Slashdot Log In
Support Grows For Blanket Music Licensing
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Aug 19, 2008 01:38 PM
from the pay-me-once-and-be-done-with-it dept.
from the pay-me-once-and-be-done-with-it dept.
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."
Related Stories
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
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)
Parent
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.
Parent
Re:But some artists suck. (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:But some artists suck. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
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.
Parent
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.
Parent
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.
Parent
Re:But some artists suck. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
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.
Parent
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.
Parent
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.
Parent
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?
Parent
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.
Parent
Everyone else sucks, but not me. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
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.
Parent
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.
Parent
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.
Parent
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...
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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!
Parent
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.
Parent
Re:Like on radio? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
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: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.
Parent
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).
Parent
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.
Parent
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.
Parent
Confucius say (Score:5, Funny)
Confucius say "Companies who invent terms like 'collection society' never bring good dishes to pot luck."
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.
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.
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.
Parent
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
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)
Parent
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?
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?
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".
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
Parent