Should the music industry tax you to use the Web?
There are times when I read the news in the morning and I can't help but wonder what some people are thinking when they announce something new. Usually, that amazement revolves around weird products or dumb deals. But today, it's something entirely different: a tax on Internet use.
According to The Independent, Internet users could face an annual tax of 30 British pounds (about $60) to download music over the Web in an attempt by the music industry to use Internet service providers to stop illegal downloading.
"U.K. Culture Secretary Andy Burnham is supporting calls from sections of the music industry for a yearly levy of 20 pounds ($40) to 30 pounds ($60) to be imposed by ISPs on customers who want to share music," The Independent reports.
Obviously blind to the implications of this arrangement, the music industry believes it could actually help a larger portion of the public, who would have otherwise been criminalized at the hands of illegal downloading. Not to mention, it could recoup the industry's estimated $2.4 billion in annual losses at the hands of illegal downloading.
"If you get enough people paying a small enough amount of money you can turn around the wheels of the music industry," music industry veteran Peter Jenner told the publication.
"Both ISPs and the music industry need to take responsibility for this issue. But we need action as the industry is suffering," another industry insider told The Independent.
Yikes. Is this really where the music industry is going next? Sure, it's just in the U.K. right now and there's no indication that it'll go elsewhere, but don't you think that if it works there, it'll come here?
Once again, the low-hanging fruit is the victim.
In its infinite wisdom, the music industry has once again conjured up a plan to ensure that you become the victim regardless of whether you're illegally downloading music. The way I see it, this isn't a tax designed to stop piracy, it's a tax to use the Internet, and to me, that's totally unacceptable.
Try as it might, the music industry won't simply solve its problems by trying to tax us into oblivion. Instead, it needs to denounce its foolhardy plans of attacking college students and individuals and start addressing the biggest concern: piracy cartels overseas that make up the lion's share of those billions in losses.
A levy on all users of $60? Are you kidding me? You mean to tell me that from now on (if this bill were to pass), you would be forced to pay your ISP $5 per month to address the so-called "rampant" file-sharing issue on the Web? What if you've never illegally downloaded a song in your life? What if you don't even know where to find illegal songs? You should be penalized because someone else does and the music industry has no idea how to stop them?
Sorry, but that's not right.
Once again, the music industry has shown its true colors. It doesn't really care about going after the pirates, it only cares about recouping its investment by any means necessary.
And perhaps that's where I have the biggest issue with this. It's not that the music industry is actively seeking ways to stop pirates--I expect that--but that the music industry is showing here that it really doesn't care if you're illegally downloading music as long as it doesn't impact the bottom line.
Doesn't that seem a bit ironic considering the RIAA and the rest of these wacky organizations always try to claim that "it's just not right to steal?" They don't care if you steal, they just don't want you to steal if it costs them money.
An annual levy on Internet use is both foolhardy and representative of the sad state of affairs in the music industry. Instead of embracing the Web and trying to find ways to exploit it, the music industry continues to show its desperation and try to find ways to make you lose out. In the process, the innocent are being victimized for something someone else did.
Hopefully the music industry's annual tax idea will die a quick death. But if it doesn't and it becomes a "success" in the eyes of the labels, look for it to spread across Europe and the United States until we're all being charged cash for something we don't do.
Does that seem fair to you?
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Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
People who already download music illegally will think that as they are paying £30 a year they will be allowed to carry on doing it. Then you get all the people who were on the fence about downloading music illegally thinking well if im being charged for it, i may as well do it! Then the music industries problem actually gets worse! As a UK resident, if they actually bring this out im going to have bittorrent running constantly downloading music just to spite the B*****DS.
Heres a thought though: Would it be such a bad thing If all the big record labels went down the pan?
With the internet, all an artist has to do to get their music out to the public, is to put it up on their website for download for a small fee or to have a CD sent for a bit more. The money goes to paying the shipping and cd production fees and website fees, the artist gets the rest. At present the artist only gets a small percentage of what the record labels get from sales anyway. Everyone wins, apart from those fat cat record labels!
Already there is a hugh amount of the web that Deaf people cannot access due to videos, would it be fair that they start being charged for music they cannot use?
Quality and democracy, two virtues poorly understood by the music industry, are dismantling it. Manufactured pop will wither with the industry, if true musicians can bravely focus on music allowing the democratic assassin of their Big Brother to promote their music's quality.
LetterRep.com
Quality and democracy, two virtues poorly understood by the music industry, are dismantling it. Manufactured pop will wither with the industry, if true musicians can bravely focus on music allowing the democratic assassin of their Big Brother to promote their music's quality.
LetterRep.com
ps. to think that internet users don't know where to download free music is a bit naive in my opinion...I mean, what kid now doesn't know Kazaa or bittorrent?
Point is, the wording on this bill is strange - "imposed by ISPs on customers who want to share music". So if you don't want to share music, you aren't taxed? What if you share music illegally after you tell your ISP you don't want to share music?
That's putting Big Brother responsibilities onto ISP's, so prices of service will skyrocket to handle the addtional load...
To make matters worse, their bald faced lies about the supposed losses they incur when someone digitally copies their products is an insult to the public's intelligence. To say nothing of Judges who are persuaded to believe that anything more than a pittance should be paid for these copies to begin with.
Someone needs to break the back of the RIAA in a bad way. Maybe it's time for the public to organize and launch an all-out legal assault. They need to be brought up on charges and investigated for price-fixing and anti-trust behavior. A judge needs to force them to pay reparations to all the artists and clients they've screwed throughout the years to the end of emptying every last cent in their coffers with the intended effect of shutting them down, permanently.
I agree, would it be such a bad thing if the record labels just vanished? Nope. Not at all. They always say they're losing money. Just how much money are they losing? A CD costs approx 2 bux to manufacture and ship yet they routinely sell them for far more. And how long have I been buying music? Since I was old enough to get an allowance.
Let them go find other jobs and see what it's like out in the real world for a change.
Just my two cents.
Bill
A CD only costs about 2 dollars to make, the artist gets about what, 10 percent. So on an $18 CD, the artist gets $1.80. How is that fair to the artist? How is price gouging fair to the consumer?
Plus, those old rich moguls get generous tax breaks and a nice corporate welfare check from the U.S. federal and state governments.
If they are unwilling to change, let them fail and become extinct, that's the point of the "free" market system, right?
The music industry needs to change to fit into the world... the world does not need to change to fit the needs of the music industry.
This is yet another example of trying to use Government to solve problems that are societal.
I have written an article on my blog which examines whether this bandaid is actually hitting the root cause of a lot of piracy.
The blog also has a video interview with Pim Betist the founder of www.sellaband.com
Be good to get your thoughts?
http://www.themusicvoid.com/?p=110
Cheers,
Jakomi
This is simply the actions of an organization that is no longer needed and has no idea how to leverage the future.
The sooner the RIAA dies, the better for everyone, including the singers and musicians.
Summed their problem up in a nutshell - well put!
- by July 24, 2008 8:51 AM PDT
- I take it the BPI, or however is behind this latest scheme, have made no mention of sharing this money with the other victims of piracy - film companies, software developers, game developers, eBook authors, photographers, graphic designers... - pretty much anyone whose business revolves around producing content that can be distributed over the web.
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- by The_Decider July 25, 2008 11:59 AM PDT
- Are you surprised?
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Showing 1 of 3 pages (54 Comments)You think all that money that the RIAA has extorted from 13 year old girls and grandmothers went to the artists?