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$5 Per Month Fee Proposed For Legal Music P2P
Posted by
Soulskill
on Thu Mar 13, 2008 07:58 PM
from the it's-nice-to-have-somebody-do-my-budget-for-me dept.
from the it's-nice-to-have-somebody-do-my-budget-for-me dept.
sneakyimp writes "Both Wired and Ars Technica have reports on Jim Griffin's proposal that ISPs charge each broadband customer $5 per month to subsidize the ailing music industry. The resulting fund would ostensibly 'compensate songwriters, performers, publishers and music labels.'
Although no specific version of the proposal has been referenced, a number of controversies are inherent to the plan: How is the money really divided? What happens when the MPAA, the Business Software Alliance, and various other industry groups want their own surcharge added? What about the supposed majority of broadband customers who never download illegal music? Griffin discussed the plan further at SXSW . We've previously discussed a similar proposal from the Songwriters Association of Canada.
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Canadian Songwriters Propose Collective Licensing 455 comments
aboivin writes "The Songwriters association of Canada has put forward a proposition for collective licensing of music for personal use. The Right to Equitable Remuneration for Music File Sharing would legalize sharing of a copy of a copyrighted musical work without motive of financial gain, for a monthly fee of $5.00 applied to all Canadian internet connections, which would be distributed to creators and rights holders. From the proposal: 'File sharing is both a revolution in music distribution and a very positive phenomenon. The volunteer efforts of millions of music fans creates a much greater choice of repertoire for consumers while allowing songs — both new and old, well known and obscure — to be heard. All that's needed to fulfill this revolution in distribution is a way for Creators and rights holders to be paid.'"
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Your Rights Online: Collective Licensing for Web-Based Music Distribution 236 comments
Two weeks ago we discussed a proposal from music industry veteran Jim Griffin to implement a monthly fee from ISPs in exchange for the legal distribution of copyrighted music. Now, quinthar brings news that Warner Music Group has hired Griffin with the intention to make that proposal a reality. Warner wants Griffin to establish a collective licensing deal with ISPs that would let the ISPs stop worrying about their legal responsibilities for file-sharing while contributing to a pool of money (potentially up to $20 billion per year) that would be distributed amongst the music industry.
"Griffin says that in just the few weeks since Warner began working on this plan, the company has been approached by internet service providers 'who want to discharge their risk.' Eventually, advertising could subsidize the entire system, so that users who don't want to receive ads could pay the fee, and those who don't mind advertising wouldn't pay a dime. 'I.S.P.'s want to distinguish themselves with marketing," Griffin says. "You can only imagine that an I.S.P. that marketed a 'fair trade' network connection would see a marketing advantage.'"
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Ask Slashdot: Will the New RIAA Tactic Boost P2P File Sharing? 40 comments
newtley writes "The RIAA's claim that it'll stop suing people may have serious consequences... for the RIAA. When it dropped its attack on seven University of Michigan students, Recording Industry vs. The People wondered if the move was linked to three investigations, with MediaSentry as the target, before Michigan's Department of Labor and Economic Growth. Now, 'LSA sophomore Erin Breisacher said she stopped downloading music illegally after hearing about the possibility of receiving a lawsuit, but now that the RIAA has stopped pursuing lawsuits she "might start downloading again,"' says the Michigan Daily, going on to quote LSA senior Chad Nihranz as saying, 'I figure, if there aren't as many lawsuits they will come out with more software to allow students to download more.'"
What about some of the other potential tactics we've discussed recently, such as the UK's proposed £20 per year film and music tax or the $5 monthly fee suggested in the US? Is there anything the RIAA can do to reduce illegal file-sharing without generating massive amounts of bad publicity?
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Stupid. (Score:5, Interesting)
And by paying it, you admit it.
Re:Stupid. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
how about a compromise... (Score:5, Interesting)
First of all, let's get a reasonable amount. Like, say, 25 cents a month. Maybe as much as a buck. The BSA and the MPAA can have the same. So can anybody else who feels their Imaginary Property rights are being violated. But in exchange, two conditions:
1) they accept that they can never again object to any form of private, non-commercial copyright infringement in any way, shape, or form, in any jurisdiction this side of the outer rings of Jupiter.
(2)that they are expressly prohibited from producing, distributing, or employing any form of DRM technology in any way shape or form, in any jurisdiction.
Violation of either of these two conditions will result in them having to repay the amount of money they have received from this "statutory license" (or whatever we decide to call it) X 100.
Let me repeat myself. I don't think this is 'fair', but politics, like life, is compromise. I don't think the RIAA deserves this money any more than a mobster "deserves" his protection money. But to be 100% sure that we'd never again have a single case of grandmother being sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars over a dozen top 40 tracks that'll be forgotten in 10 years, and be able to back up my box set of "Band of Brothers" that I paid $150 for, it'd be worth it.
But not at $5/month. I haven't averaged spending $5/month on CDs since about 1993.
Parent
Re:how about a compromise... (Score:5, Interesting)
An excellent idea. But let's add opt-in to it. Not everyone pays the protection money automatically - only those who want it. If you don't pay then you aren't covered. Like...insurance, maybe. If you don't download music you don't need it. Just like if you don't drive a car, you don't need car insurance. If you do, then you buy in.
Parent
Thanks for nothing. Just say no. (Score:5, Informative)
You say that as if duplicating your CDs was ever against the law, here or in Canada. Copyright is supposed to be a civil matter between private parties about the right to commercially publish works. Applying that to personal coppies has always been a stretch.
I recall some controversy about artists never got their cut of the digital media tax, not even RIAA signed artists, and it hurt local artists [www.cbc.ca]. Looks like it never got better [slashdot.org].
I expect ISP fees to be exactly like that. In effect, they will outlaw what's already allowed and steer yet more money to an industry that has long ago ceased to perform a useful function.
Parent
Re:Thanks for nothing. Just say no. (Score:5, Informative)
They won't. This was the biggest year for the MPAA ever.
Parent
This whole idea sounds familiar (Score:5, Insightful)
RIAA wants the government to mandate payments to them from essentially everybody?
That would be like insurance companies wanting auto insurance to be mandatory.
Or hospitals being in favor of mandatory medical insurance.
Or Microsoft insisting on Windows installed on every PC
Or sports teams wanting every citizen to subsidize their business.
or... wait... what were we talking about again?
Parent
Re:Stupid. (Score:5, Insightful)
They certainly get a lot of representation without taxation, for example the blockbuster movie "Forest Gump" made a loss as far as the IRS was told.
Parent
This is ridiculous. (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, if we were talking about a $5/mo (or even $10/mo) fee to be able to download and listen to, burn, copy, whatever as much high quality DRM-free music as I want.... well, suffice to say that I'd be too busy clicking links and breaking out my credit card to make this post.
Re:This is ridiculous. (Score:5, Interesting)
If you know how many people the **AA has sued so far, it shouldn't be that hard to figure out how many people would need to sign up (and which would need to be excluded) to make the running of such an insurance pool a profitable venture.
Parent
$4.99 for RIAA (Score:5, Insightful)
How about. . .? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ridiculous idea (Score:5, Insightful)
The real issue here is the morality of the fee. Those who are pirates download content worth significantly more than $5. This fee would be no problem to a person who downloads hundreds of songs per month, but a technologically impaired senior who wants to communicate with his children who live in another state/country will also have to pay.
If such fee would pass, then I say we should pay $1 to reimburse victims of pedophilia, who were victimized over the internet. And many other types of victims, of course.
My point is obviously that the music industry should have no say in this matter, nor any other industry or company. Or we could flip the coin and make the music industry pay for the rehabilitation of all drug users who snorted coke while listening to Kurt Cobain, or small girls who cannot handle the pressure of looking like Christina Aguilera.
Re:Ridiculous idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Surcharge (Score:5, Insightful)
The "what if I don't want to" argument is a little weak in my opinion. If you are forced to pay it, I'm guessing you would end up using it (since you are already paying). If I had access to all of the songs on the iTunes Music Store, you can bet I would take advantage of it. I don't now because I don't want to pay for the tracks.
The "what about other groups" argument is fantastic. I don't know how someone could reasonably question how something like this become a precedent, causing every group under the sun to suddenly jump out and demand the same thing.
What I worry about is what happens if this goes into effect and gets challenged. I think it's safe to say that someone could mount a good challenge here in the US based on some law. So if I "take advantage" of this forced fee then it gets ruled illegal, do they get to come after me for all the music I "stole"? Do I have to give up everything I downloaded under the plan?
The "how do we divvy up the loot" question is the worst one. Do we put one group in charge (like the RIAA)? Do we really expect them to be fair to all the artists who aren't a member of their group? Or do only they get paid, thus effectively making the a de-facto monopoly? Does that mean there are "good" artists (who my fee pays for) and "bad" artists (who my fee doesn't, thus I can't download their stuff)? Should we let the government run it, thus making it an entitlement bureaucracy? Does every artist get an even share (good for little guys), or do the big artists get more (they are more popular... after all). Does the medium matter? Does my fee pay for me to have the rights to get free sheet music? Why not? If I'm an artist, can I opt out of this saying "no one downloads my music, despite the fee"?
There are so many unanswered/unanswerable questions for this. I don't know how they can push this with a straight face. I'm guessing most of their answers would be something along the lines of "don't worry about it".
The Canadian media tax doesn't seem to have helped much, or solved any of these questions. Why would the US be any different... just because it's a different medium being taxed?
They see $$$, they want in. They could build a subscription MP3 store (real MP3s), band together, and create a de facto (optional) "music tax" that people could pay and use. They don't need to force it through regulation... unless they aren't really looking out for our interests. That can't be true...
Solution (Score:5, Interesting)
-- There should be a license that you pay for only if you're interested, and if you pay this license you're allowed to download music.
By subscribing to the license, you make a legally binding promise to follow certain simple rules that apply for this license.
-- If you also want to make music available for others to download, you indicate this when you subscribe to the license. This again involves a legally binding promise to follow rules that apply for this kind of license.
-- When you make music available for others to download, you must use software that is approved for this purpose. Getting such software approved should be very easy, because the requirements are simple.
One requirement is that this software record and report statistics about how many times each song is downloaded. The money from the license fees gets distributed to artists and music companies based on these statistics.
Another requirement on this software is that it make an automatic check that the software that requests the download displays a currently valid license.
With this scheme, regular Joes who provide music for others have no economic incentive to trick the system. That's important. It means that lots of software can be easily approved.
Music companies do have an incentive to trick the system, so as to inflate their own statistics. Checks against this will be needed. In addition, because of this, the statistics should probably be arranged in such a way that any number of downloads from the same license counts as a single download.
Minority/Majority (Score:5, Insightful)
What about non-RIAA music? (Score:5, Insightful)
NOW they get it (Score:5, Insightful)
Napster offered multiple times to partner up with the RIAA labels to create a subscription-based model. If they'd have kept just 1/3 of their userbase at $10 a month (highly reasonable) and growth had remained flat (highly unlikely), they'd have pulled in $600mil in the first year, without ever having spent a dime on marketing or distribution. $600mil a year in free money with incredible growth potential, and the RIAA wouldn't have had to lift a finger.
$600mil in revenue in just the first year, for doing nothing. And they said no, shut down Napster, and unleashed the unkillable hydra of gnutella/bittorrent/FastTrack/etc.
NOW the RIAA wants a surcharge? No. You had your chance at the golden egg, and relevancy in the future of music, and you chose instead to cut the goose's throat. We're not going to subsidize you now.
Re:Make it voluntary?? (Score:5, Insightful)
P2P nothing.
If I'm paying you a monthly fee, you are going to be hosting a reliable service. You will have an iTunes music store/Amazon store/whatever.
If I pay you, I'm not putting up with random qualities, names, ID3 tags, missing seeders, etc. I don't care how obscure my tastes, you have to host it for me. That's our deal: I pay, you let me download.
I expect better service than P2P for $5 a month.
Parent
And I would pay for that. (Score:5, Interesting)
Just some clarification: I can and do pay for content, and I am far more likely to when I can get it on my terms.
Just tell me where to sign up to the MPAA-sponsored BitTorrent tracker, and I'll pay for it. Here's my wishlist:
I'm not sure how much I would be willing to pay for that service, but it's at least $5/month.
As it is, there's really no service which can quite replace The Pirate Bay.
Parent
Re:I wonder what.... (Score:5, Interesting)
We are laying the legal groundwork for that problem right now (albeit unknowingly). With nanomachines on the horizon, it won't be more than 50 years till you will have access to a formulator capable of replicating a car. But someone will still have to design the car in the first place. We will be up against the exact same problems we are now with music. People will be trading atom-level model files for Ferraris over the intarwebs. Toss in your old car, a design file, and a whole lot of power (assuming we haven't hit, or have solved, the peak oil problem by then), and you get a new car.
It will be the end of natural scarcity of manufactured goods, but not the end of scarcity of energy, good design, or the rarer raw materials. While I loathe the current state of Intellectual Monopoly law, it will be necessary to continue to compensate creators (not necessarily labels) for their work, and the fields where the cost of design can be hidden in the price of the manufactured good will dwindle.
The laws that will protect cars 50 years from now are the laws we are using today to attempt to protect music. Maybe cops will ask for "License, registration, and proof of designer royalty payment, please?"
But then, we'll probably just be the computers' pets by then anyway, so no need to worry.
Parent
Re:I wonder what.... (Score:5, Funny)
Make mine a flying car.
Parent
Re:Distribution (Score:5, Interesting)
> Out of curiosity, what about it doesn't meet that criteria?
How about the bit where they have no content I am interested in, but I still have to pay?
How about the bit that a private group now gains the right to tax all broadband users just
on a suspicion that they might some day download something?
You MIGHT transport my stolen lawn sculptures in your car. Therefore, I want the right to be paid
$2.35 for all users of the public roadways. Now can you see the problem?
Somebody mod parent Troll.
Parent
Re:Apple won't like it... (Score:5, Funny)
I'm gonna head on over to the pirate bay and download shit right now, just to piss you off.
Parent