EFF's New File-Sharing Scheme 244
carpoolio writes "Wednesday at the Future of Music's Music Law Summit, the Electronic Frontier Foundation proposed a new licensing plan so file-sharing sites can operate, and musicians can get paid. The idea is based on the ASCAP/BMI radio music licensing schemes. But still, the RIAA seems happy to continue suing, and wait for iTunes and Napster to catch on more."
Am I the only one (Score:2, Insightful)
Musician getting paid?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Fair is good (Score:5, Insightful)
Artists need to be compensated for their work
(except the ones that show you how hard they live on cribs , the show that rubs the consumers face in how much they fleeced you for)
Bad premise (Score:5, Insightful)
It is a good step in the right direction to show the record labels new and interesting ways to make money, but in the end any solution must rely on the power of the law to enforce the payment of artists.
iTunes works (Score:3, Insightful)
Useless (Score:5, Insightful)
If it hadn't been done before... (Score:5, Insightful)
1. RIAA is busy [over]reacting to file-sharing
2. RIAA will never be able to stop file-sharing
3. There's gotta be a compromise. Maybe this is it.
I won't be surprised if the RIAA cold-shoulders it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bad premise (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Orders of magnitude. (Score:3, Insightful)
seems like $5/month per person is a hell of a lot more than someone buying one or two $10 albums a year.
A Day Late, $0.99 Short (Score:5, Insightful)
You know as well as I that for every existing P2P client system that goes legit, two more "rogue" systems will pop up because "Music Must Be Free!"
Through intense marketing, clever user interfaces, relatively lax DRM, and brutal scare tactics and legislative knuckle-dusting, the RIAA has begun to put the genie back in the bottle. You think they're ging to throw in with their ol' friends the EFF now? Sh'yeah...
Re:Hrmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No sir, I don't like it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well if you canceled your service then they wouldn't know wether you had the music still or not. If they came after you and said you still had it then there would be an invasion of privacy if they knew for a fact. If they just came after figureing you would have kept it then that would not only deter anyone from using the service but also would have legal ramifications for going after someone like that.
Internet radio under seige (Score:5, Insightful)
Performance rights can easily be handled through Digital Age Fan Clubs, who better, right? Time for ASCAP/BMI/RIAA/MPAA to disappear. Musicians are doing just fine, thank you.
The Internet is the independent musicians' radio. Why take it away by imposing old business models on it?
Tom
Labor Theory Of Value (Score:3, Insightful)
You ask "Why should a quick tinkle on a xylophone be better rewarded than months of work on an orchestral masterpiece? "
Why ? Because that's the way the world is. If you spend 8 hours a day building a highly creative straw statue in your backyard while I spend same 8 hours mindlessly slogging in a corporate IT outfit, guess who gets paid at the end of the month ? Your creative impulses are fine, but nobody wants your straw statue
Re: If it hadn't been done before... (Score:2, Insightful)
I think we are already past the point where a compromise with the RIAA is still possible. Most people will simply not accept any plan where the RIAA or its successor or anything similar to it is allowed to exist in any form.
An acceptable compromise would be one where the artist is the one in control of the distribution of their work, and also the one who actually gets paid. Which is exactly the opposite of the current situation.
Re:Labor Theory Of Value (Score:4, Insightful)
In a fair market, the orchestrator would look forward to $100,000 rather than a measly $100, that the xylophonist who just happens to be able to do a 20second cover version of stairway to heaven can get.
Conan The Barbarian can't make rules for Superman (Score:4, Insightful)
3 billion profit vs 11 billion turnover (Score:3, Insightful)
The 3 billion is overstated through, as it does not include lost sales via other sales channels like cd's etc., nor does it include the investments that the record companies need to make to produce the music.
The other reason I think it will not work is because it is very disruptive for the established industry. It directly states that it aims to cut out the middle men like record companies and retailers. These people will not like to be pushed out of the way/job, and will defend the status quo with hand and tooth.
On the other hand: it would be cool, as plain cd's will fall out of the market, they will have to offer something tangible that can not be shared over p2p networks instead. Record stores will transform into clothesshops?
Re:No sir, I don't like it. (Score:3, Insightful)
The EFF is treading on thin ice. What have they produced to qualify them as participants in the discussion?
Re:Orders of magnitude. (Score:2, Insightful)
The reality is, they will make less money either way, and will need to reprioritize their spending either way. A collective plan, or charging a penny or less a track, are the only ways I see them adjusting to what the populace wants (and now knows is possible).
No, you are not alone... (Score:2, Insightful)
It won't work with any P2P application that is not providing detailed downloads/uploads statistics to the music industry (or any other third party that is supposed to determine how much of the cake is each artist entitled to get): they can't possibly monitor every exchange on every P2P network.
Re:Bad premise (Score:3, Insightful)
1. They're not paying because of a moral objection to the RIAA's business practices.
2. They're not paying because they don't trust DRM.
3. They're not paying because they don't have to pay.
Think back to your college days; chances are you weren't independently wealthy. Considering that, which scenario do YOU think is the most likely?
I'll use iTunes. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Then again, I'm the kind of musical reject who actually buys Klezmatics CDs and has never actually heard "Hey Ya" all the way through (not through any effort of my own, it's just that I don't listen to the radio that much). I guess I'm really not their target market. But God Forbid I download MP3s of music they haven't published since the 1970s, because somehow copying something they aren't selling is stealing their profits!
Re:No sir, I don't like it. (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope these guys don't do their own taxes!
The problem with all this... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No sir, I don't like it. (Score:3, Insightful)
1) In regards to getting artists on board, their solution for people who don't want to participate says to me: don't join, and don't get money while people take your music, and fellow artists get paid for your work. That's harsh. What if the artist has an issue with the collection agency?
But the music/record/distribution world that we knew before, is gone. People are downloading their stuff for free anyway right now. For better or worse, the consumer has them over a barrel now for the first time, and they (artists, record companies) are no longer in a position to dictate. They don't really have a choice anymore, and that may not seem fair to them in comparison to what they were used to before.
The lawsuits are fleas on a dog. Temporary annoyance, but nothing more.
There will no longer be a "buy a CD, listen to a CD". There is never going to be, "Oh, I like one song on that CD but I have to spend my only $15 on it," which is what they liked. I can't predict have everything will shake out, but I know it is going to be very messy.
And about your number 2, isn't the difference with New Napster that with this there is no licensing agreement with only certain artists or record companies? I don't get just a choice of Britney and Eminem, I can download Minor Threat, Berlioz, or whatever.
About 3. That concerns me as well. It sounded to me like you got to keep it, but it sure didn't make that clear.
Re:Hrmm (Score:3, Insightful)
The various profitable Linux distributors would seem to disprove your simplistic assertion.
Re:Orders of magnitude. (Score:5, Insightful)
I doubt it's about the money, it's about control for the RIAA and its members.
So the only way to get them to use this scheme is to say "we have an alternative scheme by which you can make superior money and have more control over the music distribution than for CDs."
And that isn't going to happen with free (as in beer and as in freedom) file formats that the EFF is proposing.
Downloading is theft (Score:0, Insightful)
How about these.
You bring your car to the garage. It gets fixed and the bill comes to some amount of money. You are expected to pay the mechanic this amount. Lets say it was all labor as well and no parts were replaced. You use your extra key and get your car back some night without paying the mechanic for the work he did. Did you just steal from him or did you just violate his right to collect the money you owe him. What is he no longer in possession of in this example? The car was always yours, you just took it back without paying the bill. If the answer is nothing then you did not steal from him although I think a court would disagree.
The following argument is a bit absurd but the point is made. Don't think about the details, think about the concept. Ignore that the charge uses $20 worth of electricity or the outlet is on the street.
Since many people claim that theft can only occur when a physical object is taken then how about electricity. Assume a city produces their own electricity via a solar grid. Say you are walking down the street. You see an outlet. You decide that you need to give your cell phone a quick charge and plug it in. You leave your cell phone there (because this is a perfect world and it won't get stolen) and it charges. When you get back there is a city employee there holding your cell phone (He unplugged it to plug his whatever in) telling you that you owe the City $20 for the electricity you used (your cell phone takes a lot of juice to charge). Did you just steal from the city or not? You didn't take anything "physical" from them.
This will not work as a voluntary system (Score:4, Insightful)
there are two major problems, both related to the fact that the system is
voluntary.
First, how do you make the majors join the collective society? Those with the
most popular catalogue have the least incentives. I cannot image a major
label releasing a major act under such a license unless it's fairly clear
that the collective society has real money to distribute. But if the most
popular acts are not included, users could face the problem of having paid
their fees and still being sued.
The second question is: How do you get users to pay? The EFF suggests that all
the 60 million people now using p2p networks will pay. This is, to put it
mildly, very optimistic. Because, really, what's the incentive to pay? Users
can still download, regardless whether they pay or not, and if a user doesn't
share his music files, then the RIAA will never know what he have on his hard
drive. In other words, a few 10 thousand people willing to share their large
collections would make it possible for a few millions to simply download and
then disconnect, gaining all the advantages from the network without paying,
and, importantly, without risk of being sued.
A number of studies have shown that p2p networks are, indeed, not all that
p2p, because a small number of nodes serves the vast majority of content. But
if only that small number of people are actually paying, it will make majors
even more reluctant to release their content.
But, on a somewhat more positive note, the failure of such a voluntary
proposal would make the case of a compulsory license more stringent (which
also the EFF sees as a possibility).
Re:No sir, I don't like it. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:OK.... (Score:1, Insightful)
Until the ARTISTS stop using these companies nothing is going to change.
Re:I'll use iTunes. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
artists still get paid royalties no matter how long it's been released
I'm sure you're trolling, but this is still worth saying: Artists still get paid royalties, but x% of $0 is still $0. It's truly silly to argue that the record labels and artists are losing sales on something that they're not offering for sale.
Music fan: Mr. Record Label, I'm a huge fan of this artist and his music that was published by you in the 1960s. Will you sell me a CD of album XYZ?
Label: We don't offer XYZ for sale, sorry. It costs too much to make all of those back catalog albums available on CD.
Fan: Okay, how about on cassette tape?
Label: We don't have it on cassette, either.
Fan: Vinyl?
Label: Nope.
Fan: 8-track? I think I can scare up a player.
Label: /chortles
Fan: Well, are you ever going to offer it in any format?
Label: Only if there's a market for at least 10,000 copies.
Fan: But there's probably only a few dozen people who might want it right now, and the longer it's unavailable the fewer people will even know about it, much less want it.
Label: /shrugs. That's okay. If so few people want it, it's obviously crap, so you must be stupid to want it. Here, how about we sell you Britney Spears' latest album instead. Millions of people want it, so it's obviously good.
Fan: /stares in disbelief and shakes head
Fan: Well, I see that someone else has digitized it and made it available in MP3 format on Kazaa. I guess I'll get it there.
Label: Thief!
Label (to Congress): See! There's yet another sale we've lost to these P2P filesharing pirates!
In what way does it "promote the progress of science and useful arts" to permit people to lock material away so that no one can get access to it?
This is not intended to be a justification of copyright infringement in general, but the record labels can't seriously claim that they're damaged by sharing of music that they *don't* distribute.
Re:Hrmm (Score:2, Insightful)
The Record companies' current model is to have a few big selling artists, rather than more decently selling ones, placing artificial limits on who can make it big.
Also, in the last several years, and media companies have gotten bigger and bigger, and have needed to make more and more money in order to a)keep the stockholders happy and b) service large debts associated with mergers, companies have abandonded basic industry practices relating to artists development.
There was a time when a label would carry many artists for years, some of whom only become commercially successful hafter several albums and years of support. Now all the companies want the big selling, hot new thing, but have no interest in developing talent that might eventually reap great rewards.
Re:OK.... (Score:3, Insightful)
And what about those who tapes and films?
You do realize that this is pretty stupid?
I guess you don't buy food, because someone else than the producer is making money of it. You must be making your own then.
I guess you produce your own clothes, or did you prefer to live naked?
I also guess you have a computer, but your must have built yourself, every single part from scratch, because someone else than the constructor made some money out of it.
And while you're at it, I guess we should screw all those Suse and Red hat companies, because they make money out of something that most other people have been producing.
Pretty much anything that you get to have went throught at least one intermediate.
Even the day music will be available on the web, intermediates will be there. You won't perhaps see them, but their costs will be reflected.
Intermediates are necessary. That's part of the way products are delivered to the masses. Maybe if you are 10 years old and the only music you've been knowing is coming from the Internet, then I can accept such comment. But you have to know that before it ended up digitalized, it was a hard product, which required distribution. It's not because this business model starts being obsolete (*) that you have to become some kind of anarchist.
And that's modded 4?
(*) I would also like to remind you that there are many places in the world where people buy CDs, even tapes!
Re:No sir, I don't like it. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:explain to me this (Score:4, Insightful)
Once again, Sony has the system that's the easiest to pirate. Doesn't seem to hurt them though.
Another contributing factor is that games have a much better entertainment value to cost ratio.
Re:Musician getting paid?? (Score:5, Insightful)
This scheme doesn't work for me because I have absolutely no interest in sending money to Celine Dion and Britney Spears. I want my money to go to smaller artists.
RIAA End-run to Empire (Score:5, Insightful)
Lost Cause (Score:3, Insightful)
They would rather restrict and sue custmers ( and bilk artists as well ). this is their business model, not 'customer service' or ' product value'
Creating 'yet another' payment system for P2P does not intrest them at all. And why should it? They have a virtual monopoly built on screwing people out of their money..
Moral? Are you kidding? (Score:3, Insightful)
Then, they tell us that those CD's aren't actually our property, to dispose of as we wish, but really licenses to listen to the CD. Fine - So where's my free replacement when I scratch my disc? Or if its stolen, like so many were from my college dorm?
And, if it is a license, why do I have to buy a new copy of Dark Side of the Moon every 5 years? If I bought one, shouldn't I get the remastered free?
These are all legitimate, albeit beaten into the ground, points. The music industry can't have it both ways. They can't use bigchampagne to data mine P2P networks for sales promotions (hence, generating income) at the same time that they say every person who downloads a song is costing them money. This breaks a fundamental law of economics - some people will only 'buy' something when the cost is substantially lower than what they're charging.
So, f*ck the RIAA. F*ck them in their stupid asses. F*ck radiohead, f*ck pink floyd, f*ck metallica, f*ck dr. dre, f*ck them all!
I'll support the artists in the best way possible - buy their concert tickets!
They are, after all, 'performing artists' aren't they?
Re:Moral? Are you kidding? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Musician getting paid?? (Score:3, Insightful)
I really can't think of a better way than popularity to distribute the money.
For the record, however, I do think that the scheme is a stupid idea.
The Burden is Surely Upon the Music Industry... (Score:4, Insightful)
People got used to saying "vote with your wallet" as some sort of wise-crack. Guess it came as a shock when millions did just that.
*shrug* I think the idea of trying to persuade the music industry to patch its leaks and to offer 101 different ways in which it might patch its leaks is odd... it is however crazy while said industry acts in such a petulant fashion.
Let the music industry worry about it's own leaks. The music industries lost billions is not something that should cause the EFF sleepness nights, and there are frankly better things it could concern itself with than where Popstar X is going to get their next gold plated toilet seat from.
Re:Labor Theory Of Value (Score:2, Insightful)
but rewarding popularity does not make a market.
A market involves price, and price depends upon what value the buyers and sellers place on the product.
If you remove value by fixing the price and only reward popularity, you no longer have a market. Of course, you may still have financial incentive, but not necessarily incentive to produce works of value.
What about smaller labels (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No sir, I don't like it. (Score:3, Insightful)
Moreover, if sharing this way is permitted by RIAA or some other similar cartel, while they are making all the money, sharers should get a cut as well. After all, they are paying for bandwidth, service, and equipment to make the delivery happen in the cartel's commercial interest - sharers should also get a cut. Also, what happens to "artists" who have not signed their life over to the cartel? Would there be a competitive payment distribution systems that artists can join? Let's ask RIAA about that, shall we?
Without any doubt, if such system were implemented, it would only benefit one cartel - RIAA - not artists, not users - and it wouldn't be fair at all. In fact, it would be much less fair since all independent artists would in effect be either "unplugged" from the network, or their share of revenues taken in by the cartel.
Is EFF going nuts?
Re:No sir, I don't like it. (Score:3, Insightful)
Why switch networks at all?
You don't get it: Everything would be exactly and precisely as it is now, where you can use any software to download any song any time any where as much or as little as you like. If YOU so desire, you can pay $5 per month. You don't pay the P2P network provider, they don't make sure you've paid. You pay the collection agency and in return get some kind of receipt. This receipt says "For the month of (say) February 2004 Your Full Name Here with social security number WHA-TE-ERITIS has the right to download any music by any artist who has joined the cooperative collection agency." Meaning that if sommeone sees you sharing the latest Eminem song and says "You sir are a dirty filthy pirate!" all you need do is hold up your license and say "See this? It gives me the right to download and share that song up through the end of February."
At the end of the month I'd guess your redistribution rights are terminated unless you pay again (read: you are now sue-able) while your listen rights remain. As long as the songs you have were obtained during a month when your download license was paid up, they're legal copies. To prove you a pirate a lawsuit would have to prove that you definitely didn't download a given song during such a paid-up period.
The difference between this situation and the way it is now minimal. If you don't pay it's still illegal and you can still be sued. But now you have the option TO pay, which legalizes the downloading you'd do anyway.
Why would people pay? A lot of them wouldn't. But I'll bet you most middle-class parents would much rather spend $60 a year to let their kids get legal music then have to worry about lawsuits. I'm not too worried about being sued and I have almost no money, but I'D pay it. A lot of people wouldn't, and they can be sued into poverty for all I care. The reason suing fans right now is such a horrible thing is that we really have no good options: iTunes or similar, which suck, or no music downloading. We/I choose downloading from wherever, and we rightly complain when we're sued for it. If there were an easy and cheap way to make what download legal, I and everyone I know wuld use it. Maybe some people wouldn't, but a lot would.
Say only 10 million people pay the fee, which does not seem unlikely. That's 600 million bucks. Not a bad supplemental income. And think of the money saved on lawsuits and DRM research!
Re:Your Internet comes from somebody who cares (Score:2, Insightful)
To be honest, schemes like these appal me. It reeks of the "tax" on CD-R and DVD-R media we have here, just because you MIGHT use them to store copyrighted works -- the best part being that if you DO put copyrighted works on them (having paid the tax), you're still commiting an offense.
Fortunately they haven't taxed Hard Disks yet, they're about as cheap as DVD-R, will probably outlive most cheap DVD-media (try reading some after 2 years), don't require swapping, are faster and can be rewritten as often as you like.
Re:No sir, I don't like it. (Score:2, Insightful)