Reporters Engage in Heated Debate Over Campus File-Sharing Tax

Last weeks announcement that Warner, one of the big four record labels, would set up a program to legalize campus file-sharing has had some technology reporters sending heated arguments to each other over whether it was a positive move or not.

Last week, Warner Music announced a proposal to put a tax on college tuition to allow file-sharing to occur on college campuses. The announcement was definitely big – so big, that reporters from different websites have found themselves sending heated opinion pieces to each other over whether or not this was a good or bad idea.

On the one side, Nate Anderson of Ars Technica argued that this was a positive step forward because it would mean the end of p2p lawsuits against college and university students. Adding to the argument is that this move is a radical departure from the previous way of doing things (which is essentially sue everyone)

On the other side of the debate is Mike Masnick of Tech Dirt. He argues that it’s bad that it has to be compulsory – essentially making it a “tax” rather then a voluntary license or “opt-in” system. He also argues that a system being asked would create a huge and complicated bureaucracy that would easily be gamed by the major copyright industry through either manipulating the system in their favour or causing sub-industries like the software industry and movie industry to start demanding similar cuts. He also answers the question on what is the alternative which is to leave the market place alone and let artists and record labels innovate in the “new” internet environment.

If anything else, the story brought up mixed reaction from different technology reporters generally speaking. It’s generally uncommon for such a split opinion when, in the past, it was easy to gain a near unanimous decision on a copyright industry move that argues that whatever the move is, it was a bad idea (i.e. implementing rootkit DRM technology on music albums) If anything at all, it seems that the move has been a step forward publicity-wise.

Still, one must remember that just because the proposal was put forward doesn’t mean that the lawsuit campaign against students is over yet. Yesterdays lawsuit wave proved that.