Spells out what a good collective music licensing plan would entail versus a mandatory fee collected by ISPs.
The argument is no longer about whether or not the industry should compete with pirates or fight them, but how exactly the labels should compete. A few weeks ago Warner Music Group hired music industry veteran Jim Griffin to devise a way to implement a monthly surcharge on your monthly internet bill.
Referred to as an “ISP tax,” the plan has come under fire by many who feel it unfairly targets people who either consumer music legally or simply none at all. Plus, it is argued, that it may mean that other content producers like the motion picture industry and TV broadcasters may seek a similar tax to offset perceived losses due to piracy as well.
Another solution being put forward by the EFF, music lawyer Bennet Lincoff, and in fact, most of the file-sharing community, is a voluntary licensing scheme, which in my opinion makes a lot more sense.
As the EFF’s Fred von Lohmann writes:
“People who do not share music shouldn’t have to pay for a license they don’t need. After all, we don’t have a “music tax on restaurants.” Restaurants are free to experiment with no music, public domain music, or CC music, as they see fit. Internet users should have the same freedom. But this means that there will still be some enforcement against those who don’t pay but keep downloading. That seems fair, and enforcement to get people to become paying subscribers will look very different from today’s “mount a few heads on spikes to scare the rest” approach being used by the RIAA and MPAA.
In response to the music industry proposals Lohmann has developed a quick reference guide to help distinguish between a good collective licensing plan from a bad “ISP tax.”
He continues:
Voluntary for Music Fans – People who do not share music shouldn’t have to pay for a license they don’t need. After all, we don’t have a “music tax on restaurants.” Restaurants are free to experiment with no music, public domain music, or CC music, as they see fit. Internet users should have the same freedom. But this means that there will still be some enforcement against those who don’t pay but keep downloading. That seems fair, and enforcement to get people to become paying subscribers will look very different from today’s “mount a few heads on spikes to scare the rest” approach being used by the RIAA and MPAA.
Voluntary for Artists – Artists shouldn’t be forced to participate if they don’t want to. That said, the vast majority of creators and rightsholders will likely opt in, rather than opt to sue individual Internet users. After all, 99% of all songwriters are members of one of the three performing rights organizations (PROs) we have today. It sure beats having to find and sue every radio station every time it plays your song.
Not a Collecting Society, but Collecting Societies – Freedom of choice for artists only means something if they have options to choose among. Competition is critical to keeping collecting societies honest and transparent. If you compare the three PROs that service songwriters in the US to the unitary, government-backed collecting societies in the rest of the world, our system wins hands down on these fronts.
Voluntary for ISPs – There is no need to force ISPs to offer blanket sharing licenses to music fans. Some ISPs will voluntarily bundle the license with their offerings (“buy the all-you-can-eat music package for $5 more”), some ISPs may choose not to. Universities might choose to buy campus-wide licenses in bulk in order to stop the RIAA’s college litigation campaign. Software companies like LimeWire might choose to bundle the license fee into their software, paid either by subscription fees or advertising. At the end of the day, it’s the individual fan who needs the license, and she should have lots of ways to buy it.
All the Music, From Anywhere – Music fans have made it clear that they are going to use whatever software they like, to download anything that can be found in any “Shared” folder on the planet, including the unauthorized concert recordings, the rarities, the old b-sides, and the alternate takes. It’s time to figure out who should be paid for them, rather than wishing for a world where you can somehow make them disappear.
Technology Agnostic – Linux, Mac, Windows, iPod, cell phone. Downloads, streaming, buffered streams. Music fans want their music in whichever format, on whichever device, works best for them. Once you’ve paid, it’s nobody’s business where your music comes from or where it ends up. It should go without saying that DRM is has no place in this future.
Protects Privacy – Paying for music sharing shouldn’t entail giving up your privacy. While the collecting societies will need to have some metrics of popularity in order to divide up the revenue pie, we should take our cue from television, where we divide up huge advertising revenues by relying on sophisticated sampling systems like Nielsen’s. Sampling and surveys are good — a perfect census of what every person listens to is not.
I myself wouldn’t mind shelling out a few bucks each month for unlimited music downloads, but where would it end? Surely other content producers will demand a cut too and what happens if I decide that I no longer want to download music anymore? Will I be forced to pay monthly tribute of sorts to the music industry and others simply because I could potentially download content illegally?
Either way Lohman makes some good points here and I hope the music industry and others consider them before pressing for a mandatory “ISP tax.”
Related
- Canadian Songwriters Propose Voluntary P2P Tax
- Aussie Net Filtering to be “Voluntary Mandatory”
- Unlawful Use of Copyrighted Karaoke Songs Costs Bar $49,000
- Record Labels: Licensing File Sharing Isn’t So Crazy After All
- The RIAA vs. John Doe, a layperson’s guide to filesharing lawsuits
Apple would have a fit when people stop buying the music. I really can’t see this ever happening. Ok I have been P2Ping for years and honestly I don’t think I have any music on my computer that has been produced since 2002 probably there simply is little if any good music coming out and the music industry needs to come to grips with that fact and stop worrying about people stealing their music. I’d say the decline in quality is more attributable to the declining sales than increased piracy.
If there was a mandatory tax on the internet people would be paying the RIAA MPAA ABC NBC CBS etc. etc. etc. whatever they felt they deserved. That’s ridiculous high speed internet already costs ridiculous amounts of money right now. I could buy 5 or 6 CDs a month on amazon.com with the money I’m paying for high speed internet and I might download 2 or 3 songs a month most are from the 80’s or 90’s music which isn’t being produced anymore anyway.