A music industry coalition has proposed that ISPs and others should pay a licence fee to compensate rights-holders for unlawful file-sharing by their customers. One critic called the plans, which would change copyright laws, “ill-conceived and grasping.”
The group met in London yesterday. It did not represent the entire UK industry – notably, the BPI was not in attendance. But nearly 1,000 independent record companies and 50,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers were represented.
Music creators are not paid when their work is distributed over unauthorised peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. Despite the growth of iTunes and other licensed sources of digital music, illegal file-sharing is still huge. Internet traffic monitor CacheLogic reports that 60% of all internet traffic by data volume is P2P file-sharing – and music has been the main driver of P2P activity to date.
But the groups represented yesterday do not want to target the individuals who infringe copyright in this way. Instead, they want to target the intermediaries.
More than likely the artists won’t get that money anyways the labels will.
I know it’s pretty retarded.
How retarded charge everyone for something only filesharers do.