Music Industry Creates ISP Piracy Tax Organization

[KK]

dslreports.com link

In addition to demanding that ISPs implement piracy filters that may not work, the entertainment industry has long wanted to see ISPs start charging broadband users a piracy tax (whether they pirate or not). A chief proponent of this idea, former Geffen Records boss Jim Griffin, has been hired by Warner Music to make this plan a reality. Griffin will take the next three years to create an organization tasked with getting ISPs on board:
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Warner's plan would have consumers pay an additional fee?maybe $5 a month?bundled into their monthly internet-access bill in exchange for the right to freely download, upload, copy, and share music without restrictions. Griffin says those fees could create a pool as large as $20 billion annually to pay artists and copyright holders. Eventually, advertising could subsidize the entire system, so that users who don't want to receive ads could pay the fee, and those who don't mind advertising wouldn't pay a dime.
While that sounds romantic, some sources with inside information of the plan say the "ad-supported" concept is an empty promise being used to warm people to the idea. The real plan is little more than a glorified protection racket where the music industry gets $20 billion in annual revenue in exchange for not suing ISPs or individuals. The definition of protection racket from Wikipedia:
A protection racket is an extortion scheme whereby a powerful entity or individual coerces other less powerful entities or individuals to pay protection money which allegedly serves to purchase "protection" services against various external threats.
Except in this case the RIAA would be going up against companies like Verizon, who've not-so-quietly built entire broadband empires where piracy was the unspoken killer application. The music industry hopes ISPs would sign up for this plan to avoid liability, but deep-pocketed operators like Verizon could prefer settling the matter in court.

But what if Griffin's new organization promises ISPs (and Uncle Sam, if necessary) a cut?

Sounds stupid to me.

 

[Aharami]

Sounds stupid to me.

anything that comes out of the RIAA labs is stupid

 

[jjones]

Well, if the RIAA is going to get these kinds of fees, they better start seeding quality rips in return.

 

[RedCOMET]

Yeah, it does sound stupid. If i really need my internet fix, I guess i could drive to starbucks/whatever and use the "free wifi" there after a i make a small purchase and just chill out for like an hour or two.

Assuming this pass, i guess i will cancel my high speed internet.

 

[Ns1]

previous discussion

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: RedCOMET
Assuming this pass, i guess i will cancel my high speed internet.

Seriously? :laugh:

 

[pyonir]

It'll take about 2 nanoseconds for someone to figure out how to block the ads anyway...i doubt they'll do anything like that.

 

[jagec]

Originally posted by: KK

Warner's plan would have consumers pay an additional fee?maybe $5 a month?bundled into their monthly internet-access bill in exchange for the right to freely download, upload, copy, and share music without restrictions.

Sounds stupid to me.

If I'm reading it right, the extra $5 a month allows you to legally copy and share music. Call it a subscription service bundled into your broadband account. This makes it worlds better than the "piracy tax" built in to CDRs and the like, where you pay the fee and then can still get sued for using them. Frankly I'm shocked that RIAA would consider such a scheme, seeing as it most benefits the people who are currently the biggest pirates, and most penalizes the people who don't pirate.

Still, it sounds better than pretty much every other idea they've come up with to stop piracy. I wonder how the payout to the artists works...do they pay increasing amounts based on the number of unique downloads, or...?

 

[pyonir]

Originally posted by: jagec

Originally posted by: KK

Warner's plan would have consumers pay an additional fee?maybe $5 a month?bundled into their monthly internet-access bill in exchange for the right to freely download, upload, copy, and share music without restrictions.

Sounds stupid to me.

If I'm reading it right, the extra $5 a month allows you to legally copy and share music. Call it a subscription service bundled into your broadband account. This makes it worlds better than the "piracy tax" built in to CDRs and the like, where you pay the fee and then can still get sued for using them. Frankly I'm shocked that RIAA would consider such a scheme, seeing as it most benefits the people who are currently the biggest pirates, and most penalizes the people who don't pirate.

Still, it sounds better than pretty much every other idea they've come up with to stop piracy. I wonder how the payout to the artists works...do they pay increasing amounts based on the number of unique downloads, or...?

I skimmed the quoted piece because i read the other discussion thread about it...i missed that part. That's new...i didn't see that in any previous discussions where that was the case...

 

[KK]

Originally posted by: jagec

Originally posted by: KK

Warner's plan would have consumers pay an additional fee?maybe $5 a month?bundled into their monthly internet-access bill in exchange for the right to freely download, upload, copy, and share music without restrictions.

Sounds stupid to me.

If I'm reading it right, the extra $5 a month allows you to legally copy and share music. Call it a subscription service bundled into your broadband account. This makes it worlds better than the "piracy tax" built in to CDRs and the like, where you pay the fee and then can still get sued for using them. Frankly I'm shocked that RIAA would consider such a scheme, seeing as it most benefits the people who are currently the biggest pirates, and most penalizes the people who don't pirate.

Still, it sounds better than pretty much every other idea they've come up with to stop piracy. I wonder how the payout to the artists works...do they pay increasing amounts based on the number of unique downloads, or...?

I don't think they would make alot of money just from 5 bucks a month having everybody dl'ing movies/songs and not purchasing anything.

 

[tfinch2]

I'm probably one of the most anti-pirating person you'll ever meet, but if I get charged a piracy tax? Ahoy fucking matey.

 

[Special K]

Warner's plan would have consumers pay an additional fee?maybe $5 a month?bundled into their monthly internet-access bill in exchange for the right to freely download, upload, copy, and share music without restrictions. Griffin says those fees could create a pool as large as $20 billion annually to pay artists and copyright holders. Eventually, advertising could subsidize the entire system, so that users who don't want to receive ads could pay the fee, and those who don't mind advertising wouldn't pay a dime.

How exactly would the advertisements work?

Would these ads just be your typical website banner/popups that could be stopped by just about any adblock app out there, or are they saying we would have to install some proprietary software in order to gain internet access, and that software would also serve up the ads? (not that they would be much more difficult to block).

 

[frostedflakes]

I seriously doubt they have any plans to fully subsidize this charge via ads (partially, maybe), and if the "insiders" mentioned in the article are correct, this won't ever happen. I also doubt this will be anything like a subscription service. Maybe they'd let you get away with a modest number of downloads, but surely they'll find ways to keep people from downloading significant amounts of music, be it taking them to court, coercing the ISP into threatening to shut off the person's access, etc.

 

[mugs]

Oh snap, this is just music? Tack $5 on my cable bill to legally download movies and TV shows, and I'll be your friend for life.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

in canada, the music industry gets a cut of every blank cd sold, whether it's used for music or not, even by perfectly legal means. this has done nothing to stop anti-piracy litigation, which in turn has done nothing to stop piracy.

hmmm, the riaa is simultaneously pushing for:
a $20B extortion racket
content filtering on isp servers
drm and licensing up the ass, including watermarking, spyware, etc.

all of which will be paid for by you and me, the end user. it gets even more expensive to listen to something you already paid too much for. and they wonder why the masses are willing to commit a crime to avoid their gouging.