think this is a bad thing.
"The people who had one hit 20 years ago can frankly go find another job rather than expect to leech off the public forever."
I do not see how it is "leeching." The Beatles will continue to generate revenue for as long as people have a desire to buy music by The Beatles. This is the case not because people are forced to into choosing a Beatles CD over another CD, but because people still like The Beatles.
There is plenty of music and literature released in the Beatles era that enjoys little or no sales today. In fact, it may be safe to say that the majority of popular music and literature in the 1960's has been forgotten to the point that it generates effectively no money today. The majority of pop music stars in the 1960's probably did go on to get another job. But a few novelists, poets, musicians and other artists of that era had the right combination of talent, perserverence, or simple luck to create work that has endured the test of time and is still sought after today. In this way, being an artist is much like being a programmer or an IT manager: those with talent, perserverence or simple luck tend to make more money.
I think that there should be no legal or societal limits placed on any profession. If somebody finds a way to become a millionaire by being a dog walker, then God bless 'em. They get no resentment or jealousy from me. While a truly classless society is probably an impossible ideal, I am disheartened by the notion of copyright reform being percieved as a way to take uppity artists down a notch or two.
"If this guy is extradited to the US from Australia, then I expect we'll start seeing China start trying to extradite operators of web sites around the world for violating China's decency and media control laws. It's the same issue. The outrage the US government would project over such a move would be overwhelming, yet they expect people to accept this case."
I guess people are reading "world's first warez extradition" and thinking that this case sets some sort of precedent -- yours is not the only "if this happens, then that will happen" post. It may be the first warez extradition, but this sort of thing has been going on for centuries.
"The Internet is a borderless medium, a nation's laws should only apply to issues where all of the events and parties are within that nation's borders."
Remember, one of the hacked FTP servers he controlled was at MIT. I believe that if you hack into, or otherwise use a US computer in an unauthorized manner, you should be subject to US law -- I know this guy has our sympathy and many Slashdotters see him as a "good guy," but this principle also allows us to go after child pornographers and the like. And, this guy's free will does come into play... if he did not want to run the risk of running afoul of US law, he should not have run an FTP site here to distribute software released by US companies.
To be clear, I do see your point -- I simply do not think that the Internet should be a gaping loophole of this sort. If I live in the US and somebody's trying to hack into my PC, or they're distributing my intellectual property, or they're trying to sell me child pornography, I care not one bit if they've moved to, say, Tonga to avoid prosecution.
I should have stated that I was referring to US residents. I don't hold you non-US folk accountable for understanding our laws -- especially when we don't understand them ourselves!
"How many columbian drug growers have the US prosecuted in US courts? none, because even though the content shows up here and is illegal here, the person did not commit any crime within the juristiction of the US."
Where did you get that information? Colombia has extradited at least 90 of its citizens to the US in the past 16 months alone. I believe most of these are for drug charges; ie. playing a significant part in the trafficking of drugs to the USA.
"The problem is that people want to say that the Internet is a special case and should be treated differently under criminal law than the other similar technologies and circumstances."
You're correct again that there are different laws and regulations for different technologies. For example, web sites are not subject to FCC decency standards. Your earlier example of broadcasting something over the airwaves would have have a different set of laws. And even before the Internet, one could get into a certain kind of trouble if they committed a crime using the telephone, or using U.S. mail. Laws are, in general, very complex.
My concern is that some people may incorrectly see use of the Internet as a loophole when they would be rightfully nailed if they were to use another medium to commit their crime. The way I see it, if the fellow in Australia were selling warez to US citizens out of the back of a magazine, vs. via the Internet, it should make no difference.
You have asked a lot of hypothetical questions about Person A doing Thing B in Country C against Country D. They are all great questions but it's important to understand that extradition is not a black-and-white issue with simple answers. Countries attempt to extradite people all the time. Sometimes it is a simple process (Colombia has been giving them up quite willingly lately), but many times, it ends up in court. Often it's a highly political process, relating to how much the two countries like each other at that particular time. I could give you my personal opinion on what the "right" thing to do would be in each case, but ultimately it's up to the courts. I think a lot of people are seeing this Australian warez dude as a special case, or a precedent, but it's not.
Correct; I think this is the point of the "The Internet is Real" title of the parent poster. Too many people think that the Internet provides some sort of exemption from the law because it allows one to do business in a country without "setting foot" there.
Each case is different, and International law can be extremely complex. To use one example of how the Internet offers little protection, if you host a child pornography site offshore and take orders from US citizens, you're liable to be prosecuted by US authorities, even if your business does not involve you physically travelling to the US.
US copyright law has had provisions for criminal infringement for some time now -- at least as far back as 1976, which is longer than many people reading this have been alive.
You can find plenty of details on cases of criminal copyright infringement by Googling on that phrase.
The bigger question is "why do so many Slashdotters think there's no such thing as criminal copyright infringement?". It seems to be one of the more pervasive memes around here. Surprising, since, as I mentioned, a simple Google search would clear it up without a doubt.
Thank you for your reply, and my thanks to all the other excellent replies to my post.
Agreed that plagarism is a different matter, but this isn't plagarism. As has already been pointed out, the folks who copied the content aren't trying to pass it off as their own work. The author's name and contact info are still there, intact. It's similar to making and distributing your own exact copies of a Stephen King book, which isn't plagarism, either. This raises the question: if this is the case, why should the author be upset?
This is where it's similar to why I might be upset if I released an album and somebody were to rip it and make it freely available. Suddenly, my potential customers have two choices: they can get it from me and compensate me for my hard work, or they can get the free copy. Similarly, with a web site, prospective viewers can view my original -- where I'd get the ad revenue -- or view it on another site, where I do not.
This is the critical point that a fair number of Slashdotters might say that I am actually benefiting from the pirated copy. In the case of the CD, those that help themselves to it for free might tell their friends, who might actually buy it. Or they might go to one of my concerts, assuming that I do get a concert deal and I do happen to play in their town. In short, if I dare get upset because people are copying my work without my consent, I am clearly a greedy, cluess fucktard who doesn't know that these pirates are doing me a favor.
Likewise, with our friends in Taiwan who have copied the web site, are the owners right to be bothered for the same reasons? Or, are they similarly greedy and clueless?
Re:As an information site owner,
on
Stop! Website Thief!
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· Score: 4, Insightful
"There should be more legislation in place to protect copyright interests."
This is, without a doubt, the last thing I'd ever expect to read on Slashdot!
In all seriousness, sorry to hear your story. Copyright violation is all fun and good when it happens to somebody else, and we can often fool ourselves into thinking that we're actually doing somebody a favor by copying somebody else's work against their will (the "by ripping this CD and putting it in my share directory I am actually giving them free advertising and somebody might go to their concert as a result of downloading it from Kazaa in lieu of buying the CD" argument). But as you've shown, it can mightily suck when it happens to you.
"Typical/. hypocrisy. When you misappropriate IP in the form of music, movies, and software, you say it's not "theft" -- but when someone does the same to your website, you call them thieves, and get all up at arms about it..."
Agreed. Typical arguments (which I've seen in just the past few days when discussing MP3/movie piracy here on/.) for abolishing copyrights in the digital domain include:
"Information wants to be free. Copying digital data doesn't take away anything from the original."
"If an artist doesn't want something to be copied, they shouldn't release it." (yeah, I know, this is "blame the victim" mentality, but many slashdotters happily use this as an argument for piracy or against DRM.)
"Digital content should be done for the joy of creating. If you're trying to get money for you work, you're a businessperson, not an artist, and therefore you suck. Piracy, and/or abolishing digital copyrights, will weed out the artists whose sole motivation is profit, and leave the world with the benefit of people who create for creation's sake."
The important thing is that all of these arguments can be applied to the case of this Taiwanese site. As with MP3 piracy, some might argue that pirating a MP3 is really theft because it reduces the potential market for the material, and the same applies here -- this (if you will) pirated web site might collect ad revenue that the original site might have otherwise gotten. Many slashdotters would gladly tell the greedy artist "tough cookies" -- why no shame on the greedy web site creator who is clearly a luddite if they didn't see this coming?
The bottom line is that in both cases, somebody else is benefitting off the work of an artist without compensating the original artist, and without the artist's permission.
It's my hope that the "abolish online copyrights" crowd will chime in on this case and explain better than I can why pirating MP3s and movies is okay, and this is not.
"For every piece of blank media, we have to pay a tax that goes directly to the RIAA."
Not correct. There is a tariff on blank audio CD-Rs that largely goes to the artists: composers, lyricists, session musicians, backup singers, and the like. Some of it goes to the copyright holders of the recordings, which are typically the record companies, but none of it goes directly to the RIAA. This is an important distinction to understand if you are of the general opinion that musicians are good and the RIAA is evil.
"semi offtopic question, and the answer may not have any implications in the real world, however... say i go to a concert and legally record the audio. do i own the copyrights of that recording even though i am in no way affiliated with the band or their "label"?"
My understanding is: YES. That is, nobody else can distribute the recording you've made without your permission.
However, you still need the permission of the other rightsholders -- the folks who wrote the music and lyrics -- before you can distribute it. There is not a lawyer within shouting distance with whom I can check, but I believe there may also be a performance copyright, which means that if the performer was singing a song that they did not write or compose, you'd still need their permission.
Practically speaking, this means that if it's a recording of a jam band which has already granted blanket permission for fans to record the live performance, you can do so without getting further permission but you have the right to exercise control over your recording. I think some bands who do this put a "...for non-commercial purposes" rider on this permission, so it wouldn't be the case that you'd be selling the recording for cash and preventing others from duplicating your CD and also selling it for cash.
"My understanding is you also have to be the copyright holder to get the money, which is not many musicians."
First, let's clarify that there's a distinct difference between the copyright on a recording (which is typically held by the record company and/or the engineer) and the copyright on the music and lyrics, which is held by the lyricist and composer.
That would indeed suck if the Canadian tariff goes only to holders of the copyright on the recording. Here in the United States -- although many Slashdotters believe otherwise -- our blank CD-R tariff goes largely to musicians, lyricists and composers (some goes to record companies, but none of it goes directly to the RIAA). Part of it goes to the union representing session musicians, background vocalists, etc., so as a musician, you can benefit from the tariff even if you didn't write the words or compose the tune.
SACEM stands for "Societe des Auteurs, Compositeurs et Editeurs de Musique," which I hope doesn't need translation for our American friends. Rather than the RIAA, a better comparison to a US organization would be ASCAP/BMI (the non-profit societies that distribute publishing royalties to musicians) or AFI, the US musician's union. In contrast, the RIAA is a trade group representing record labels (those who distribute copyrighted recordings while SACEM (as well as ASCAP/BMI) represents those who produce the music and lyrics -- i.e., the artists.
"Does that mean that organizations like the RIAA are prohibited from suing music downloaders because the musicians have already been paid by the state (perhaps through some industry group), or is this just a tax?"
Doubtful. France is a signatory to the Berne Convention and enforces copyright law about as well as any other industrialized country. Such a tariff wouldn't mean throwing out copyright law. Whether French law allows the IFPI (the European equivalent of the RIAA) to sue its citizens for copyright violation is a totally separate question.
By the way, a similar situation exists in the United States. Our taxes go to law enforcement and otherwise help pay for the wrongdoings of others, but the fact that, say, part of our taxes pay for our state's highway patrol doesn't allow us to ignore traffic laws with impunity.
The issue of exactly how much of an effect piracy has had on the sales slump is a hotly debated one. It's not just the record companies that are screaming "piracy!". Forrester Research, a highly respected analyst firm, states that the amount of the music industry's sales drop due to piracy has been overstated (that should be no surprise to Slashdotters), but also states that the record industry will indeed lose $3 Billion due to piracy over the next few years.
"And except that when sales drop, it's never ever because the products are shit, but "due to piracy"."
This one you can work out on your own. The huge explosion in music piracy, as well as the slumping economy are variables. Shitty music, nostalgia notwithstanding, is a constant. About the same amount of crap was foisted on us in the 80's and 70's and, I'm sure, earlier; due to the nature of how our memory works, we tend to only remember the good stuff. Perhaps you've stopped buying music becuase you've gotten off of that popular culture train (as do we all at some point) but IMHO, the quality of music isn't an issue, as it's a constant that can be reduced from both sides of the equation.
I think the economy and the explosion in piracy are the big factors here. The economy is a factor in two ways: there's the group that would only buy music but don't, and then there's the other group who otherwise wouldn't resort to piracy but are doing it due to the loss of their job or another economic effect.
"And isn't it simply amazing that the recording industry actually knows how much people would be buying, but aren't?"
Not really -- any industry beyond a certain size will spend a lot of brainpower on market analysis. This involves hiring a bunch of geeks who have postgraduate degrees in statistics in marketing. I am quite sure that the toilet paper industry knows a scary amount about our toilet paper buying habits, as well. There are also plenty of third-party companies that do this sort of research, such as Forrester Research, which I mentioned above. Another analyst firm has available for sale a report on how my particular industry is going to fare over the next seven years. Obviously, nobody can predict the future, but a lot of people spend a lot of time and money doing their best to try to.
"Except that distribution is controlled by a semi-monopoly, so there is no real competition."
This is the part I don't understand. I know of plenty of indie labels; I've even known some indie label owners personally. There must be hundreds of them. The record industry has its "Big Five", just as the accounting firm industry has its "Big Seven" (or whatever it is nowadays) and Detroit used to have its "Big Three", and if you counted Dell, Gateway, and HP they'd have the majority of the PC market, as well. But none of these examples define a "semi-monopoly."
"I question why it is you think its acceptable to pay what you do for a cd, but also acceptable to pay the same amount or marginally more for a film on DVD."
Remember, CDs are priced according to the supply and demand curve. We can discuss all we like why consumers might pay X for one product and Y for another, but it ultimately comes down to what's selling, and the perceived value of the product.
At any rate, since you asked me directly, I don't mind paying about $12 for a CD because I'll listen to a CD hundreds of times. I might watch that $20 DVD once or twice. Because of that, I don't buy a lot of DVDs; I prefer to rent them from Netflix. Again, it's all about perceived value -- CDs are worth the money to me, but DVDs are not. Your feelings may be entirely different than mine, and that's fine.
You'll drive yourself crazy if you start thinking too much about how much a product might take to make, or what margin the vendor is making. The net margin on CDs is actually quite low compared to many of the other products you buy and use every day. Ultimately it comes down to whether the price offered is worth the benefit received.
"I don't know where you buy cd's, but the average, admitted, open, regular price of CD's in the United States is 17.99 - 18.99."
The $13.50 average I mentioned (it's actually $13.42; I rounded up) is from NPD Musicwatch, an analyist firm that covers the music industry, tracking sales and the like. It's down from last year's average price.
Note that's the average price for new releases. YMMV. CDs certainly may be $17.99 or $18.99 in your area or at the retailers near you, and I highly value your anecdotal report, but in my neighborhood (Silicon Valley) the local retail scene supports NPD's claim. New releases at the local Best Buy are typically $11.99 or less.
I don't know if NPD Musicwatch tracks e-tailers. If they do, that would swing the number lower, as Amazon moves a lot of plastic.
"To qoute you, "Dangerous generalization". The issue isn't that most slashdotters have problems with greedy artists."
Agreed 100%. I wrote "many." I've seen the "down with greedy artists, but give me all the free music I can download" sentiment quite a bit around here. I don't think it's the majority opinion, though.
"The fact that a given "new" artist, can sell 4-5 million copies of their album and they own money to the record company should be a clear signal that they are greedy."
Wow, if that's true, it really sucks. Can you think of a CD that's gone quintuple-platinum yet hasn't recouped its production costs? It's a rare CD that costs even a million bucks to produce.
"The fact that they have been sued and found guilty twice of price fixing wrt CDs, signals that they are greedy."
There's a lot of misunderstanding of the price fixing settlement. It's more about Wal-Mart's greed than anybody else's. Remember, the record companies made exactly the same amount per sale when they were giving the co-op money to the TWE stores to run the MAPs. The price fixing only affected you if you bought a CD at Tower Records or one of the other TWE stores during the period that the record companies were giving the stores co-op money, and this was done to prevent the Wal-Marts and the Best Buys of the world from putting specialty retailers out of business by selling CDs at or below cost. The record companies did this to keep the smaller retailers in business, and the settlement means that Wal-Mart is free to continue using predatory prices at the expense of smaller stores.
"Or when its price gouging. Tell me seriously why again is a CD more costly then a cassette, even on disks with no additional features. Lets be honest, the Record industry has been duping customers for years."
I'm not sure if you're asking a serious question. CDs are priced where they're at due to something called the "supply/demand" curve. The auto, specialty foods, clothing, furniture, computer peripheral, software and innumerable industries also use the same strategy. It simply means charging the highest price that the market will bear, to maximize profits. It's one of those "econ 101" concepts and I can't stress enough that tons of businesses, big and small, also do it.
As an aside, music prices have been relatively flat over the past 40 years; in fact, they're going down. The average price of a new CD is down to $13.50 in the US. Back when I first started buying LPs in the early 1980's, a good price was $9.99. That'd be $18.00 in today's economy.
This leads to a couple more things that I see on Slashdot a lot:
Folks taking a feature that's prevalent in hundreds of industries, such as following the supply/demand curve, and singling out the record industry as some sort of monster. I'm not particularly a fan of the record companies, either, but I do know that by and large, the record industry is a crappy one to be in. It's hugely speculative (meaning that they must rely on that one hit to cover the costs of the majority of CD releases, which aren't profitable). Record companies go out of business all the time, and you rarely see an analyst give one a "buy" rating. Net margins in the industry are typically below 30%, which is -- again, this is another important part -- lower than most of the other industries I've mentioned above.
Whether you call it greed or I call it the supply/demand curve, or whatever -- many people use this as a moral rationale for piracy. Two wrongs do not make a right.
"I have no problem feeding artists...Its the hundreds of middle men around them that I have a problem with. Note I don't mean the folks that actually contribute to the actual music."
If this means that you only buy music from musicians who also record, engineer, produce, distribute, advertise and market their own music, then more power to you! But this is another instance where many
"The best musicians always performed for the love of medium, not for the money."
Dangerous generalization. Many of the greats of the last millennium -- your Mozart example included -- were indeed chasing money.
"It's the mediocre artists who rely on hype and false advertising that keep the current system alive."
Another dangerous generalization. There are plenty of excellent artists who rely on record sales to pay their mortgages and feed their families. There's no correlation between musical talent and being a capitalist.
"The best musicians will always be recorded and compensated."
I am glad to see that you are in favor of compensating musicians. Why not let that start with you? I think that respect for others' wishes is an equally good moral base -- that is, if an artist of any sort invites you to download their music or their book or their artwork for free, then, by all means, go for it. But if they insist on being paid for their efforts, respect their wishes. In other words, treat them as you would like to be treated.
"I encourage everyone to use a P2P network like gnutelliums to share and distribute as much music and video as you can."
In general -- and this is not directed expressly at you -- there's a lot of sentiment amongst Slashdotters of the form "Down with greedy artists! I want to be able to download everything for free!". It seems like it's only greed when it's the other guy who wants something. Making a living as an artist by selling one's recordings is regarded as a sign of greed and/or a lack of talent, while using a P2P network to avoid paying for music is somehow not greed, and instead some sort of social protest.
"And how does the government determine to whom these payments go?"
It's set forth in copyright law. It's a bit hard to understand, but it's there. Note that the majority goes to musicians, composers and lyricists, not the record companies.
"If I buy a blank CD, record some original sounds of my own creation, and copyright my creation, should I then get a piece of that tax?"
It depends. If you've registered with ASCAP/BMI they should be able to help you, or if you're in AFM / AFTRA, check with your local office. It won't be much, but you're entitled to it, directly or indirectly.
"So should the USA government put a new tax on all blank paper?"
No. The reasoning here is that a blank audio CD-R has a significant chance of being used to make a copy of some copyrighted music. Blank paper has a myriad of uses. The way to avoid these slippery-slope types of situations is to examine the actual expected probability of something occurring. Slippery slopes can be fun, particularly on Slashdot ("They're suing Kazaa because it's used for piracy, thus [...] McDonald's should be forced out of business!") but folks with legal background know how to deal with them. Lots of details must be examined and eventually a judgement call must be made. It's not as simple as many people think.
Slashdot Mirror
"When I saw him speak, he pointed out that copyright was set up to encourage writers (and at first it was ONLY writers) to continuously work and release stuff out into the creative commons, where in a limited period of time (conservatively, more list 7 years instead of the lifetime of the artist) it would be released out to open for everyone to use freely."
To amplify the above, this happened in 1790, and books, maps and charts were the universe of items that could be copyrighted. The term was 14 years with the priveledge of renewing for another 14 years.
It wasn't until 1831 that musical works were added, to protect against unauthorized printing and selling of sheet music. The term was increased to 28 years at the same time.
Plays were added in 1856 and photos were added in 1865.
The complete history is here.
"I do not understand why individuals and companies consider it a right to be able to control the use of their invention or demand extravagant or prohibitive compensation for its use."
This is the free market economy at work. If I create a work and charge too much for it, it won't sell. If I charge too little, I don't make enough to stay in business.
I ocasionally with a well-respected analyst firm that publishes an annual seven-year forecast report for a particular industry. This report is eight pages, and costs $4,500.00. Yet it is considered by many to be a fair price. I know that many people reading this will simply not comprehend why on earth an eight page report would be sold for $4,500.00, but trust me on this one.
If that analyst firm can write something that people want to buy for $562 per page, then they deserve that money. It is their right and prerogative to charge what the market will bear.
"An idea or work of art, once formulated should be equally available to everyone to build upon."
If tomorrow we enacted a price control law that said that a publisher could not charge more than $X per page, then there's a good chance that the analyst firm would simply no longer publish that particular report. This would be a loss for everybody.
"Determining what is or isn't prohibitive is trickier though I think we'd be able to do better than the current broken system."
I disagree here. The free market works incredibly well in this case. If nobody buys their report this year for $4,500.00, then they'll lower the price next year. And so on. By allowing the analyst firm to charge whatever they like for this forecast report, they are ultimately in control of their business. Putting price controls on copyrighted works is not the answer.
"Correct. Copyright violation is a civil offence here (AU), not a criminal offence."
Some copyright violations in Australia carry criminal penalties. Some examples:
Additionally, the court has the power to put somebody jail on a first offense in cases of pirating movies, and on second offenses of pirating other types of materials.
I learned the above by Googling on "Australian copyright law criminal" and then viewing This PDF.
There's also a wikipidia entry on Australian copyright law that has a few references to criminal cases, including a case in November where three Australian students received criminal convictions.
By the way, a lot of Americans also (incorrectly) think that there's no criminal provision in US copyright law, either. It seems to be one of those "I read it on /. so it must be true" falsehoods that extends across borders.
"By adjusting the compensation given to artists we could increase the amount of new art being produced - favor those who produce original, fresh material. Instead we reward those who recorded a few popular albums years ago and sold a lot of plastic disks that no longer exist. Worse, we reward the people who had nothing to do with the art but managed to negotiate the rights to other people's works of art."
Thank you for the reply. If I understand you correctly, you would like to see the production of art move away from a free market, demand-driven system, to one in which there is third-party control of the earnings that artists can make. The music business in this country would become more like Canada's socialized medicine program, where the government steps in to control who gets what. Am I summarizing your view correctly?
For what it's worth, I don't think the existence of older material that's still in demand by consumers (such as The Beatles) is putting an unreasonable burden on newer musicians. Then as now, water seeks its own level -- if you're a talented musician and you record something that people want to hear, people will buy it -- and if you don't have the skills, they won't. If the consumer is choosing, say, Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon over your CD, the impetus for you as a musician is to create work that the customer will choose over Pink Floyd. As nonsensical as the sentence I'm about to write may sound: I don't think it's the government's job to protect musicians from Pink Floyd.
"It is quite easy for a musician to sell millions of albums and come out with a profit of around $50K. The actual financial benefit coming to an artist from an RIAA authorized CD is around $.05-$.25. The lions share of the rest of the $16-$20 goes streight to the RIAA with a small bit given to various middlemen."
Do you know of any CDs that have gone double platinum for which the artists have netted only $50K?
Artists' royalties are higher than you state. Mechanical royalties alone, when they apply, can be up to $0.70 per CD. Depending on the label (indies pay more), royalties can be between a buck and three bucks.
Believe it or not (and many people don't), the average selling price of a new release is down to $13.42 in the US. The sell-in price to the retailer is about eight or ten bucks. Anything beyond that eight or ten bucks is money that the record company doesn't see.
The difference between the artists' royalties and the sell-in cost does not go "directly to the RIAA." It pays for the engineering, production, duplication and distribution costs of the CD. It goes toward advertising and promotion. In short, it goes to salaries of all the people who are necessary to produce a CD. If the CD sells enough copies the record company will eventually make a net profit that will not immediately go to somebody's salary, but they're not required to pay a tithe to the RIAA.
By the way, major label records typically need to sell about a million copies of a CD before it breaks even. The indie labels, whose overhead is much lower, need to sell only about 100,000 pieces.
"I think that a "pay the musicians internet tax" is a very bad idea, as are taxes on blank media. The main reason is that a) under the current setup the money goes to the RIAA, not artists,"
It's a bit of a complex read, but US copyright law does clearly define who gets the money from the tariff on blank audio CDs. Most of it goes to artists and musicians. Some goes to record companies. None goes to the RIAA. By the way, that tariff is only on blank media and hardware sold expressly for audio recording. Stick to the regular blank CD-Rs and use a CD-RW drive instead of a Philips set-top CD burner, and you'll avoid the tariff.
"I do know this though: if we can find a way to get even $.50 to a band for every album downloaded they'd be making double what they make now."
Have you checked out the iTunes music store? The selection is reasonable, the DRM is easy to live with, and artists get a cut of each track downloaded. If you download an entire album, the artist will make about $1 - $3. This is an excellent deal for the artist compared to Kazaa, which pays the artist nothing.
"Do Beatles^H^H^H^H^H^HMichael Jackson need any more money out of the Beatles recordings made in the sixties?"
Michael Jackson's apparent fondness for little boys aside, does this bother you? In other words, do you resent it when people make what could be considered to be too much money?
"Why do artists have expectations of recording one album and living off the proceeds for 30 years when nobody else has that kind of realistic expectations about their own work?"
It's this hope that causes many people to become artists. Trying to make money as an artist, as opposed to a boring-but-steady career as, say, an accountant, is a tough, tough business. For many artists it means a life of poverty. That chance of making it big with that one hit song or that Pulitzer-prize winning book is what makes the profession unique. I don't think this is a bad thing.
"The people who had one hit 20 years ago can frankly go find another job rather than expect to leech off the public forever."
I do not see how it is "leeching." The Beatles will continue to generate revenue for as long as people have a desire to buy music by The Beatles. This is the case not because people are forced to into choosing a Beatles CD over another CD, but because people still like The Beatles.
There is plenty of music and literature released in the Beatles era that enjoys little or no sales today. In fact, it may be safe to say that the majority of popular music and literature in the 1960's has been forgotten to the point that it generates effectively no money today. The majority of pop music stars in the 1960's probably did go on to get another job. But a few novelists, poets, musicians and other artists of that era had the right combination of talent, perserverence, or simple luck to create work that has endured the test of time and is still sought after today. In this way, being an artist is much like being a programmer or an IT manager: those with talent, perserverence or simple luck tend to make more money.
I think that there should be no legal or societal limits placed on any profession. If somebody finds a way to become a millionaire by being a dog walker, then God bless 'em. They get no resentment or jealousy from me. While a truly classless society is probably an impossible ideal, I am disheartened by the notion of copyright reform being percieved as a way to take uppity artists down a notch or two.
"If this guy is extradited to the US from Australia, then I expect we'll start seeing China start trying to extradite operators of web sites around the world for violating China's decency and media control laws. It's the same issue. The outrage the US government would project over such a move would be overwhelming, yet they expect people to accept this case."
I guess people are reading "world's first warez extradition" and thinking that this case sets some sort of precedent -- yours is not the only "if this happens, then that will happen" post. It may be the first warez extradition, but this sort of thing has been going on for centuries.
"The Internet is a borderless medium, a nation's laws should only apply to issues where all of the events and parties are within that nation's borders."
Remember, one of the hacked FTP servers he controlled was at MIT. I believe that if you hack into, or otherwise use a US computer in an unauthorized manner, you should be subject to US law -- I know this guy has our sympathy and many Slashdotters see him as a "good guy," but this principle also allows us to go after child pornographers and the like. And, this guy's free will does come into play... if he did not want to run the risk of running afoul of US law, he should not have run an FTP site here to distribute software released by US companies.
To be clear, I do see your point -- I simply do not think that the Internet should be a gaping loophole of this sort. If I live in the US and somebody's trying to hack into my PC, or they're distributing my intellectual property, or they're trying to sell me child pornography, I care not one bit if they've moved to, say, Tonga to avoid prosecution.
I should have stated that I was referring to US residents. I don't hold you non-US folk accountable for understanding our laws -- especially when we don't understand them ourselves!
First things first.
"How many columbian drug growers have the US prosecuted in US courts? none, because even though the content shows up here and is illegal here, the person did not commit any crime within the juristiction of the US."
Where did you get that information? Colombia has extradited at least 90 of its citizens to the US in the past 16 months alone. I believe most of these are for drug charges; ie. playing a significant part in the trafficking of drugs to the USA.
"The problem is that people want to say that the Internet is a special case and should be treated differently under criminal law than the other similar technologies and circumstances."
You're correct again that there are different laws and regulations for different technologies. For example, web sites are not subject to FCC decency standards. Your earlier example of broadcasting something over the airwaves would have have a different set of laws. And even before the Internet, one could get into a certain kind of trouble if they committed a crime using the telephone, or using U.S. mail. Laws are, in general, very complex.
My concern is that some people may incorrectly see use of the Internet as a loophole when they would be rightfully nailed if they were to use another medium to commit their crime. The way I see it, if the fellow in Australia were selling warez to US citizens out of the back of a magazine, vs. via the Internet, it should make no difference.
You have asked a lot of hypothetical questions about Person A doing Thing B in Country C against Country D. They are all great questions but it's important to understand that extradition is not a black-and-white issue with simple answers. Countries attempt to extradite people all the time. Sometimes it is a simple process (Colombia has been giving them up quite willingly lately), but many times, it ends up in court. Often it's a highly political process, relating to how much the two countries like each other at that particular time. I could give you my personal opinion on what the "right" thing to do would be in each case, but ultimately it's up to the courts. I think a lot of people are seeing this Australian warez dude as a special case, or a precedent, but it's not.
"This person has not set foot in the US."
Correct; I think this is the point of the "The Internet is Real" title of the parent poster. Too many people think that the Internet provides some sort of exemption from the law because it allows one to do business in a country without "setting foot" there.
Each case is different, and International law can be extremely complex. To use one example of how the Internet offers little protection, if you host a child pornography site offshore and take orders from US citizens, you're liable to be prosecuted by US authorities, even if your business does not involve you physically travelling to the US.
US copyright law has had provisions for criminal infringement for some time now -- at least as far back as 1976, which is longer than many people reading this have been alive.
You can find plenty of details on cases of criminal copyright infringement by Googling on that phrase.
The bigger question is "why do so many Slashdotters think there's no such thing as criminal copyright infringement?". It seems to be one of the more pervasive memes around here. Surprising, since, as I mentioned, a simple Google search would clear it up without a doubt.
Thank you for your reply, and my thanks to all the other excellent replies to my post.
Agreed that plagarism is a different matter, but this isn't plagarism. As has already been pointed out, the folks who copied the content aren't trying to pass it off as their own work. The author's name and contact info are still there, intact. It's similar to making and distributing your own exact copies of a Stephen King book, which isn't plagarism, either. This raises the question: if this is the case, why should the author be upset?
This is where it's similar to why I might be upset if I released an album and somebody were to rip it and make it freely available. Suddenly, my potential customers have two choices: they can get it from me and compensate me for my hard work, or they can get the free copy. Similarly, with a web site, prospective viewers can view my original -- where I'd get the ad revenue -- or view it on another site, where I do not.
This is the critical point that a fair number of Slashdotters might say that I am actually benefiting from the pirated copy. In the case of the CD, those that help themselves to it for free might tell their friends, who might actually buy it. Or they might go to one of my concerts, assuming that I do get a concert deal and I do happen to play in their town. In short, if I dare get upset because people are copying my work without my consent, I am clearly a greedy, cluess fucktard who doesn't know that these pirates are doing me a favor.
Likewise, with our friends in Taiwan who have copied the web site, are the owners right to be bothered for the same reasons? Or, are they similarly greedy and clueless?
"There should be more legislation in place to protect copyright interests."
This is, without a doubt, the last thing I'd ever expect to read on Slashdot!
In all seriousness, sorry to hear your story. Copyright violation is all fun and good when it happens to somebody else, and we can often fool ourselves into thinking that we're actually doing somebody a favor by copying somebody else's work against their will (the "by ripping this CD and putting it in my share directory I am actually giving them free advertising and somebody might go to their concert as a result of downloading it from Kazaa in lieu of buying the CD" argument). But as you've shown, it can mightily suck when it happens to you.
"Typical /. hypocrisy. When you misappropriate IP in the form of music, movies, and software, you say it's not "theft" -- but when someone does the same to your website, you call them thieves, and get all up at arms about it..."
Agreed. Typical arguments (which I've seen in just the past few days when discussing MP3/movie piracy here on /.) for abolishing copyrights in the digital domain include:
The important thing is that all of these arguments can be applied to the case of this Taiwanese site. As with MP3 piracy, some might argue that pirating a MP3 is really theft because it reduces the potential market for the material, and the same applies here -- this (if you will) pirated web site might collect ad revenue that the original site might have otherwise gotten. Many slashdotters would gladly tell the greedy artist "tough cookies" -- why no shame on the greedy web site creator who is clearly a luddite if they didn't see this coming?
The bottom line is that in both cases, somebody else is benefitting off the work of an artist without compensating the original artist, and without the artist's permission.
It's my hope that the "abolish online copyrights" crowd will chime in on this case and explain better than I can why pirating MP3s and movies is okay, and this is not.
"For every piece of blank media, we have to pay a tax that goes directly to the RIAA."
Not correct. There is a tariff on blank audio CD-Rs that largely goes to the artists: composers, lyricists, session musicians, backup singers, and the like. Some of it goes to the copyright holders of the recordings, which are typically the record companies, but none of it goes directly to the RIAA. This is an important distinction to understand if you are of the general opinion that musicians are good and the RIAA is evil.
Here is the section of US copyright law that breaks down the distribution of the tariff.
By the way, the way to avoid paying this tariff is to buy standard blank CD-Rs and avoid the overpriced audio CD-Rs.
"semi offtopic question, and the answer may not have any implications in the real world, however... say i go to a concert and legally record the audio. do i own the copyrights of that recording even though i am in no way affiliated with the band or their "label"?"
My understanding is: YES. That is, nobody else can distribute the recording you've made without your permission.
However, you still need the permission of the other rightsholders -- the folks who wrote the music and lyrics -- before you can distribute it. There is not a lawyer within shouting distance with whom I can check, but I believe there may also be a performance copyright, which means that if the performer was singing a song that they did not write or compose, you'd still need their permission.
Practically speaking, this means that if it's a recording of a jam band which has already granted blanket permission for fans to record the live performance, you can do so without getting further permission but you have the right to exercise control over your recording. I think some bands who do this put a "...for non-commercial purposes" rider on this permission, so it wouldn't be the case that you'd be selling the recording for cash and preventing others from duplicating your CD and also selling it for cash.
Note: I am so Not A Lawyer.
"My understanding is you also have to be the copyright holder to get the money, which is not many musicians."
First, let's clarify that there's a distinct difference between the copyright on a recording (which is typically held by the record company and/or the engineer) and the copyright on the music and lyrics, which is held by the lyricist and composer.
That would indeed suck if the Canadian tariff goes only to holders of the copyright on the recording. Here in the United States -- although many Slashdotters believe otherwise -- our blank CD-R tariff goes largely to musicians, lyricists and composers (some goes to record companies, but none of it goes directly to the RIAA). Part of it goes to the union representing session musicians, background vocalists, etc., so as a musician, you can benefit from the tariff even if you didn't write the words or compose the tune.
"The SACEM is very much like the RIAA in France"
SACEM stands for "Societe des Auteurs, Compositeurs et Editeurs de Musique," which I hope doesn't need translation for our American friends. Rather than the RIAA, a better comparison to a US organization would be ASCAP/BMI (the non-profit societies that distribute publishing royalties to musicians) or AFI, the US musician's union. In contrast, the RIAA is a trade group representing record labels (those who distribute copyrighted recordings while SACEM (as well as ASCAP/BMI) represents those who produce the music and lyrics -- i.e., the artists.
"Does that mean that organizations like the RIAA are prohibited from suing music downloaders because the musicians have already been paid by the state (perhaps through some industry group), or is this just a tax?"
Doubtful. France is a signatory to the Berne Convention and enforces copyright law about as well as any other industrialized country. Such a tariff wouldn't mean throwing out copyright law. Whether French law allows the IFPI (the European equivalent of the RIAA) to sue its citizens for copyright violation is a totally separate question.
By the way, a similar situation exists in the United States. Our taxes go to law enforcement and otherwise help pay for the wrongdoings of others, but the fact that, say, part of our taxes pay for our state's highway patrol doesn't allow us to ignore traffic laws with impunity.
The issue of exactly how much of an effect piracy has had on the sales slump is a hotly debated one. It's not just the record companies that are screaming "piracy!". Forrester Research, a highly respected analyst firm, states that the amount of the music industry's sales drop due to piracy has been overstated (that should be no surprise to Slashdotters), but also states that the record industry will indeed lose $3 Billion due to piracy over the next few years.
"And except that when sales drop, it's never ever because the products are shit, but "due to piracy"."
This one you can work out on your own. The huge explosion in music piracy, as well as the slumping economy are variables. Shitty music, nostalgia notwithstanding, is a constant. About the same amount of crap was foisted on us in the 80's and 70's and, I'm sure, earlier; due to the nature of how our memory works, we tend to only remember the good stuff. Perhaps you've stopped buying music becuase you've gotten off of that popular culture train (as do we all at some point) but IMHO, the quality of music isn't an issue, as it's a constant that can be reduced from both sides of the equation.
I think the economy and the explosion in piracy are the big factors here. The economy is a factor in two ways: there's the group that would only buy music but don't, and then there's the other group who otherwise wouldn't resort to piracy but are doing it due to the loss of their job or another economic effect.
"And isn't it simply amazing that the recording industry actually knows how much people would be buying, but aren't?"
Not really -- any industry beyond a certain size will spend a lot of brainpower on market analysis. This involves hiring a bunch of geeks who have postgraduate degrees in statistics in marketing. I am quite sure that the toilet paper industry knows a scary amount about our toilet paper buying habits, as well. There are also plenty of third-party companies that do this sort of research, such as Forrester Research, which I mentioned above. Another analyst firm has available for sale a report on how my particular industry is going to fare over the next seven years. Obviously, nobody can predict the future, but a lot of people spend a lot of time and money doing their best to try to.
"Except that distribution is controlled by a semi-monopoly, so there is no real competition."
This is the part I don't understand. I know of plenty of indie labels; I've even known some indie label owners personally. There must be hundreds of them. The record industry has its "Big Five", just as the accounting firm industry has its "Big Seven" (or whatever it is nowadays) and Detroit used to have its "Big Three", and if you counted Dell, Gateway, and HP they'd have the majority of the PC market, as well. But none of these examples define a "semi-monopoly."
"I question why it is you think its acceptable to pay what you do for a cd, but also acceptable to pay the same amount or marginally more for a film on DVD."
Remember, CDs are priced according to the supply and demand curve. We can discuss all we like why consumers might pay X for one product and Y for another, but it ultimately comes down to what's selling, and the perceived value of the product.
At any rate, since you asked me directly, I don't mind paying about $12 for a CD because I'll listen to a CD hundreds of times. I might watch that $20 DVD once or twice. Because of that, I don't buy a lot of DVDs; I prefer to rent them from Netflix. Again, it's all about perceived value -- CDs are worth the money to me, but DVDs are not. Your feelings may be entirely different than mine, and that's fine.
You'll drive yourself crazy if you start thinking too much about how much a product might take to make, or what margin the vendor is making. The net margin on CDs is actually quite low compared to many of the other products you buy and use every day. Ultimately it comes down to whether the price offered is worth the benefit received.
"I don't know where you buy cd's, but the average, admitted, open, regular price of CD's in the United States is 17.99 - 18.99."
The $13.50 average I mentioned (it's actually $13.42; I rounded up) is from NPD Musicwatch, an analyist firm that covers the music industry, tracking sales and the like. It's down from last year's average price.
Note that's the average price for new releases. YMMV. CDs certainly may be $17.99 or $18.99 in your area or at the retailers near you, and I highly value your anecdotal report, but in my neighborhood (Silicon Valley) the local retail scene supports NPD's claim. New releases at the local Best Buy are typically $11.99 or less.
I don't know if NPD Musicwatch tracks e-tailers. If they do, that would swing the number lower, as Amazon moves a lot of plastic.
I hope this helps.
"To qoute you, "Dangerous generalization". The issue isn't that most slashdotters have problems with greedy artists."
Agreed 100%. I wrote "many." I've seen the "down with greedy artists, but give me all the free music I can download" sentiment quite a bit around here. I don't think it's the majority opinion, though.
"The fact that a given "new" artist, can sell 4-5 million copies of their album and they own money to the record company should be a clear signal that they are greedy."
Wow, if that's true, it really sucks. Can you think of a CD that's gone quintuple-platinum yet hasn't recouped its production costs? It's a rare CD that costs even a million bucks to produce.
"The fact that they have been sued and found guilty twice of price fixing wrt CDs, signals that they are greedy."
There's a lot of misunderstanding of the price fixing settlement. It's more about Wal-Mart's greed than anybody else's. Remember, the record companies made exactly the same amount per sale when they were giving the co-op money to the TWE stores to run the MAPs. The price fixing only affected you if you bought a CD at Tower Records or one of the other TWE stores during the period that the record companies were giving the stores co-op money, and this was done to prevent the Wal-Marts and the Best Buys of the world from putting specialty retailers out of business by selling CDs at or below cost. The record companies did this to keep the smaller retailers in business, and the settlement means that Wal-Mart is free to continue using predatory prices at the expense of smaller stores.
"Or when its price gouging. Tell me seriously why again is a CD more costly then a cassette, even on disks with no additional features. Lets be honest, the Record industry has been duping customers for years."
I'm not sure if you're asking a serious question. CDs are priced where they're at due to something called the "supply/demand" curve. The auto, specialty foods, clothing, furniture, computer peripheral, software and innumerable industries also use the same strategy. It simply means charging the highest price that the market will bear, to maximize profits. It's one of those "econ 101" concepts and I can't stress enough that tons of businesses, big and small, also do it.
As an aside, music prices have been relatively flat over the past 40 years; in fact, they're going down. The average price of a new CD is down to $13.50 in the US. Back when I first started buying LPs in the early 1980's, a good price was $9.99. That'd be $18.00 in today's economy.
This leads to a couple more things that I see on Slashdot a lot:
"I have no problem feeding artists...Its the hundreds of middle men around them that I have a problem with. Note I don't mean the folks that actually contribute to the actual music."
If this means that you only buy music from musicians who also record, engineer, produce, distribute, advertise and market their own music, then more power to you! But this is another instance where many
"The best musicians always performed for the love of medium, not for the money."
Dangerous generalization. Many of the greats of the last millennium -- your Mozart example included -- were indeed chasing money.
"It's the mediocre artists who rely on hype and false advertising that keep the current system alive."
Another dangerous generalization. There are plenty of excellent artists who rely on record sales to pay their mortgages and feed their families. There's no correlation between musical talent and being a capitalist.
"The best musicians will always be recorded and compensated."
I am glad to see that you are in favor of compensating musicians. Why not let that start with you? I think that respect for others' wishes is an equally good moral base -- that is, if an artist of any sort invites you to download their music or their book or their artwork for free, then, by all means, go for it. But if they insist on being paid for their efforts, respect their wishes. In other words, treat them as you would like to be treated.
"I encourage everyone to use a P2P network like gnutelliums to share and distribute as much music and video as you can."
In general -- and this is not directed expressly at you -- there's a lot of sentiment amongst Slashdotters of the form "Down with greedy artists! I want to be able to download everything for free!". It seems like it's only greed when it's the other guy who wants something. Making a living as an artist by selling one's recordings is regarded as a sign of greed and/or a lack of talent, while using a P2P network to avoid paying for music is somehow not greed, and instead some sort of social protest.
"And how does the government determine to whom these payments go?"
It's set forth in copyright law. It's a bit hard to understand, but it's there. Note that the majority goes to musicians, composers and lyricists, not the record companies.
"If I buy a blank CD, record some original sounds of my own creation, and copyright my creation, should I then get a piece of that tax?"
It depends. If you've registered with ASCAP/BMI they should be able to help you, or if you're in AFM / AFTRA, check with your local office. It won't be much, but you're entitled to it, directly or indirectly.
"So should the USA government put a new tax on all blank paper?"
No. The reasoning here is that a blank audio CD-R has a significant chance of being used to make a copy of some copyrighted music. Blank paper has a myriad of uses. The way to avoid these slippery-slope types of situations is to examine the actual expected probability of something occurring. Slippery slopes can be fun, particularly on Slashdot ("They're suing Kazaa because it's used for piracy, thus [...] McDonald's should be forced out of business!") but folks with legal background know how to deal with them. Lots of details must be examined and eventually a judgement call must be made. It's not as simple as many people think.