Why a Music Tax Is a Bad Idea 194
An anonymous reader writes with a followup to the story posted last week about Warner Music's plan for a music tax for universities. "There's been some debate about this plan and Techdirt has a detailed explanation of why a music tax is a bad idea, noting that it effectively rewards those who failed in the marketplace, punishes those who innovated and sets up a huge, inefficient and unnecessary bureaucracy. Meanwhile, plenty of musicians who are experimenting with new business models are finding that they can make more money and appeal to more fans. So, why stymie that process with a new bureaucracy that simply funds the big record labels?"
why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Profit???
At the very least campaign contributions?
Re:why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:why? (Score:5, Insightful)
it effectively rewards those who failed in the marketplace, punishes those who innovated and sets up a huge, inefficient and unnecessary bureaucracy
Well, that explains why Warner and the MafiAA are wanting it. They failed in the marketplace because they refuse to innovate and adapt with the times.
Meanwhile, plenty of musicians who are experimenting with new business models are finding that they can make more money and appeal to more fans.
And of course, that's the other thing that scares the shit out of the MafiAA - the new business models make them obsolete.
Re:why? (Score:5, Informative)
Darnit, bumped the "submit" button early.
I think the biggest barrier to growth is the lack of music talent now compared to the times past which saw explosive growth in the 70's and 80's.
Not true, not true at all. There is plenty of new music talent out there; the problem is that the MafiAA companies no longer want to promote new talent, because new talent are not interested in selling their eternal souls to crappy slave-labor contracts, MafiAA "creative accounting" practices, and multi-album deals where the labels hold musicians hostage by claiming their final contracted album needs to be "re-done" over and over until they manage to blackmail the artist into signing an extension or giving up any hope of ever owning their own music.
Track the MafiAA's supposed "piracy loss" numbers against the number of new albums and new acts released, and you find a linear correlation that has absolutely nothing to do with "piracy."
But why take it from me? Take it instead from someone who's lived through MafiAA Hell [janisian.com] herself.
Re:why? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:why? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the biggest barrier to growth is the lack of music talent now compared to the times past which saw explosive growth in the 70's and 80's.
There's just as much talent now as there was in the '70s. Don't forget there was also quite a lot of crap in the '70s, but that's not what gets remembered. We remember the classics. There was an enormous amount of crap in the 80s that nobody remembers anymore (except for Rick Astley).
And then there's the fact that record companies don't like to invest in new artist (except for artists they created and control), so new artists have to work really hard to get any exposure. Well, I'm sure this effect also existed in the '70s, but maybe it's gotten stronger now.
At least, it did until recently. Now all of a sudden completely unknown artists can get exposure on MySpace or YouTube and score a big hit. Artists and customers in control, which is the way it should be. And that is exactly the biggest fear of the record companies: we're about to cut out the middle man who used to decide who succeeds and what we listen to.
Re:why? (Score:4, Funny)
"Profit???"
I think you mean
step n-1) ?????
step n) Profit
Re:why? (Score:5, Funny)
No. They're too big to fail, so they clearly need a bailout.
Old, lame joke gets new life (Score:3, Insightful)
Because it's easier to sit around on your ass and complain and mutter ominously about job losses while holding out your hand than it is to get up, lose some metaphorical weight and breathe some new life into the industry by - GASP - doing something different. Especially when your lobby group is intimately acquainted with the government.
Reminds me of an old joke:
Q: Why do they bury prairie farmers only two feet underground?
A: So they can still get their hands out.
Substitute "entertainment industry execut
and a bigger why.... (Score:5, Insightful)
So the bigger "why" is this: Why can't we just agree that taxes in general are a bad thing? It's not just the music tax that would be bad, it's almost all of them. Of course some very minimal taxes are necessary to build just enough government to protect our freedoms from anarchy and external threats, and to provide for a very few public goods like roads, but otherwise taxes are bad. Any time you take money in the form of taxes, you are taking money out of the economy that could have been used productively, and giving it to government which, without the pressure of market forces, is not going to have any incentive to use those resources in an optimal way.
And for those who are skeptical, I think I need to go no further for an example than to point to President Elect Obama's appointments for cabinet and agency heads. It's not the "who is appointed" that matters, it's the how freakin' many are appointed. Seriously, its like he's appointed three or four cabinet or agency heads a day for the past month! We started out this country with only three secretaries. Are all these cabinet positions actually providing a service? You've got the department of energy with nearly 30 billion dollars, a department that was created by Jimmy Carter to help us achieve energy security and independence. Obviously that didn't happen, and in fact we've gone the opposite direction, so what exactly are they doing over there with all those billions? Then you have the department of education (also created by da man Jimmy Carter) with what, 60 billion a year? They are supposed to ensure our children have a good education, yet we spend more money per capita on students than anywhere in the world and have some of the worst results of any industrialized nation. What in the world are they doing over there with all that money, besides handing large sums directly to the teachers unions?
I think you see my point. You can go right down the list... secretary of health and human services, secretary of housing and urban development (that's been a real bright spot of success, right?), secretary of agriculture, secretary of labor, secretary of veterans affairs (we need a whole cabinet branch for this?), etc. We've taken hundreds of billions, if not trillions, of dollars out of the economy annually through taxes and given it to these guys. Is that productive, especially in comparison to letting that money drive growth in our economy, which raises the prosperity of every single citizen?
Taxes are a bad thing... they simply allow the bureaucracy to expand to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy. I think Dave Ramsey said it best when he said that the economy is a wild, powerful dog, happy and free. And the government and its taxes are a tick on the backside of that dog. A tick that, in some of the more productive sectors of our economy, is easily 40% of the size of the dog!
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Because, if they don't take your money, they can't give it to other people to buy votes and stay in power. It's a damn shame the Republicans didn't do something about this while they had a chance, now we're going to be in a much deeper hole by the time we get another chance.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Why can't we just agree that taxes in general are a bad thing?
Because that just is not the case; it is an oversimplification. From the rest of your post I take it you live in the US. A lot of US-ians never take the time to see if their mantra of "This Is The Best Country In The World" is actually correct by comparing their own country to other countries. When you compare the US to other countries you will see:
Re:and a bigger why.... (Score:4, Insightful)
poverty rate is about 12.5% [census.gov] One in 8 people in the US live in poverty. That is bad for a developed nation, worse than Thailand for instance.
I agree with the incarceration stats, but the poverty stat is misleading. "Poverty" in the US isn't what it is in Thailand. Eligibility for government assistance is determined by income level, which determines "poverty". Many impoverished people are receiving food, rent, and utility subsidies, which allow them to have food, housing, heat, and electricity on the cheap which frees up their "poverty" wages for things like satellite TV and overpriced used cars. They watch 300 channels of color TV every night, while impoverished people in Thailand are living in cardboard boxes and picking through garbage dumps looking for recyclables to trade in for food money. When you start judging poverty by the percentage of people living in squalor and picking through garbage cans to survive, the US is much better than Thailand.
Re:and a bigger why.... (Score:4, Insightful)
but all of these taxes are not vanishing into a black hole. they are giving people jobs, and this money is used to pay salaries. those salaries are then used to buy things (perhaps even at a store owned by a friend or relative of yours)
its not just roads that taxes support, it's police men, fire fighters, librarians, teachers, soldiers, the agriculture industry, the automotive industry, research grants, small business grants, (and in my country, doctors and nurses)
taxes pay for civilization. sure, things may go way to far, bureaucracy is wasteful and inefficient, but what is the alternative?
Overall, would you rather live the heavily taxed life you live now, or would you like to keep all your money, but have no roads, no public education, no security, no fire protection, no nation defense, no libraries, no public parks, no affordable foods, no technological progress due to a lack of funds, etc.?
Re:and a bigger why.... (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not just the music tax that would be bad, it's almost all of them.
That's strange. In Denmark, if you work full time at minimum wage, you're paying at least 40% of what you earn in taxes. Get a well-paid Code Monkey position and you're looking at something like 50-60%. On top of that, there's 25% sales tax added to everything (meaning 20% of what you pay for goods is sales tax). And there's heavy charges added to certain goods, such as cars.
Yet, we:
If taxation is bad, how come Denmark is such a great place to be?
Re:and a bigger why.... (Score:4, Interesting)
In my experience, the government tends to handle resources at least as well as private corporations. It's just that failure to do so is often more obvious when it's the government (exceptions exist, such as the current meltdown). Prominent examples include health care, energy, public transport, banks, pretty much all manufacturing industries.
Seriously, it's ridiculous how poorly most "free market" corporations handle their affairs, and how corrupt they are. This whole "government is evil, free market is good" idea just doesn't work if you look at the actual reality.
You're missing the point. The problem isn't that government is especially inefficient. The problem is that there is no economic pressure on the government to improve the product. Computers are a good example. An IBM PC cost about $5000 in 1981 when it was released. Today you can get a laptop that far exceeds the original PC for 1/10 that price, and that doesn't even account for inflation. The market exerted pressure to improve the product. They're not made in the US anymore, and they aren't made of armor-plate steel like the old PC, but that's not what makes a computer useful. If it were the government making PCs, we'd probably have 386's about now, still in the same heavy case, and still costing $5000. Keeping the cost at $5000 despite inflation would be hailed as a hallmark of "business-grade efficiency", but you can plainly see it would really be a dismal failure to innovate. Things the government does just don't improve like market-driven things do. The government is just as inefficient as business, but it continues to back the same horses forever, no matter how much they lose. In this day when soldiers are issued polypropylene long underwear and polyester fleece jackets, we still have wool subsidies based on the value of wool as a resource for national defense! I won't even start on the repeated bailouts of various domestic auto manufacturers...
Re: (Score:2)
You figured out step 2!
While we're at it... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:While we're at it... (Score:5, Interesting)
Funny thing is in my neighborhood you can frequently hear some birds chirping like they're reciting car alarm tones and the most hilarious part is they memorized the entire alarm cycle and will do so in the exact order on common alarms.
I'm sure birds in other places have done the same thing, but in order to find out requires actually going outside. :)
Re:While we're at it... (Score:5, Funny)
Those alarm tones are copyrighted and these birds are in violation of royalty agreements. Due to their lack of financial mean, redress will be targeted at the neighborhood associations that let this blatant abuse of intellectual property rights occur unabated.
We will be in touch shortly!
Sincerely,
CAIAA - Car Alarm Industry Artists Associations
Re: (Score:2)
i think i saw something like that in a BBC or NatGeo documentary. they had clips of birds mimicking the sound of car alarms, construction vehicles, and chainsaws with an amazing degree of likeness. but the birds in these clips were living in the jungle or rain forest. i've heard any birds mimicking artificial noises in person.
i wonder if that's the bird equivalent of whistling/humming a tune that's stuck in your heard.
Re: (Score:2)
Let's tax birds singing too.
If they come anywhere near me, the penalty for "tax avoidance" will be administered by 12-gauge...
Re: (Score:2)
It Depends On Your POV (Score:5, Insightful)
So, why stymie that process with a new bureaucracy that simply funds the big record labels?
I think you've answered your own question. Warner Music isn't proposing this for your benefit.
Call it what it is... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Call it what it is... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Isn't that redundant considering the bailouts was extortion?
Many members of Congress were told that the stock market would drop 1000's of points the first day if the bailout wasn't passed and were also told that there would be physical martial law in the streets.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaG9d_4zij8 [youtube.com]
It later came out that it was Paulson who made those threats. Wouldn't that be considered terrorism?
So send them a bilge pump . . . (Score:2)
it's a "Record Company Bailout"
. . . and let them bail themselves out.
Record Company Response: (Score:2)
Why do you hate America?
Not to mention... (Score:5, Insightful)
It taxes (more like fines) those who did nothing wrong.
a new bureaucracy that simply funds the big record (Score:5, Interesting)
You answered your own question:
"a new bureaucracy that simply funds the big record"
If you were a big record company that is the greatest solution ever. They have to do nothing and roll in the cash at the government and end users expense. Straight to step 4) profit.
Why our governments are even considering it is a question we should ask every law maker out there.
Why the nation of the Boston Tea Party is even considering it? Is an even greater question.
Re:a new bureaucracy that simply funds the big rec (Score:5, Informative)
Re:a new bureaucracy that simply funds the big rec (Score:4, Interesting)
No, they were protesting against a tea monopoly run by the East India Company that the British Government was trying to force on them. They only lowered taxes to force their competition out of business so they could raise them again later.
This music tax is remarkably similar to what the Boston Tea Party was in protest against.
Re: (Score:2)
Hang on a sec' - the Tea Party [wikipedia.org] are from Ontario, Canada. What's all this noise about Boston???
Here's a better question (Score:4, Interesting)
Why would any self respecting university volunteer itself for this?
I know my alma mater would never put up with this and I suspect most other universities have the same sense of dignity. This plan cannot possibly succeed.
More reasons why it's a bad idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course not. All of a sudden, how to download music will be on the news. People will make lots of money helping the technology-illiterate use file sharing. Everyone will file share music, because they're being taxed for it anyway. Music file sharing will go through the roof, and profits will drop lower than they knew was possible. That's when the tax will start going up.
Second Issue. All you file sharers out there: how often do you download a whole discography, when you only really want 5 songs tops? Exactly. That whole discography is going to count towards that artist's share of the tax. People do a lot of things out of laziness when it's free.
Third issue. Do you think it will stop at a music tax? Next the MPAA will be clamoring for a movie tax, and there'll be moves for a different fee for everything in existence: a video game tax, a tv show tax, a pornography tax, a sewing kit tax, etc. Once you open that box, it's not going to close again.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Socialism by thousand cuts.
Re: (Score:2)
feudalism, the time of nobility, religion, and guilds is approaching again.
Look how corporations are setting up to be the new "nobel houses". Even the Federal and State governments are getting in the habit of no-bid contracts to "default" companies that get to charge whatever they wish when they were given those distribution rights by some middle manager, not even the legislature. This "tax" is just another step to keeping the cultural "high priests" in the position to which they have become accustom.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Au contraire.
An expanding system of product taxes if taken to infinity IS socialism--you receive no income because you've paid it all in music tax, tv tax, game tax, ebook tax, oxygen tax, etc. And you can have what you want because you already paid for it anyway, right?
Re: (Score:2)
Since it really seems like you are leading to it, why don't you just say it out loud then?
Make them all free.
If that isn't what you wanted to say then, then that's what I wanted to say at least.
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
Given that Canada current has a "music tax" (on blank media) and the courts have ruled that it's legal to download material off file sharing site (but not share material yourself) and this has been the case for some time now... not to mention it's country wide instead of just on university campuses.. Has everything imploded? the tax gone up dramatically? People stop buying music/movies entirely? No. Have they been clamoring for more "taxes". No.
Re: (Score:2)
And how many record labels are based in Canada out of curiosity? Oh, also while we're at it, what percentage of the music buying public lives in Canada?
Shoo.
Re:More reasons why it's a bad idea (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, those big fancy American labels sell here too. Sometimes in this fancy store called walmart. do you have those in america? Well we do anyway, they are very popular here.
What I meant was the local, Canadian market for movies and music, both local and imported, hasn't collapsed despite the fact that p2p sites present a free and legal alternative. I know it's presumptuous to think that a little country with approximately the same population of California could be used as a test case for a country with a population ten times the size but I'd be willing to stick my neck out there and say that it could.
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Actually, I own a large collection of music (over 1000 CDs, albums, singles, and even a few DVDs). I also own a few movies.
There's another reason sales are dropping: people have bought up all the decent (in their opinion) media from the past 100 years, and now will only buy to replace or the very odd decent release. The media distributors are fooling themselves if they think every album is a "platinum" release, even though that's probably what they tell their shareholders/bosses/latest victim. Truth is that
Re:More reasons why it's a bad idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Remember copyright is what protects FOSS... That's why I am a big fan of copyright.
FOSS would do just fine without copyright. The success of FOSS is because of dedicated communities of volunteers and commitment to principles of openness and sharing.
Copyright helps FOSS in the sense that someone can't just scoop up a GPL'd project, modify it, and start selling it without releasing their modifications, but even if they could, that doesn't mean the project wouldn't exist in the first place.
Re: (Score:2)
The success of FOSS is because of dedicated communities of volunteers and commitment to principles of openness and sharing.
The contributions of large, profit-seeking corporations also have quite a bit to do with the success of FOSS. If every piece of code IBM ever commits to a FOSS project could be instantly and legally scooped up by their competitors and rolled into their own closed source project, I think you would find IBM much less inclined to contribute as much as they do. Profit driven corporations are much less likely to give away their hard-won competitive advantage without the promise of something in return.
Without tha
Re:More reasons why it's a bad idea (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:More reasons why it's a bad idea (Score:4, Insightful)
I disagree. When a law is abusive, it is the citizen's duty to protest and get the law changed. Violation of the law should be the means of second-to-last resort[1] (revolution, of course, being the last resort).
I believe the rule of law is of huge importance to the efficient functioning of society, and immediate disregard for any unliked law, even abusive ones, leads ultimately to undermining the foundation of cooperative society.
[1] Special exception: laws which, by their nature, prevent one from further recourse against that law -- such as laws against free speech, laws against the right to bear arms, etc.
Re: (Score:2)
When a law is abusive, it is the citizen's duty to protest and get the law changed.
Why? Where does this "duty" come from? To quote Heinlein (from "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"):
I will accept the rules that you feel necessary to your freedom. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.
Re: (Score:2)
I also believe that Heinlein can be lumped in the same pile as Rand -- take that as you wish.
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I'm not a fan of anarchy. I believe in the positive aspects of cooperative society.
Government is not cooperative; it is coercive, by definition. Anarchy, lacking such systematic coercion, is therefore a fuller form of "cooperative society" than are statist systems. Whether anarchy is desirable or achievable is another question, one which I would be happy to discuss.
I believe that those who take advantage of societal benefits are beholden to observe the rules of that society...
The rules we are discussing are not rules of "society", but of government. Governments are human institutions like any other; they have no special priviliges, and we are not bound to them any more than we are bound to the busin
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Aside from violating the law, there isn't much we can do because politicians were never in it for us; they're in it for themselves and will do anything they can to make more money and stay in office.
Just as the parent said; I violate the law because I do not agree with it. I have written my congressmen numerous times and copyright is still at 90 years and I still can't download software from defunct compani
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So you obey all the speed limits? More seriously, you would have obeyed the Fugitive Slave Laws after the Dredd Scott Decision? Assuming, of course, that you disagree with the DSD and the FS Laws.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you should look up the concept of civil disobedience (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_disobedience).
Of course, it means that one would publicly violate the law and face the consequences directly, not break the law in secret for self gain.
Exactly. There's a big, big difference between publicly breaking a law out of protest against that law, and breaking it secretly for personal gain. I have a lot of respect for people who do the former, and none whatsoever for those who do the latter.
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Wouldn't it make more sense to continue to follow the pre mickey mouse extension rules? (28 years for abandoned works, 56 for maintained ones).
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So how does copyright protect FOSS?
If some big bad evil corp "steals" your code does it disappear off of your harddrive?
Or is it just protecting FOSS developers' egos? So they can feel like they have some power by being able to deny usage of their code to certain people?
Having copyrighted materials never hit the public domain is a steep price to pay to keep your ego inflated. And that's why I'm not a fan of copyright as it is today.
"The Art of Taxing" (Score:5, Interesting)
I read in "The Economist" a while back, that the "Art of Taxing," is like plucking a live goose for feathers.
You want to get the maximum amount of feathers, with the minimum amount of fuss.
So, try to sneak in a small tax, that nobody notices, or can do anything about. Or pick on a small minority, and whack them with a big tax.
Here we have Warner asking for a small "taste" from everybody.
I prefer to "eat alone."
Music Tax is the foot in the door (Score:5, Insightful)
so $50 /m for all the movies and games that you wa (Score:3, Interesting)
so $50 /m for all the movies and games that you want? Does that void laws about taking cams to the movies I payed the forced tax so how can I fined for braking the law? OR going to a bast buy taking a game and just paying $5 $10 for cost of game media and seeking it out of the store? I not shoplifting I just paying $5 $10 to have the game now and not have to download 4GB or more of the game for free under the tax.
Should be tagged... (Score:2, Interesting)
They'll do it because they think they can (Score:5, Insightful)
Warner is proceeding under the assumption that if they apply their big guns to this, they will get it pushed through. Especially for those colleges that would rather roll over and pass the bill to the students than fight for their rights. If I were a big music exec, I'd be doing the same thing. It's free money, even if only a handful of schools agree.
What burns me about it is that it's obviously a money grab, and it's so blatantly immoral it kills me that it's reached this level of attention. First off, why Warner? Why do they get the money? Second off, I'm a musician on the side, and I put out albums on a regular basis which make money here on a local level. If my band's album is downloaded on a college campus, is some of that tax going to go to me, if I have no affiliation with Warner? NO! So not only are they getting money for music that may or may not even be downloaded, they're getting money for content that isn't even theirs to profit on.
It's my opinion that the music industry has an standing policy of "do everything you think you can get away with", which, when combined with the more venerated "better to ask for forgiveness than permission" puts them in the frame of mind to do this. And if they get away with it, even a little bit, they're making money. For those lamenting that these guys are clinging to a dying business model, wake up and look around. This is the new business model! Use your clout and presence to try and get as much free money as you can, while doing damage control on the other side to stem any repercussions from less than moral practices. If you had millions of dollars to throw into a system like this to "prime the pump" so to speak, and you valued a quick buck over scruples, why the hell wouldn't you try to pull something like this? /soapbox
Re:They'll do it because they think they can (Score:4, Informative)
Second off, I'm a musician on the side, and I put out albums on a regular basis which make money here on a local level. If my band's album is downloaded on a college campus, is some of that tax going to go to me, if I have no affiliation with Warner? NO! So not only are they getting money for music that may or may not even be downloaded, they're getting money for content that isn't even theirs to profit on.
Oh don't worry, from the previous /. story:
The idea is that students would be free to file share, but the university needs to monitor and track everything, create a pool of money, hand it over to a recording industry entity that promises to distribute the proceeds fairly.
100-to-1 says this entity is the RIAA and "distributing the proceeds fairly" means funding litigation against students from universities that haven't agreed. You know, just like the "proceeds" from their lawsuits to date. Of course the inevitable end result is that nobody will pirate your music anymore, and you make more money! Beautiful, isn't it?
silly question (Score:3, Insightful)
So, why stymie that process with a new bureaucracy that simply funds the big record labels?
Because the record labels donate more money to policy makers than you do.
It's a great idea (Score:3, Funny)
I personally think it's an awesome idea. Let me tell you why.
A few years ago I wrote a great book. It would have sold a billion copies, but alas, no one else thought it was worth reading. If we can set a precedent with this music business, then we can do the same for books. As an author and a published (because I self-published 20 volumes) I should be entitled to a cut of the proceeds when we start taxing universities for students that copy ebooks. It's the logical next step.
I'm also an amazing artist, the Michael Phelps of the art world. Alas, no one has bought my work "Ruled 8x11 Sheet of Paper" and instead, millions of so-called printers are infringing my copyrights.
SO yeah, this is a good idea.
Money for a failing industry (Score:2, Insightful)
There is also the whole "how much does the artist get anyway?"
The internet brings up so much that wasn't around with books- (which was probably the original model music industry was based on) and it seems the question of libraries, fair use, and copyright definitions have been trampled on in so many ways.
Artists are disgruntled with
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The "music business" isn't a viable business any longer. Period. There is no "adapt". You can't adapt to a situation where the sale of your product is undercut by distributors passing it out for free. So any idea of selling recorded music has got to go.
What could possibly compensate artists? Patronage is a bad idea that was stamped out with the death of feudalism. Doing it for ego-reasons - because the artist feels it has to be done - doesn't feed the children or pay the rent. Any sort of tax is goin
Here's one (Score:5, Interesting)
He's been on an independent label since 2000 (he's co-owner of it now I think) and in that time he's sold maybe 300,000 units total. Is that a lot compared to artists on major labels? No, but he makes $7 per CD sold and lots more money doing live shows. He said in an interview that he was offered $150,000 to make an album for a major label and he turned them down.
He's not making nearly as much money as Jay Z or some other big name rapper, but he has full control over his production and full control over his music, something he says is more important than money. I'll leave you with a piece from an interview:
Lots of people, not just the record labels, told me that this wasn't going to be lucrative or that no one was going to care, but I was fortunate enough to believe in myself and say, listen, I'm going to do whatever I want, with or without the express permission of other people. There's no gatekeeper for me. I don't need somebody to co-sign me to put me on.
Anyone who has supported me has never been because I twisted their arm, it's been out of the goodness of their own heart because they felt the truth in the music. So I think in terms of marketing myself, I don't need to create a rap persona, or a different personality in order to sell records. For me, it's just as simple as getting the word out and getting the music to people. The music sells itself, and the message sells itself.
...
I definitely would like people to purchase The 3rd World in stores and purchase it online, but I think it was more of a way for me to express my frustration with the music industry. I can't believe they have the audacity to call anybody else a thief. As much money as they steal from artists, as much as they don't have a health care program for any of their artists, and I look at stuff like that and I'm disgusted. They go to these conferences and tell kids, "How can you steal a record?" I'm like really?
Full interview [wordpress.com]
Bailouts.. (Score:2)
Tax vs. Blanket License (Score:2, Insightful)
So the music industry is trying to sell a blanket license, so that it can monetize its assets without suing customers. Isn't this a step in the right direction? Calling it a tax instead of a blanket license is just inflammatory, IMHO. Some of these companies were built in good faith, relying on property rights as they currently exist, they paid money to own licenses which gave them the right to make profits. That doesn't guarantee profits, of course, but if they paid someone to 'own' the music, what's et
Re: (Score:2)
Wrong. They would like to force me to pay for music I don't listen to, have no interest in downloading, and even less interest in buying. And in some cases (violent gangsta rap), actively dislike.
Not a chance.
Lets change the rules a little. How about a 'software blanket licen
Otherwise known as ... (Score:2)
...a flat tax.
(ducking and running)
Re: (Score:2)
They already have that (Score:2)
They already have that... it's called the RIAA
But I don't want to subsidize mediocrity! (Score:5, Insightful)
This is just a fancy way of the music industry trying to hook up an IV drip tube to everybody's credit card account. It is like Netflix, but with music.
My first problem with this is that the music industry is only interested in promoting big-hit mass-market stuff that applies to the lowest common denominator. Excuse me, but I don't want to give my money to Britney Spears.
My second problem is that I want to be able to opt out of paying for more than I use.
My third problem is that a structure like this gives the music industry too much leverage in the internet world, and I prefer a free internet.
Never, I say!
Re: (Score:2)
Excuse me, but I don't want to give my money to Britney Spears.
That's OK. Britney won't see a dime of it. It'll all go to record company executives, and to their lawyers (to file lawsuits against the schools that said "no").
Re: (Score:2)
It is like forced Netflix, but with music.
Little addition there.
OH OH! (Score:2)
Easy one (Score:2)
"So, why stymie that process with a new bureaucracy that simply funds the big record labels?"
Because it funds the big record labels.
That's the reason!
Ok, next question please.
Possibly Incorrect Assumption (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Or just simply how about no taxes?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
How about no. I want my money to go to what I choose. Just in the music world, there are many, many acts/groups/people that I would refuse to support.
Just as with grouped charities(Combined Federal Campaign). There are many subgroups that I would rather not, and will not, support. Period.
I don't want everyone to have a share. I want *my* money to go where *I* want.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes they would, because even with some sort of taxpayer-supported system the only fair way to get it done is to have some sort of tracking. Otherwise what's to stop me--a person with absolutely no musical talent--from banging a spoon on a pan for 3.5 minutes, chanting some nonsense and calling it music to not only get an ill-gotten share of the pot, but to di
Economically, it's a good idea (Score:2)
It can be shown that under certain assumptions, a free market leads to optimal production and consumption of goods. Those assumptions hold for goods like, say, bread, where over the long run, the cost of production equals the marginal cost, and where giving the item to one consumer excludes giving to another.
Those assumptions fail for goods like music, where the marginal cost is essentially zero, and one consumer having a song doesn't exclude others from having it.
A free market does not result in optimal p
"Public Goods" (Score:2)
People like to say this won't work, but many people buy music and video in iTunes which are freely available elsewhere on the internet. It has also been demonstrated that advertisers will pay artists (television and radio have survived on this fact alone for decades)
Just guessing (Score:2)
Because you stand a good chance of building an empire out of that new bureaucracy and/or are invested in one of those big record labels who failed in the marketplace (or their allies?)
This is sort of like the levy in Canada (Score:3, Informative)
Canada has a levy on blank media (currently just CDRs and tapes, not DVDs), and a right to make copies for personal use. (There's some question about whether allowed copies must be onto levied media, or whether they can be made copy: but it is not a copyright violation to make the private copies.)
There are lots of reasons to dislike this: you have to pay it even if you use the CDRs for data or your own music, the rules for distributing the money don't bear a close connection to what actually got copied, payments are only made to Canadian collectives, it doesn't apply to copies made on the more common media people use nowadays, etc.
The CRIA (the Canadian subsidiary of the RIAA) lobbied to have this put in place because it looked like a cash cow, but lately they've been lobbying to get rid of both it and the personal copying right. This is likely because they don't get a large share of the levy, which goes to copyright collectives first, and is distributed to their members (artists) as well as the recording companies.
It's probably not possible to fix most of the problems with the levy, but it is nice to know that I have the legal right to make copies of music, and don't have to worry about being sued over it. The Conservatives introduced legislation that kept the levy but did away with the private copying right (and promised to deal with the levy this fall, but things didn't work out for either the legislation or the promise). I think the Liberals are also in the pocket of the big media companies, so they will probably support that legislation if it ever comes to a vote.
So you should demand a blanket license to copy for personal use, not just a promise not to sue, and then this "tax" might not be such a bad thing.
Spam spam spam (Score:2)
the civil list (Score:3, Insightful)
No one wants an American car. Few people are willing to pay plastics discs of music. Why are we wasting our time trying to save these failed business plans. The executives are clearly not able to turn a profit. Why do we think the are entitled to their income.
I know that everyone says they are too big fail, and what about the jobs. Well, I still believe in America. I believe that they failure represents an opportunity, not a termination. If these companies are no longer wasting resources, well those resources will be available to other more innovative firms.
As far as the job losses, and 'main street' argument. How many houses have been saved since the bankers stole $400 billion from the american taxpayer. And how many jobs did Chrysler say there were going to cut as soon as their handout is given? Here is a thing to think about. One trillion dollars pays for almost 150,000 so-called welfare recipients. People who have and raise families, pay rent, spend all the benefits at the grocery store for food and necessities. they don't buy jets, figure how to screw a person coming in for a loan, or go crying to washington for a bailout. Here is one thing I think we can all agree on. A person pulling in $7000 a year is much more likely to go out and look for a job, or create a job, than a person pulling in 40K a year making cars no one wants.
"The Creative Business" (Score:3, Insightful)
There's something about art that doesn't readily lend itself to business. Actually, there are a lot of somethings about art that doesn't lend itself well to business.
1. Art is often temporal even though some is timeless. And you just never know when it may become interesting again. But instead of letting the people have their art after a specified time has passed, the business people have bribed legislators to push the expiration date on are back "forever" denying the public their side of the bargain... the side of the bargain that says "we will respect your copyright for a while and then you let us have it."
2. Art is a matter of taste and opinion and therefore has different value to different people. Business puts it all in the same sized and shaped box and puts it all on a shelf with similar prices with no refund if you don't happen to like it or think it is worth it. There is no standard measure for quality, and it is quite difficult to quantify or appraise.
3. Art cannot be duplicated effectively. When art is duplicated and copied, all copies and sometimes even the original loses its value. The industrialization of art demeans the art and the artists. There is nothing wrong with one-hit-wonders -- they are sometimes the best songs ever and if that's all that ever comes out, then that should be just fine and we should appreciate it. Trying to duplicate artists is even worse... how many boy-bands were there before they eventually got so tiresome that people couldn't stand any of them any longer? The same goes for movies... how many "Rocky" movies? How many Star Treks, Star Wars, Indiana Jones or Lethal Weapons will the market bear? There is some value in fandom and unquestionably some movies demand sequels, but how much is too much? And worse, how many of the "same movie" will they make because they thought a "formula" was successful and worth repeating? Will we run out of comic book heroes before they move on the nursery rhymes and classic children's stories?
People are tired of it and getting moreso. I believe we are getting to a point at which civil disobedience is most certainly in order. Copyright law has forgotten its half of the bargain and so I feel the bargain is null-an-void. Screw the copyright industrialists. They aren't the creators. They are just the people abusing and exploiting the creativity of others. Many artists are demonstrably showing their own disobedience to the masters of media by publishing in their own ways. It is for that reason alone that "music taxes" should never be allowed to exist. There is more than one path for money to flow and more than one medium for art to exist, reside or be recorded upon. Bittorrent isn't used exclusively for sharing illegal media and MP3 format isn't used exlusively by copyright infringers. These copyright industrialists no longer and arguably never have controlled the entire marketplace and therefore have no claim to tax the entirety of music or any other art form.
Oh jeez. (Score:3, Funny)
Normally I look beyond the surface to see what is being discussed, but half way through I realized, "Music Tax"?? --And realized that after all the smoke and mirrors, switchbacks and rationalizations are summed up, the convoluted system whereby music has been harnessed by the wheels of industry, "Music Tax" describes it exactly.
Pay tax to listen to music. I'm certain given enough time and marketing, logical arguments could be made to stick for implementing a Sunshine Tax, and a Happiness Tax.
And it's why the Empire is falling.
-FL
ASCAP/BMI/SESAC work. Why won't this? (Score:2)
Three simple reasons (Score:2)
There are three simple reasons why a music tax is a bad idea.
1 - There are people who won't use it but will be forced to pay. Not only people like me who currently get their music from legal sources, but people who don't listen to music at all. This includes people who *CAN'T* listen to music. Yes, deaf people would be forced to pay for music that they couldn't listen to if they wanted to.
2 - The fees will go to the power players. The major labels will make sure the rules are tilted so that indie labels
Cost of a college education (Score:2)
While I agree with most of the reasons given to reject this proposal, I have a different reason for objecting. The cost of a college education is getting beyond the reach of many. Anything that adds to these costs is bad especially if it is not about education. If anything, we should be looking for ways to decrease the cost of a college education.