Warner Music Pushing Music Tax For Universities 375
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."
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?
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
The mafia does something like this. (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
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.
Re:Music tax? (Score:3, Interesting)
In other words, business as usual for these bloodsuckers.
Re:Indie (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Indie (Score:3, Interesting)
The two classic counterexamples to your curmudgeonly and frankly unbelievable assertion (seriously, who doesn't listen to music?) are:
- Public schools. If you don't have kids, you're paying something for nothing
- Gas tax. If you only gas up your lawnmower and don't own a car, you're paying something for nothing.
Neither of these examples are perfect; you do gain something from both public schools and roads (a functioning society, and a quick way for the local FD to get to your house).
The real argument, IMHO, in favour of a media levy (levy on blank CDs etc.) is the practicality of it. It's the only reasonable system I've heard of which can reimburse artists for modern music and film copyright violations. And, given that there's somewhere near zero chance that music filesharing is going to stop, we might as well take Churchill's attitude, and go with a terrible system that's better than all the alternatives.
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.
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!
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.
Re:Indie (Score:3, Interesting)
And how is it even hard to believe? He could be deaf you know. Not saying they are, but that's one fine reason. And there are many others (aside from just not enjoying it) to choose from.
Re:Indie (Score:3, Interesting)
To be clear I believe Stallman advocates for some tax going to a government pool which is divvied up among artists. He understands the problem of the middleman music industry.
I've heard (in recordings, on YouTube) him say this many times. Here's a a review in which Stallman says [gnuisance.net]:
Bad idea (Score:2, Interesting)
It's a bad idea and I'll tell you why, here in Spain we've this method at a national level, that is, you can download anything using p2p but there is something similar to a tax applied to every CD, memory card, handset, etc. That money goes entirely to the (Spanish) Riaa, who spends it lobbing against our rights.
In my own opinion it's way better to learn cryptography and use ciphered protocols rather than giving away your bucks to people that will use them against you.
Re:Indie (Score:3, Interesting)
If I owned a bar I'd tell BMI/ASCAP to "fuck off; I only play public domain stuff here". A commercial entity only has power over you if you give it to them. Don't give away your power so casually.
Re:Indie (Score:1, Interesting)
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!