Support Grows For Blanket Music Licensing 606
Anti-Globalism sends in Ars coverage of a speech by Jim Griffin, who is a consultant for Warner, one of the big four music labels. Griffin is encouraging dialog on the idea of blanket licensing of music — a topic heretofore more likely to be heard from the EFF or the Barenaked Ladies. "Taking music without paying for it may not be 'morally voluntary,' Griffin says, but he admits it has become 'functionally voluntary.' No civilized society, he adds, can endure 'purely voluntary payment for art, knowledge, and culture.' So Griffin's job is to help Warner monetize digital music, and he's convinced that the issue of payment for music is nothing less than 'our generation's nuclear power.' Griffin's most intriguing idea, and one he's been pitching for some time now, is a voluntary, blanket music license; essentially, bringing the collection society model to end users. In this model, consumers would pay royalties into a pot (by paying an extra monthly fee to their ISPs, for instance) and would then have access to all the music from all the labels that participate in the scheme."
But some artists suck. (Score:5, Insightful)
Under blanket licensing, how do I reward artists with good music preferentially to those who suck? Frankly, any business model that has talented artists like Radiohead, NIN, etc earning the same amount or less than crappy acts like Britney Spears is fundamentally broken. I will not give one penny to those talentless pop stars.
Re:But some artists suck. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:But some artists suck. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, this isn't taxation, which actually pays for services.
This is protection money, plain and simple.
Re:But some artists suck. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:But some artists suck. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:But some artists suck. (Score:4, Insightful)
Once again, this is just a way for the big labels to a) get regular, steadily increasing income [as you can't vary what you pay, and the monthly rate will only rise over time], and b) obfuscate which artists should be paid what amount of money.
The musicians will have no ability to check how much they should be paid or even how much the labels are skimming off the top from all the artists.
For the defined goal of 'artists must get paid', of the three groups involved:
1) customers always have to pay some increasing amount of money
2) labels get a large steadily increasing amount of income
3) artists get whatever the labels decide to give them
Given that the goal of the labels is to maximize shareholder profit, manipulating 1) [assuming they can get people to buy into this stupid idea] is hard, because there generally is widespread displeasure at tax increases, but manipulating 3) is trivial and basically unverifiable by anybody except people within the labels themselves.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Music existed long before Hollywood came on the scene and will exist long after they have disappeared. Hollywood doesn't give a crap about music, only about controlling it via extortion "on their behalf".
Re:But some artists suck. (Score:5, Insightful)
And what is better? Is it music as it was a hundred years ago or music as it is now?
How dense are you, really? No music exists independent of what came before. All music is variations on what came before. Music now is music past plus a smidge, always has been, always will be. Music now is not better than music then, or worse, it is only music different. If you truly think music now is always better than music past, you are one sorry sucker.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Exactly. It's not spelled out. It's just 'everyone put their money in this big pot, and we promise to divvy it up between our artists'. And it's not like this is clearly a 'rental/subscription' or a 'purchase', so it's not really covered by current trade licensing agreements.
And given todays report http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/08/jared-leto-hits.html [wired.com] is at all correct, that a group can have sales of over 2 million CD's and still 'owe' the label $1.4 million, do you really believe the labels will setu
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The big difference is that I have to have a body. Music is voluntary.
Your hovercraft is full of eels. You should really give that up, you know.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You should research single payer a little more. Ok, now that you've clicked the reply button without researching single payer a little more, you should stop before you type some more dittohead nonsense and go research single payer a little more.
Oh, and having heard the people who tell you what to think tell you to think single payer is bad doesn't count as researching.
Here's a hint: The insurance industry (and all the associated overhead of thousands of propriatary billing methods and coverage procedures) g
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Welcome to society, part of living here is that we help people who can't afford to help themselves. The payback to you is that you get to benefit from the same system if you ever find yourself down on your luck.
Very true. There is also the benefit of not having to protect yourself from desperate people who can afford black market weapons but not much else, who without government services will fall between the cracks and have to predate on the middle class and the wealthy to survive.
I don't care how badass your special forces training is, or how many guns your grandpappy passed down to you, or how much of a fortress your libertarian dream castle is, if you take away the things that help people, the people who need
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:But some artists suck. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, this isn't taxation, which actually pays for services. This is protection money, plain and simple.
Yeah, but what they're protecting is themselves against the competetion. Their competetion is the independant artists and labels, who are NOT suing their best customers like the RIAA thieves do.
Under their scheme, they get paid but the indies don't.
This is an incredibly ignorant lie. Every society in the world had just such a voluntary system until the advent of copyright [wikipedia.org] in 1662.
WTF is that supposed to mean? Ironic though; when nuclear power was first engineered they said it would make electricity "too cheap to meter".
I'd be willing to bet that this sleazy RIAA goon never heard of open source software or copyleft.
Re:But some artists suck. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
"It's described as voluntary. As in, you can pay X to the companies which join the scheme, and then get carte blanche to download music. Or you can just not bother, and continue to buy music from the specific artists you prefer. If it was mandatory, then it'd be pretty dubious."
Riiight. My guess is that it will be "voluntary" like expanded basic cable is "voluntary" - you don't *have* to buy it, but it is almost impossible to get basic cable at the super low rates. It's not listed on the web site, the CSR
Re:But some artists suck. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's just another form of taxation. I don't want my tax dollars going towards the "war" but it's going there despite the fact.
Exactly. It would be a tax. That is why I oppose this. Unless the government is collecting this money, not everyone is covered. I do not believe it is the role of government to ensure the health of a commercial entertainment industry through taxation. Why does this country dislike socialized programs for the protection of its citizens, yet encourages socializing the support of whole industries? I thought this was a capitalistic society.
Re:But some artists suck. (Score:5, Insightful)
I do not believe it is the role of government to ensure the health of a commercial entertainment industry through taxation. Why does this country dislike socialized programs for the protection of its citizens, yet encourages socializing the support of whole industries? I thought this was a capitalistic society.
You are misinformed. This is a corporatist society, not a truly capitalistic one. The corporations and the government work hand-in-hand for their mutual benefit (not really the benefit of the government as a whole, but rather its individual members), to the detriment of the citizens. This is why socialized programs for industries are highly popular here, while socialized programs for citizens are not.
The solution is simpler (Score:5, Insightful)
No civilized society, he adds, can endure 'purely voluntary payment for art'
So charge for concert tickets, t-shirts, trinkets, datastream subscriptions, and so forth.
Re:The solution is simpler (Score:5, Insightful)
So charge for concert tickets, t-shirts, trinkets, datastream subscriptions, and so forth.
I've seen downloaders use this argument a lot to justify downloading music and sometimes even asserting that charging for music is somehow immoral - "Information wants to be free" type stuff. Of course, you may just be trying to volunteer a band-air to the admittedly completely broken business model...
I suspect that the same downloaders also download movies. I really would like to see somebody make the leap and extend that argument to defend downloading movies. Only pay for live performances? Hope that people will shell out $12 because they just have to see Office Space on the big screen in a noisy, crowded theater instead of the leaked DVD at home? The Big Lebowski action figures?
Anyone care to make the leap?
Re:The solution is simpler (Score:4, Interesting)
you have this backwards, like copyright (copywrong) pundits you don't understand why people go to cinemas. People don't go to cinemas to see a movie alone, however they will watch a movie at home on their own, the reason for going to a cinema is for social events, with friends and colleges or (shock horror) to take a girl on a date. I don't really know many people who will go to a cinema on their own, even for a movie they want to see.
Problems with cinema's are three fold,
1. overpricing, this is because cinemas are charged so much by license holders that ticket sales alone barely cover the cost of operation. Charges for cinemas are so high the copyright holders can make back the cost of production and distribution in just a matter of weeks at worst (the biggest movies can make back the cost of production in single weekend) but yet maintain a 70+ year copyright control over it.
2. Cleanliness, I don't like going to cinema's even with friends or a date because they are dirty, smelly and the staff are just unfriendly. I didn't realise just how bad Australian cinemas were until I went to one in Thailand, ticket was 160 Baht or AU$5 (back to point 1, the copyright holders cant gouge the Thai's like they can with the Aussies) snacks were only 99B or AU$3.30, the lobby and cinema were well maintained and kept clean and staff were friendly (granted this was in the tourist area of Phuket where Farang (white foreigners) make up a significant portion of their business), whilst I could have gotten the same movie off a street vendor for 50B (less than AU$2) it just wasn't the same when taking a girl to see a movie. The movie in question was Indiana Jones 4 so at AU$2 I still would have felt ripped off which leads me into point number 3
3. Quality of movies. Most of the films I've seen recently haven't been worth spending the bandwidth on to download (Indi 4, Clone Wars, Anything with Will Ferrell in it) let alone an A$16 ticket let alone sitting though 1/2 an hour of ads and obnoxious copyright warnings. This is the biggest reason that cinema sales are down in AU, above cost and cleanliness is the fact that movies aren't worth seeing and we get better entertainment out of seeing local musicians and comedians perform in clubs and pubs or going to an actual theatre (plays, with actors from a theatrical society that is grateful for your patronage and doesnt treat you like a criminal).
I'd happily pay an entertainment tax so long as an "Industry Association" doest control it, part of my tax already supports the arts with includes the ABC(Australian Broadcasting Corporation, advertisement free public broadcaster that produces local content and broadcasts many BBC shows) and the AFI (Australian Film Industry) which pays for Aussie films to be produced and distributed (like The Castle, The Dish and Kokoda). Hell I'd pay the MGM and the other movie studios directly (not the RIAA or any RIAA like organisation) if it gave me unlimited access to the movies and shows I want to watch, when I want to watch them, ad free (I'm paying) and DRM free. But the "Industry" doesn't want to do this because they've had a good scam going, being able to set prices and no competition, but the average people have a vested interest in seeing this gravy train end. I can say that I've paid to see more live acts (mostly amateur comedy) in the last 3 months than I've downloaded movies.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
wow.
so who exactly is paying all the actors working on movies whilst they are in development? you?
And you DO realize that not ALL actors are BILLIONAIRES right?
Of course you don't. you probably think everyone who makes movies,music, tv, games, software, or basically anything you fancy helping yourself to is a BILLIONAIRE. That's how you justify taking their work without compensation right?
There are legitimate reasons to be critical of the attitude of some big media companies. Posts like your just help convi
Everyone else sucks, but not me. (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What worries me is that the recording companies will now scrape the bottom of the barrel for talent
Funny, they've been doing that for years and people have paid voluntarily for it.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If it's done right, perhaps what a person puts into the pool only goes out to the artists he or she listens to. So if you just listen to Radiohead and NIN, your fee (less of course some admin portion) would get split between the two bands (perhaps based on number of listens, perhaps based on actual listening time) and trailer trash skanks won't get any of your money.
Probably not how it'd actually turn out, but this would be the best case scenario for this plan, don't you think?
Re:But some artists suck. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see how either mandatory or even voluntary reporting of the music I personally listen to can be considered a 'bast case' scenario.
I would rather see a system where the release of a music recording is sold (rather than a copy). For example, a band records a studio album and goes on tour. They price the release of the album at 100,000 tickets. After they've sold their 100,000 concert ticket, they release the album to the public domain. That's just one example, artists that don't tour or perform live would have to come up with other mechanisms.
Re:But some artists suck. (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it's going to go the same route as wedding photography. In the old days, the photographer would shoot your wedding for a small fee or even free, but you had to pay like $20-$100 per print for the pictures. When scanners and color printers became widespread, people just started to make their own prints from the proof sheets. For a while the photographers tried to do things like print "SAMPLE" over the proofs. But now most of them have switched business models. They give you the prints (or a CD) at cost or even for free. But they charge you a substantial fee for shooting the wedding.
If you think about it, it makes a lot more sense than the old way. The cost to the photographer is not the prints, it's the time, effort, and equipment used at the wedding and in post-processing. Once those costs are paid, they can run off as many prints as they want for almost no cost. So all that's happened is that the cost for the customer is now more closely aligned with the cost for the photographer. I can see the same thing happening with music, where most of the artists' revenue comes from live and commissioned performances. The music itself would be distributed at minimal cost or even for free as advertising for the performances.
Re:But some artists suck. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's spot on, it's really the only thing that would make any sense at all.
The reason why it won't be popular with the industry is exactly because of the multiplier involved in 'running the copies', that multiplier is not in the hundreds (like a large wedding) but in the tens of thousands to tens of millions.
Performing artists with a good income will be exactly that again, performing artists, not studio artists. We'll come full circle to lots of live music.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The initial recording of the album is generally payed for by a loan from the recording company.
The album is recorded and then the band tours and tours to pay it off while receiving pennies from record sales and almost nothing from playing concerts.
Additionally, then The Beatles wouldn't have been able to release Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's, Magical Mystery Tour, The White Album, Yellow Submarine, Abbey Road, or Let it Be.
Re: (Score:2)
If it's done right, perhaps what a person puts into the pool only goes out to the artists he or she listens to. So if you just listen to Radiohead and NIN, your fee (less of course some admin portion) would get split between the two bands (perhaps based on number of listens, perhaps based on actual listening time) and trailer trash skanks won't get any of your money.
And this is unlike iTunes or buying a CD how?
Re:But some artists suck. (Score:4, Insightful)
Probably not how it'd actually turn out, but this would be the best case scenario for this plan, don't you think?
Christ, haven't we [Western society] figured this one out yet?
Don't pass laws based on the "best case scenario". Doing so is a sure way to let the government fuck over the people using law passed with noble intent.
Take a look at child protection laws, the war on drugs, and anti-terrorism laws if you want examples...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Just another ploy (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly.
This isn't trying to be friendly to consumers, and work out a common ground.
Instead, it's music execs trying to figure out how they can continue profiting from mediocrity, while also making it even more difficult for independent artists to find an audience and be compensated for their work.
How do you think this is going to work? Most likely, the pool would be divided among the RIAA member companies, and allocated based on the artsts whose music got played or downloaded more. Considering that they are going to be the same artists that are going to be promoted by the RIAA, and the same artists whose music will be forced into my skull through paid arrangements (do we really deserve the punishment of hearing the same song on the radio 20 times per day?).
Under such an arrangement, RIAA can just deposit their "proteges" into the playlist by paying the radio stations, and then proceed to collect 99% of all money from the pool, which will then be allocated by them - 99% to the company, 1% to the artist... and only a few artists are going to see that 1%. In other words, the system will be even more skewed and broken than it is now!
Royalties based on downloads (Score:2)
I think this should be tagged "suddenoutbreakofcommonsense". Truthfully, though, I already do this. Its called Napster. I pay $15 a month, download as much as I want. From what I understand, royalties are based on the amount of downloads a song gets. I may be completely wrong about that, but that makes sense.
Like on radio? (Score:5, Insightful)
*Again*, this is the same buisness model as radio royaty, and public TV in the country where it exists.
People pay a fee, the audiance of each artist is measured using polling (TV audiance is not exact), and then you give the money according to that repartition.
Last time this was discussed, I was modded into oblivion for simply pointing that the majors were changing their stance on this (before, they hated it). We'll see if slashdotters have smarten up on this.
Look at how different p2p statistics and box office are for some movies: this would be a better system, because at the very least the medium is not controlled by the guy who sells the stuff. Also, no more bullshit about causing 10,000$ dammages for one song.
Re:Like on radio? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Actually they could provide servers to d/l legitimate copies and use an ASCAP model and divide the revenue based on d/l volume.
Re: (Score:3)
Easy:
Buy there merchandise. Go to their concerts.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
> In theory, the money goes into a pot,
> and then is redivided based on what was listened to.
In practice, those of us who don't listen to a lot of music will be subsidizing those of you who do.
Error: Persepctive Missing. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Our generation's nuclear power?" Seriously? You're comparing finding a way to sell music with SPLITTING THE ATOM?!?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Actually I think what he meant was the expectation in the 50's that nuclear power would be "too cheap to meter". If that had turned out to be true then you wouldn't be paying for electricity by the kilowatt-hour, but by paying some small average cost to cover the construction costs.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Error: Persepctive Missing. (Score:5, Informative)
How are people living close to a reactor site being screwed? Did you know that more radioactivity is released into the environment by the average coal burning plant than the entire nuclear industry in the US? Did you know that more people die from industrial accidents in coal power plants in one year in the US than have ever died in Nuclear powerplants (of any cause, including natural) combined with deaths caused by nuclear accidents?
Nuclear power is many tens of times safer than the default energy production method in this country. And using Feeder-Breeder reactors, they could be 10 times safer and more efficient yet.
There is little that annoys me more than people pandering to fear of nuclear energy based on their own ignorance.
There is no greener and safer energy than nuclear (I would note that solar energy is a kind of nuclear energy).
Re:Error: Persepctive Missing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Think 60s anti-nuclear protests. It's our generation's nuclear power issue because of the hell raised on both sides of the fence.
Not sure I'd trust this system (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
... and your chicks for free. (Score:3, Insightful)
Indeed. Do people with hearing deficits get a refund? Or do they have to subsidise others?
To me, this sounds like they're re-inventing the radio license fee, but without having to provide extra programming paid for by that fee.
Or like charging everyone a high yearly library fee, and then expect people to build their own library buildings and populate them with books. Um, sorry, no, I won't have it.
For a fee to be useful, the r
Public auction (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Public auction (Score:4, Interesting)
Mozart died in poverty and had his body dumped in a pauper's grave, John Fogerty wrote the anthems of a generation and later worked as a DJ while other reaped benefit of his songs. The list of artists who created art that made millions FOR SOMEONE ELSE is legion.
Whatever license scheme is devised has only one purpose and the artist will not gain a cent from, it. PERIOD. Its all about money, its all about stealing it is all about business and not about art.
I personally hold all rights on one song. only one. It isn't something that will stand the centuries like Bach but it is my very own. I decided to put it up on my web site to give it away. That right does not exists for Fogerty, Little Richard, and many others. Fortunately I did not get famous so I could buy back my song, and did.
Lets call this what it really is (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I believe the word you are looking for is "Tax".
Re:Lets call this what it really is (Score:4, Interesting)
They seem to be careful to emphasize that they see this as voluntary -- a service you sign up for alongside your regular internet service. It's not so much a "tax" as another commenter responded (which applies equally and involuntarily to everyone regardless of interest or opposition), it's a "license" (which applies, in advance, to anyone who indicates they will or might want to participate in an activity like hunting or fishing, regardless of whether they actually do).
This suggests that they will make it very easy and attractive to sign up in the first place, but then make it tedious and difficult to make use of it, and very hard to get out of a contract once agreed to. Moreover, they will use the participation of some people as a weapon against others in their lawsuits -- they will claim not only infringement damages per-song, but also claim that they are undermining their pay service. Damages claimed will surely skyrocket.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
No, no... a blanket music license would cover performances of the "Linus and Lucy Theme."
And let me guess (Score:2)
They'll allow those the artists who don't pay more money than they'll ever earn through royalties (or anything else for that matter) enough to make up to get their royalties right? They wouldn't just steal the money from those who deserve it right? Right?
Confucius say (Score:5, Funny)
Confucius say "Companies who invent terms like 'collection society' never bring good dishes to pot luck."
From TFA: (Score:2)
I tried to read TFA and got as far as the first paragraph but I refuse to read the rest of it if they are going to make such ridiculous analogies.
Re: (Score:2)
However, even disregarding the validity of the idea, I will admit it is nice to see something different from the usual stories about music company litigation and persistence in clinging to an arguably out-dated business model.
Labels only (Score:5, Interesting)
With an "ISP Tax" they can maintain their businesses as a more or less useless parasite on society, getting large amounts of income and still holding the power of saying who is to become a star and who is not.
Another problem is the small, independent labels, not to mention musicians who manage without a label. Think they'll get any money? Think again. The major labels have decades of experience lobbying government, so who do you think will end up administrating this?
It will also require registering and logging what music is downloaded, which will be a hard task in itself... unless music on the internet is centralized.
Re: (Score:2)
End of professional musicianship? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you're overstating here. This might be perhaps the end of multi-millionaire rockers, maybe. But file-sharing wont be the end of live shows and merchandise. So there's still plenty of revenue sources for the artists.
If by "professional musicianship" you're referring to the top-40 detritus on MTV and Clear Channel, let's hope you're right. I certainly wouldn't want to preserve that system with a federal tax.
I have a revolutionary idea! Maybe we can go back to people making music they love because
No thanks. (Score:2, Interesting)
Hasn't this idea come up before? With CD-Rs? Someone was proposing that every CD-R purchase was used for illegal music CD copies, so a "music label" tax would be applied to all CD-R purchases.
This is basically the MPAA asking the government to enforce its copyrights yet again. Copyright is a CIVIL matter, not a CRIMINAL matter. The criminal judicial system has no business helping the MPAA enforce its copyrights.
I don't buy music because I don't care about music that much. I liste
Just as long as I can decline to opt in (Score:4, Insightful)
Fine and dandy, as long as I've got the option of not paying the fee and not getting access to the music. I don't care for most of the stuff the major labels put out, and I'd rather not pay for something I've no interest in getting. If I want music from them I'll pay for the items I want, thank you very much.
Ugh, I meant RIAA. (Score:2)
Voluntary payment (Score:5, Insightful)
' No civilized society, he adds, can endure 'purely voluntary payment for art, knowledge, and culture.'
Really. Because I'm pretty sure that almost every society on the planet Earth has had art, knowledge, and culture work that was for several millenium, if not longer. I'm reasonably sure nobody paid the guys who made cave paintings. Art, knowledge, and culture - the REAL stuff, as opposed to, say, Brittany Spears and the line, are produced by volunteers in their spare time. They do it because they have a burning passion to do so, and financial considerations tend to be secondary, if not tertiary.
Re:Voluntary payment (Score:4, Insightful)
Because I'm pretty sure that almost every society on the planet Earth has had art, knowledge, and culture work that was for several millenium, if not longer.
I agree.
Art, knowledge, and culture - the REAL stuff, as opposed to, say, Brittany Spears and the line, are produced by volunteers in their spare time. They do it because they have a burning passion to do so, and financial considerations tend to be secondary, if not tertiary.
Oops, now your brush strokes have gone far too wide.
Many of the greatest works of art ever realized were created, at least in part, to earn money for the artist.
The Sistine Chapel is a perfect example. While revered as Michelangelo's greatest work, he supposedly reviled creating it for the Pope at the time, who was paying him to do it.
Many classical artists, such as Mozart, created and performed art for money, usually a rich benefactor, monarch, king, etc. was paying them to create the work in their honor.
My point is, I don't care why an artist creates something. If I like it, I like it. Don't try and diminish someone's work simply because you disagree with their lifestyle.
We've been over this... (Score:2, Insightful)
"In this model, consumers would pay royalties into a pot (by paying an extra monthly fee to their ISPs, for instance) and would then have access to all the music from all the labels that participate in the scheme."
Haven't we already voiced loudly what this kind of shit leads to?
music gets their cut,
tv demands their cut,
radio demands their cut (because everyone records the non-music time),
movies demand their cut,
video games demand their cut,
book publishers demand their cut,
magazine publishers demand their cu
No thanks (Score:4, Insightful)
Not paying monthly fee ... (Score:4, Insightful)
I have said it before, and I will say it again.
I am not going to pay a monthly fee on my internet connection or anything else to "excuse" me for all of the copying I don't do.
I don't download music, I buy music. I buy a lot of music -- this year, about $800 on CDs so far, most of that from 3 record labels, and not mainstream ones. The artists I listen to aren't covered under your Brittany-where's-my-panties-Spears tax, and aren't on those labels who are trying to benefit from this.
The last thing I want to see if some *(&^%(*& monthly surcharge on having an Internet connection to help offset the losses to artists I don't listen to.
Everybody who proposes one of these surcharges really needs to be fed their own head in very small pieces, because it's a stupid idea, doesn't address the issue, and won't be paying the artists I listen to. It basically is an attempt to have their revenue stream guaranteed by law.
Cheers
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's why he's proposing a voluntary scheme, not a mandatory one.
There are plenty of ways "technically voluntary" becomes "effectively compulsory". I can think of several off the top of my head, but the most obvious is: Record company offers some sort of incentive for ISP to sign up more customers to the scheme. ISP adds £1 to every customer's bill and sends an email explaining that you'll be paying the "voluntary RIAA Charge" unless you opt out. The opt-out process will be about as straightforward as cancelling AOL [putfile.com].
Either that or it'll be "voluntary" in
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Not really. The music I like I'm willing to pay for, so that the artists and the labels I like know I support them and then they make more good music that I like and will buy.
I realize most people would just as soon download for free from the internet. I place a lot of value on my music, and I think the people who make it deserve to get paid.
Of course, once I buy the CD, I'm going to rip it to MP3, play it on my iPod, make mixed CDs, an
How about (Score:2)
How about they stfu and go out of business forever? K thx bye.
And Then... (Score:5, Interesting)
(1) They have a guaranteed, mandatory monopoly forever.
(2) And they don't have to produce anything anymore.
And where do unsigned artists come into play? (Score:4, Insightful)
This looks like a pretty interesting (dare I say, good?) scheme to get us consumers to actually pay for the music we get off the web. However, the problem I'm feeling from it is that this is still very label oriented. What about musicians who want to make a living off their music online but don't have a label? How do they get involved?
Another sticky wicket would be dividing up the cash in the pool for the artists. A good point had already been brought up by a poster to whom I replied earlier. How can we consumers use this system to benefit the artists we like, and avoid lining the pockets of those we don't? Is there some kind of download tracking? Registration (or other tracking) of songs? And then, do all artists get the same share of the pie, or does it vary based on number of plays, actual play time, or some other scheme?
If the questions get ironed out, and this is something which can be opted into (as opposed to being unilaterally fobbed on us) I wouldn't mind paying a bit extra each month to support my favourite acts. But only if the concerns about how it works are answered.
Supply and demand: a recap (Score:5, Insightful)
Let us ignore all the various government intrusions that try to subvert the real market laws: supply and demand.
When you have a limited supply of an item, and some demand, the price tends to go up. When you have an unlimited supply of an item, and some demand, the price tends to go down.
Music, or any content that can be distributed digitally, can have near infinite supply. The price, in such a case, may fall to zero. Some people will have some "moral imperative" to paying the original artist, but in reality the current distribution does NOT pay the original artist. Look at how the coward monopolists at BMI distribute royalty license fees.
There's a great catch, though, and one that I've used to help small bands make a pretty decent buck: find out what you have that can be sold in limited supply.
For musicians, their live performances are always going to be in limited supply. The music, since it is infinite in supply and has a value of zero in terms of quality between licensed and unlicensed copies, should be a marketing item.
Make your money the way most of us here make it: by doing new work for new customers. Your old work, as ours, is a great portfolio tool to attract new clients. Once you've gotten the clients' attentions, offer them value added items. Instead of hoping to get $15 for a CD that they can download for nearly nothing, offer an autograph session and only autograph your CDs. I own an offset print shop, and we can do custom CD runs for almost nothing. Sell collector's items, autograph them, and you've got a valid limited-supply product. Sell limited-run T-shirts. Offer personal time for your wealthy fans to hang out back stage, at a fee, or even offer online or IRL lessons to groups of fans.
A person's pay is not for work they've done in the past. No one pays their plumber a license to flush their toilet. No one pays their plumber a fee when they use the plumber's tactics to fix their own toilet again. Past work is relatively worthless if it can be mimicked by others, easily.
Copyright only exists today because of the momentum of it. It is dying a quick death. There are artists out there who moan and complain about it, but they're the ones who just can't see the forest for the trees: writing music, creating drawings, etc, is no different than going to plumbing school. Your labor of creation is the lesson time you spend to figure out a way to sell your future labor. Write a song, learn to fix toilets: they've both education. YOu don't get paid to learn to fix toilets, you don't get paid to write your own music. Both steps take you to the next level: finding customers to sell your services to.
Re:Supply and demand: a recap (Score:5, Insightful)
Music CD-R (Score:2)
If I burn a Linux boot CD to a Music CD-R, where do I go to get my media surcharge refunded?
We already have this.. (Score:3, Insightful)
amazing solutions (Score:5, Insightful)
from people who still don't understand how the fundamentals have changed
recorded music is now nothing more than an advertising vehicle for artists. if some old timers have a problem conceptualizing that, imagine the business model of radio: it gave music away for free in order to sell ad spots and create buzz. got that? apply that concept to recorded music now. welcome to present day reality
artists: no more coasting on royalties. you'll have to do regular work, concert gigs, to make a living like the rest of us mortals, or be spokesman for advertisers. you'll still be disgustingly rich and get lots of blow jobs from eager female fans. i don't exactly empathize with your plight of losing royalties
distributors: the internet has replaced you. you can't compete with free, sorry, enjoy your extinction
It's only taken them TEN YEARS! (Score:5, Insightful)
Will someone please give these clowns a clue pill?
Unusual economics (Score:3, Insightful)
No civilized society, he adds, can endure 'purely voluntary payment for art, knowledge, and culture.
That might be true for things like sculptures or books or theater tickets, but that's only because all those things are scarce and have a marginal cost to produce. If I can take all the books or paintings in a physical store home with me without paying, then yeah, that's probably not going to be workable. The marginal cost of a digital music file (or movie, or ebook) is basically zero.
Blanket licenses works great - a good model (Score:5, Informative)
I have some direct experience with blanket music licenses, and they work well.
Churches are big users of music, both traditional and modern. They have to deal with issues of duplication and performance rights for 6-10 songs, every week. The level of effort needed to clear copyrights song-by-song would be impossible.
Ten years ago, the Church Copyright License [ccli.com] was created, representing the catalogs of 120 publishers. After one year, they had 9,500 annual licensee holders. They now have over 170,000.
The churches pay a very reasonable annual fee, and get blanket permission to reproduce and perform any songs in the combined catalogs. There are sensible limits on what can be done legally, all basically to the effect of limiting the use to a normal church service.
A random sample of licensees are sent an audit form each year, and they record all the music they've used during the past few months. CCLI also provides software to do the accounting work, so the audit can be completely automated if the church wants.
Payouts to the copyright holders are done in proportion to the usage audits. The payout ratio is very fair. I know several song writers and performers who receive royalty checks, so I know the system really does work.
I've written some hymns myself (New Hymns for Worship [newhymns.org]), and have looked over the CCLI contracts in detail. They look pretty clean (but IANAL). Although I ultimately decided to publish under a Create Commons license instead, if I had wanted to make money, I would have definitely signed up with CCLI myself.
So, blanket licenses can work. They don't need to be expensive. They let consumers roam freely through whole catalogs of music. It's a good model.
voluntary payments vs voluntary payments? (Score:5, Insightful)
"No civilized society, he adds, can endure 'purely voluntary payment for art, knowledge, and culture. [...] Griffin's most intriguing idea, and one he's been pitching for some time now, is a voluntary, blanket music license;"
Wait. Voluntary payments don't work, so here's a voluntary payment scheme?
Vital importance to "society?" (Score:3, Insightful)
If you globally replace "society" with "recording industry" in the article, then statements like
become correct.
I guess I missed the part where society is critically dependent on the recording industry.
Mandatory Warner Profits (Score:4, Insightful)
Blah blah blah Warner consultant blah blah blah mandatory payments to Warner blah blah society cannot otherwise survive blah blah blah here's my invoice.
If record corps just used free distribution of music to promote the live concerts, T-shirts and other physical transactions they can actually control, and licensed hits to cross-promote other merchandise like in commercials, they'd have an excellent business model. Without the arbitrary overhead and guaranteed profits (despite terrible business work, and mostly terrible "art").
Just admit that the record contract and sales model was a ripoff from the start that could last only a century, and harness the power of fans directly promoting the products they can sell. And stop insulting us with claims that "what's good for Warner is good for America".
In other words, pay the gangsters "protection" (Score:3, Insightful)
RS
I'd probably go for it... (Score:3, Interesting)
If the system is fair then those who have more of their music listened to would receive more money which sorts out shit artists but unfortunately also under appreciated artists.
Bad idea on all counts (Score:3, Interesting)
First of all, it's blanket schemes like this which have allowed the existence and/or assured the continuation of the various music mafia groups -- RIAA (particularly in its SoundSource guise), ASCAP, and BMI to name three.
Second, these blanket schemes often seem to somehow get manipulated to benefit not those who are better, or even more popular, but those who are best connected
Third, where they do benefit those who are more popular, they do not do so proportionally; the superstar gets an even greater portion of the spoils than his superstardom should indicate, and the little guy gets not the little bit he should but nothing at all.
Fourth, they ain't called the music mafia for nothing -- they're known for their shakedown tactics. With this, in addition to shaking down small restaurant owners with the temerity to host a band, or anyone with an IP address, they'll shake down ISPs as well.
And finally, why the hell should I, as a person who does not listen to music, pay for you music-addicted freaks who can't put your iPod (oh, excuse me, Ogg Vorbis compatible music player) down for 10 seconds without withdrawal pains? You want music, pay for it yourself; you've got no legitimate claim on my money.
If payment for music were voluntary... (Score:3, Interesting)
...then only artists would get money for music!
That would utter KILL the music copyright industry.
It's hard to know if the music copyright industry actually serves the interests of the artists. It is unquestionably true that the massive marketing muscle of the music copyright industry makes marketed artists "famous." And it unquestionably valuable to the artists. But where the problem begins is where the artists compensate the marketers by assigning [exclusive] copyrights to their music. Marketers have a right to be paid, but I have to disagree with their right to sue without the approval of the artists.
To that end, I don't believe copyrights, and especially the rights to sue for violation or infringement of copyrights, should not be transferable. If this were to happen, I believe sanity could be restored to the whole problem of the industrialized copyright where a copyright can extend to 99 years after the death of the artist ostensibly to take care of the families of the artists which we know is utter crap since it is not the 'families' but the copyright industrialists who are collecting the royalties on copyrighted material. So while the duration of copyright is still tied to the status of the creator, it is still all about the copyright holder, more specifically, the copyright industrialists who aren't creating anything at all. This goes well beyond the intent of copyrights which, as far as I understand it to be, intended to allow an author to benefit from his works exclusively for a limited time. Instead these extensions of copyright are serving and is in fact the basis of the copyright industry.
And while many artists dream of becoming the next "big thing" I would argue that they don't deserve it. The best art has always been for the sake of good art and should always be for that reason. There's nothing wrong with being the next "big thing" if it happens to go that way and your work merits such recognition on its own. But the damage caused by the marketing muscle of the copyright industrialists has also caused the truly deserving to be ignored by thrusting the likes of B.Spears or whatever the current bubble-gum-pop-artist-of-the-day may be. So now the copyright industrialists have succeeded in creating an environment owned by them and controlled by them, and the price of admission into their world is that they must own everything you create... your life's blood. (Prince learned this all too well didn't he?)
So much of this whole issue could be cleared up by taking away the ability to transfer copyright and leaving it, and derivative works forever in the hands of the original creator. Would their still be a "music industry?" Yup! There certainly would. And would they find ways to keep abusing artists? Most likely. But when the right to sue is removed from the industry and placed squarely in the hands of the artists, I think we would see a different kind of industry emerge... and one that would be a lot more friendly to the fans. (Imagine how the public could turn on an artist the moment a lawsuit is filed against a fan... the fans would fall away and "fame" would become notoriety and disappear.)
Why is sanity so hard to achieve and so easy to lose?
Have you got any gray poupon? (Score:3, Interesting)
No civilized society, he adds, can endure 'purely voluntary payment for art, knowledge, and culture.'
When I go to the Symphony, and listen to "Pictures at an Exhibition", I'm voluntarily paying to listen to a piece that I probably have half a dozen copies of already.
Is the logic here that the symphony isn't culture, or that it's not art, or that it's not civilized?
Fine with me except... (Score:3, Insightful)
...it is probably a camel's nose for a compulsory scheme wherein all Internet users would pay a "tax" to the RIAA.
Canada Already does this (Score:3, Interesting)
In a way Canada already does this.
For some time now Canadians have been paying a fee on every ipod, on every piece of digital media (CDR's and DVD-R's etc...) due to the supposed copying of music. These fees were then supposed to go to the Canadian version of the RIAA, which would then in turn disperse the monies to the artists.
That is my understanding anyway. I wonder how that is working? I wonder if a single cent has ever made it to the artists themselves, or if this has just been basically filling the lobbyist's war chest for lawsuits and paying off political officials.
By my tone you can probably guess how I think it will turn out.
I am not sure these blanket schemes are the way to go. Perhaps if the wording was stronger and the enforcement more profound, then perhaps.
Re:So what about us? (Score:4, Interesting)
What about me? I don't want to pay any sort of music tax. I spend maybe 20 hrs per year choosing to listen to music of my own volition and all of that is from music I purchased in CD format ~10+ years ago. I don't download music and I don't listen to music radio, why would I want to subsidize those who do?
-Billy
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In this model, consumers would pay royalties into a pot (by paying an extra monthly fee to their ISPs, for instance) and would then have access to all the music from all the labels that participate in the scheme.[emphasis added]
If we're going to be paying our ISPs royalties on top of what we already pay them, then they'd damn well better not unreasonably throttle or cap our traffic, and they should give us specific bandwidth and/or data limits instead of slimy "magic mystery numbers subject to change and nyah nyah we wont tell you what they are" contract clauses.
It also depends on how many labels participate in the "scheme"...as in, "all of them". I want more than music from the Humble Christian Rock or the Polka Plus! labels.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Sorry, no. Modern music is crap because the music industry operates very differently now than it did in the 50s, 60s, 70s, or 80s. Any good music that's out there doesn't get publicized by the big labels.
What I'm seeing these days is that teenagers are listening to the music I listened to as a kid, because the music of their own generation is crap.
Re: (Score:2)
It's probably for those of us who are too cheap to go to iTMS, and instead get our music via p2p applications, Last.fm, etc.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Honestly, I've no interest in iTunes are any music store, their selects are always more limited than you find out there in torrent land. iTunes has a decent selection although I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole as the interface sucks and is highly invasive to a Windows machine adding a number of other services.
Then of course there is the problem that the library is difficult to move around, the whole plugging an ipod into a Windows machine wiping the ipod if you're a mac user primarily. Lots of littl
Lossless format (Score:3, Informative)
If the downloads aren't encoded in a lossless format, and if Time Warner expands their bandwidth metering trial, then I'll be sticking with CDs thank you.
CDs are not a lossless format - They're sampled at 44.1 kHz and digitized at 16-bits. DVDs do a little better. But the only lossless format is live and unamplified.
I realize that you were probably just saying that your minimum quality standard is what's available on CD, but some of the lossy formats are damned close and I'm convinced that most people who complain about compression effects in high bitrate lossily but intelligently compressed music are just experiencing psychosomatic effects and probably co