Slashdot Log In
Warner Music Pushing Music Tax For Universities
Posted by
timothy
on Thu Dec 04, 2008 09:01 PM
from the randian-villains dept.
from the randian-villains dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Warner Music is pitching the idea of a 'music tax' for various top universities. 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. In exchange, the university gets a 'covenant not to sue' from the music labels. It's not a full license, just a basic promise that they won't sue. It's also claimed that this is 'voluntary' but the Warner Music guy says that they need to include all universities and all ISPs to really make it work. It's basically a music tax, where the recording industry gets to sit back and collect money."
Related Stories
Submission: Warner Music Pushing Music Tax For Universities by Anonymous Coward
[+]
Why a Music Tax Is a Bad Idea 194 comments
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?"
This discussion has been archived.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.
Indie (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll allow it only if I can sign up as an indie artists and get some of the money, too.
(read: this is ludicrous and will never happen)
Re:Indie (Score:5, Informative)
Your argument doesn't make sense...
Note that I don't think that the RIAA's proposal here makes sense.. no more than do the levies on CDs and DVDs (and tapes, etc) in most European countries and I believe in Canada.. at least; both assume that you will be making copies of music/video that they hold the copyright 'policing' rights to -onto- those media. If you don't.. you only put, say, your own photos onto them.. tough luck, you're still paying the levy. You can get exemption, but.. you guessed it.. to get exemption status you need to pay a yearly fee. Ho-hum.
But back to your argument, and it ties into something I said above... the RIAA looks after the copyrights and whatnot (yeah, I know, they look after their own wallet, blabla) of -their- members. If you are an indie artist, they don't much care about you (other than your diluting the market and such) or rather your copyrights.. as you are not a member.
So if you have a problem with students (potentially) copying your works... hey, that's great... but it's not the RIAA's task to deal with it.. it is your own.. or whoever you signed with (unless you're truly indie and just do your own pressing/burning, distribution, etc.).. it falls onto you/them to have a similar 'I won't sue you' agreement with the university/ties in question.
So yes.. it will never happen.. but the biggest reason why that wouldn't happen is because you are independent artist and simply don't deserve - technically, legally, etc. - any slice of such an agreement.
Just to make this absolutely clear.. I don't think the RIAA deserves any slice of.. well.. whatever - a university's budget, I suppose - for hypothetical / assumed copyright infringing activities where copyrights they govern come into play. I firmly believe they should have to prove it.. of course the laws, regulations and technical aspects make it very difficult to prove who violated what copyright, while at the same time it's clear copyright violation -does- occur.. so if the RIAA wants to get this sort of agreement in action and a university agrees to it... then so be it. I'd frown upon the university but if they figure it's less of hassle / moneysink than is battling RIAA lawyers all the time, then I can't blame them for being pragmatic at least until the laws are more firmly on their side (which is slowly happening, so I wouldn't sign such an agreement just yet).
Parent
Re:Indie (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Indie (Score:5, Insightful)
That's no tax.... that's extortion.
Parent
Re:Indie (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Indie (Score:5, Insightful)
People who don't listen to music and people who can't. Should a deaf student pay a music tax allowing him to download all the music that he wants if he can't hear it at all?
And why must this be limited to a music tax? Why not a video game tax? A software tax? A movie/TV show tax? A book tax? Hell, let's throw a blog tax in there so I can get some money in the rare event that someone infringes the copyright on my blog posting. Add up all of the taxes and you'd better hope you can download the content for free, because you're going to be bankrupt. Those middle managers in the RIAA/MPAA/etc. will be rolling in dough, though. Oh and they'll give some to the artists too. After removing some "administrative fees" and such from the pot. Yup, looks like there's enough for the artist to buy himself a cup of coffee!
Parent
Re:Indie (Score:4, Interesting)
The two classic counterexamples to your curmudgeonly and frankly unbelievable assertion (seriously, who doesn't listen to music?)
I seriously do not (intentionally) listen to music. I have zero music CDs and zero music files on any of my computers. Hard to believe? Maybe. But I don't... music doesn't interest me.
Parent
Re:Indie (Score:5, Insightful)
I seriously listen to music all the time, but I don't steal any of it and would *hate* paying a tax. I listen to the radio, and occasionally buy used CDs. That's about it.
I odn't know why the /. mods think you're trolling. It must be the same mods that mod medown whenever I mention that I don't have cable because I don't watch live TV. Some people just can't understand that others have different priorities! Either that, or its the crack that's standard issue with mod points.
UNlike schools, which I benefit from even though i don't have kids, I don't receive *any* value from an RIAA tax. It's not some kind of social benefit, it's just a damn consumer product. For most of human history, there was no recorded music distribution and people *still* listened to music - often if you lived in a city. Heck, even water and power are paid for on an as-used basis, not by taxes, and they're a bit more important than mp3s!
Parent
Creative Commons music (Score:5, Interesting)
You must have been living under a rock for half a decade to think that there is only commercial music.
I listen to music all day long ... and every single album is Creative Commons licensed, either from Jamendo (14,000 albums) [jamendo.com] or from Archive.org (300,000 recordings) [archive.org], so I will never exhaust those catalogues in my lifetime. What's more, the albums are vastly better and more diverse than the charts crap.
And your comparison with public services is irrelevant. Music is not a public service, it's entertainment, so my subsidizing someone else's choice of commercial entertainment is completely without basis.
Parent
Re:Indie (Score:5, Insightful)
Public schools? You're paying to help educate the next generation of doctors, scientists, and other useful people. These are the people who will help save your life, extend your life, make your life more comfortable and pleasant. Of course, you're also helping educate the next generation of politicians, but on the whole, they're a minority. Thank (insert name of invisible friend here).
Gas tax? That's supposed to go into road construction and maintanance. Where it really goes, well, talk to your friendly politicians and maybe they'll tell you where it really goes. Or maybe not. Did you contribute massive sums to their reelection campaign?
What Warner Music is seeing is an untapped 'revenue stream' in the form of college tuitions, and figuring that most college students are so broke they can barely pay attention and thus automatically filesharers, then Warner Music somehow, by some sleight of hand and language refinement, is due a percentage of said tuition fees and other contributions to said colleges. Never mind that college radio already pays a yearly fee in order to play music on their stations. Never mind that commercial radio pays a yearly fee to play music on their station. Somehow, if one student downloads one music track, then all students everywhere download every piece of music in sight, and thus Warner Music must be paid. The alternative is massive lawsuits by RIAA et al until the colleges do bend over and pay. What's next, manditory insurance premiums on college students with a 3rd party as beneficiary?
Parent
Re:Indie (Score:4, Interesting)
the RIAA looks after the copyrights and whatnot (yeah, I know, they look after their own wallet, blabla) of -their- members. If you are an indie artist, they don't much care about you (other than your diluting the market and such) or rather your copyrights.. as you are not a member.
Yes, but they already tried (succeeded?) in collecting tax on indie tracks played by internet radio stations, and the indie artists have to write them and ask them for the money, or they never get it.
You can say pretty much anything you want--and i done skeet-shot your granmamma as proof--and it makes more sense than anything the RIAA does.
Parent
Re:Indie (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a term for this 'tax'
Protection money,
You pay the money, or you'll need protection.
It's been the subject of mob and mafia movies for decades.
How are the RICO cases against the RIAA going btw?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Indie (Score:5, Informative)
Sort of.
There was a white paper [eff.org] put out suggesting a superficially similar scheme. Unsurprisingly, the key word the RIAA have missed from the EFF proposal is "voluntary", which makes their claim that their tax is EFF supported highly misleading.
The EFF have published a clarification titled Collective Licensing Good, ISP Tax Bad [eff.org] in case anyone is still uncertain.
Parent
Re:Indie (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps. The argument is that the average American spends something like $50/yr on copies of movies/music so if we funded that indirectly through taxes then downloads would be legal. (I'm not an American, I'm a New Zealander, but I believe that's what they say).
Richard Stallman advocates for a similar thing, a music tax on ISP connections or blank media. Like a radio station that pays an annual fee and and just reports back what they played so that the artists who were broadcasted get their cut.
The problem of course is that these music companies are the middlemen (they're not the artists themselves) and yet they want the majority of the money. In most cases these music companies expect artists to turn up with premastered CDs, so basically these companies are just advertisers and distribution channels. The internet can do some of that.
Any agreement that goes via these middlemen will probably mean that artists will continue to get the same bum deal except now it's institutionalized. And you just know that the amount will increase every year. And what if the university wants to leave the agreement after 5 years... now what? they get sued because they don't have legal safe harbour? Fuck that. These universities are just conduits or common carriers for what the students do. They can't monitor every bit of traffic. If they sign up to this Warner scheme they're taking responsibility for piracy and that threat will never end. I don't see why the university needs to do this as a whole... why not optionally, per-student?
More to the point, Madonna showed that the big money is in touring (she ditched her record label and went with a touring company, and the touring company now release her CD). Madonna doesn't like piracy (presumably) but for her the CD is a promotional tool for the concerts so piracy can actually work for her. Until these music companies turn into touring companies (which is where they should be going) they'll continue to try and force their outdated business model on the world.
So while I'm generally in support for an artistic tax (of perhaps $50/yr on an internet connection) this is more like a ongoing threat. This Warner scheme seems to be quite different.
I would hope that the EFF and Public Knowledge would support a scheme that gives artists a fair share, not one that propagates this music industry.
[*] there are some musicians who don't tour, sure, but for the majority it's where they currently earn their money.
Parent
Re:Indie (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem I really have with the RIAA and music taxes is that they are the middle men and they are private entities in charge of taxation.
They do not answer to the public or even the people who they are supposed to protect. They are in it to make a profit for themselves with government sanctioned rights to collect and operate in ways no other private corporation or individual can.
If it comes down to a music tax I'd rather see the IRS do it. Taxation should be only be done by a government on those who have representation in that government.
The RIAA is taxation w/o representation!
Parent
Re:Indie (Score:5, Informative)
the sad thing is, this sort of music tax is already in effect. BMI [wikipedia.org] and ASCAP [wikipedia.org] already collect royalties from any public venue that has a jukebox or plays CDs/radio over a PA system. basically, if you operate a bar or club you have to pay them a yearly licensing fee, regardless of what kind of music you play or don't play. they have their own auditors that they send out regularly to check up on venues and operate in a similar fashion to the IRS.
even if you play international music that is in the public domain, or music by indie artists that aren't members of their organization (meaning don't pay them a membership fee and thus don't receive their royalties), you still have to pay them. unfortunately, this system removes any incentive a venue owner might have to play music by indie musicians who actually want their music played in public for as many people to hear as possible. i don't know what gives them the right to collect royalties on music they don't hold the rights to (or have the copyright holder's permission to collect royalties on), but most bar/club owners just pay the licensing fee to avoid legal repercussions.
Parent
Re:Indie (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, there's more to PD music than the old, copyright-expired bits.
Having said that - a 20s theme bar? Damn good idea that man, you'd be raking in the cash!
Parent
Re:Indie (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, if it were a genuine 20s-themed bar, he wouldn't be able to advertise that it actually was a bar. What with Prohibition and all... : p
Parent
Re:Indie (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not an American, I'm a New Zealander...
So while I'm generally in support for an artistic tax (of perhaps $50/yr on an internet connection)...
What a great idea.
Any more taxes you'd like to add for Americans while not being one yourself?
You missed the film industry completely. DVDs cost more than CDs. If $50/yr is fair artistic tax for music, then naturally you must be all for $100/yr for movies as well. How about the software industry? I hear that Microsoft products are pirated and that involves the internet. How much additional tax shall you add to protect Microsoft and other software vendors?
Of course, taxes require oversight. It's an odd thing in America - you can't force a business to collect taxes without also allowing them to recoup the costs of so doing. So - how about we add in a just a bit of an extra ISP charge to account for that?
And, there's a precedent for it - how about the add-on charged for every blank cassette recording tape - not a dime of which has gone to a single artist.
Yeah. Great idea pal. Really interesting. And please don't mind if add, fuck me.
Parent
Re:Yes, indies can be included (Score:5, Insightful)
Why on God's green Earth would you want to be complicit with this nonsense that's going to create more work for you with no additional pay? Why on Earth would any university condone the use of university personnel, facilities, etc. to do the work of someone else for free? This is extortion and racketeering, almost by definition folks. The RIAA can blow it out their ear. I'd rather they tried to sue and then get hit for malicious and wrongful prosecution than deal with this utterly ridiculous racket.
I'm sorry, I'm someone who loves music, makes music, and last year recorded an independent album that the RIAA can suck on for all I care. We don't need them nor the crappy music they push at us on a daily basis, nor the ridiculous racket of enforcement they are trying to dupe us into believing is their right. It's not and if you believe it is you better educate yourself before you get on the wrong side of a very messy battle that's just beginning to start. I believe in the rights of artists as individuals, not in the rights of unions, guilds, corporations or other corrupt bureaucracies that have only their own self interests in mind.
Don't be that guy/girl! Tell them to shove it and see them in court! The whole point of being "independent" is you are not at the mercy of the RIAA nor any label. You don't need them! WAKE UP!
Parent
Re:Yes, indies can be included (Score:5, Insightful)
I work at UMass Amherst and I'm trying to get this implemented
Why exactly are you trying to get this implemented? Somebody told you it was good? Got a phone call from the mafia? Clueless? It will look good on your resume?
Your post is modded informative, but there is nothing informative about it except that you're trying to get it implemented. I don't know what position you hold at UMAss, but this kind of blind following is exactly what the RIAA hopes. Do they not teach critical thinking at UMass anymore? Are you tenured or a guy/girl with an administrative job. If you are a guy/girl with an administrative job then I really think you should do some research and gain an informed opinion. If you're a tenured prof/scientist/researcher or whatever, then you should know better.
I am only asking because I'd really like to know what motivates you trying to comply with the RIAA extortion.
Parent
Re:Yes, indies can be included (Score:5, Funny)
Is this what you meant to say?
Parent
Geez...just like 47th street in Brooklyn (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Here's an idea.
Have a student vote, with a quorum of 40%. So, if less than 40% of the students vote, it doesn't count. Then have a student vote. I'd say simple majority, but if half the students don't want it, it may be infringing. Requiring a 3/5th majority. And perhaps limit it to no more than 3 years per vote.
If students really, really want to do it, fine.
By the way, how would this affect off-campus students? Since it's an Internet-based thing, those who live off-campus aren't necessarily under the thumb
Music tax? (Score:5, Informative)
We need to stop taking them at their word when they say their going to give money to artists. They generally don't (unless the artist had a good lawyer, I suppose.) Actually, we need to stop taking them at their word.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I actually don't think that this general idea is the stupidest idea in the world. It would be much more reflective of the way music is produced and distributed now for there to be a more generalised licensing system, rather than a pay-per-track/album system like we have now.
However, the obvious problems with this proposal are:
- why should the RIAA get to operate the scheme?
- who decides which artists are able (or have) to participate?
- why should the RIAA set the price (and not, say, the market)?
It's extre
The Canadian levy is a joke (Score:4, Informative)
They're already getting a chunk of change from blank disc sales
That's what burns me every time I buy a spindle of discs for burning my home movies to DVD and data backups. I used to think it was OK until I read how much the Canadian Private Copying Collective wants to hike the rates. [cpcc.ca] They want the rates to be 29 cents per CD-R, $50 per iPod with less than 10 GB memory and $10 for any SD card with more than 4GB memory, just to pull a few.
I just sent them an e-mail telling them to go fuck themselves (well a bit more polite than that.)
That money is supposed to go to SOCAN which distributes the money among artists [socan.ca] but this bloated waste of office space (300 employees) requires over $34 million per year just to operate. They paid out over $180 million last year, probably most to the CBC.
If you treat customers like potential criminals, then that's what they will become. I used to go out of my way to buy the TV shows I watch and music I listen to. But if I'm paying levies on my blank media and to my college or my ISP punishing me for copies I'll never make, or based on the assumption that I'm going to torrent their shit, maybe I'll just do that then.
Parent
great timing! (Score:5, Informative)
Now that the cost of higher education is falling [nytimes.com] and endowments are growing [boston.com], universities will have lots of money to spend on music taxes!
Alternatively, they could just give every student a free copy of PeerGuardian.
Re:great timing! (Score:5, Informative)
Check his links. The one linked from "growing" has the title "Harvard's Endowment Plunges 8 Billion." I think you've just restated his point.
Parent
Grasping at Straws (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
too many... metaphors... can't... breath...
Where do I sign up? (Score:3, Insightful)
What do they really want? (Score:4, Insightful)
Wrong (Score:3, Interesting)
I doubt that anything like this will work now though, they should have done this in 1997. It's pretty hard to compete with free.
Hm (Score:4, Interesting)
What happens when you graduate and later get busted p2p'ing and then they find your stash from the college days?
Or better yet (Score:4, Insightful)
Just thinking about, I can not see much difference between the labels or the detroit 3. All have had greedy management that is worthless.
Dear Warner Music (Score:5, Funny)
You and your fellow record labels are dying dinosaurs. Someday, people will dig up your bones and declare that you used to rule the world. And then it all came to a sudden, catastrophic end. All caused by a comet called the Internet.
Goodbye, so long, and thanks for all the fish.
extorting protection money... (Score:5, Funny)
"That's a nice university you have there -- shame if anything were to happen to it..."
The Italians have a word for it -- Pizzo -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizzo_(extortion) [wikipedia.org]
They can kiss my ass (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm one of the minority on Slashdot who actually thinks that file sharers who trade in thousands of dollars of goods deserve to be charged (criminally) as thieves, and even I have to say "fuck you" on this. If they do this, I'll have no problem ripping every DVD and CD that was made by Warner and giving copies to every friend and family member that wants them.
Tax me and spy on me to preserve your business model? That's going way too far and enough to make me say it's time to let slip the dogs of war on them.
Re:They can kiss my ass (Score:5, Informative)
wrong. there aren't any goods being stolen or traded. bits are not goods, they are a copy of other bits, which means they are infringing on a copyright. that is a civil matter not criminal. so unless you really believe government money,your tax money, should be spent fighting someone elses private court battles you are serioulsy misunderstanding the situtation.
Parent
Actually kind of scary (Score:4, Insightful)
Definition of extortion (Score:5, Insightful)
Umm, so the record industry doesn't actually make it legal for the students to share the music, they just require their cut and they promise not to sue.
I hope someone more qualified than myself takes this up because they are trying to extort money from the universities in what appears to me to be a very literal definition of the term.
What about after University / What about Ruckus (Score:3, Insightful)
What happens to the file-swapper after they graduate? Their identity is compromised, their activities documented, and they would be ripe for a lawsuit after graduation, no?
Why not allow service providers to perform this service and actually grant a license? I have unfettered access to ruckus.com through my university e-mail, and that works just fine more me.
The mafia does something like this. (Score:3, Interesting)
Wouldn't it be easier to just sell music? (Score:4, Funny)
Seriously...why don't they just sell music online for *reasonable* prices, and screwing around with licenses/DRM. Standard copyright issues would apply (i.e., if you want to make money off someone else's work, you need to cut a deal with the copyright owner), but otherwise, just make it really easy and cheap to buy music.
If they could just do that, I'd actually be buying music - right now I only bother with stuff I can download (legally) for free. Buying mainstream music online these days is generally expensive and/or involves too much hassle/DRM - and the music isn't convincing enough for me to go through all that. I guess I'm just too poor and lazy.
Yeah, your cheque's in the mail (Score:5, Interesting)
The last time somebody did a full-scale audit on one of the record companies, they found that they'd underpaid royalties to over 90% of the artists under contract to them. The idea that this pack of thieves could be trusted within a hundred miles of anybody's money is ludicrous.
Any university with a law school.... (Score:4, Funny)
Should be able to draft an epic "get bent" letter in response to this proposal.
-jcr
mafiaa (Score:4, Insightful)
"Nice university you got there. Be a shame if anything were to happen to it."
Affordable and yet... (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to say this sounds a lot to me like a person who is very frugal going out to dinner with a bunch of other people who order extravagant food options and then having someone want to split the bill at the end.
I mostly don't listen to music. $2 to $10 per month is $25-$125/yr or $100-$500 over the course of a four year college. That's about $90 to $490 more than I would have paid if buying a la carte every piece of music I wanted to buy. That's money I could have spent on things that matter to me.
Will you be as excited about anteing up $2 to $10 per month to cover some routine cost that I pay for and that bores you to tears, just to bring my price down?
To employ a musical reference, does the phrase "tyrrany of the majority" ring any bells?
Tell me why it isn't just fair that people should pay for what they use?
Parent