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Warner Music Makes Move Toward Unlimited Music for Monthly ISP Fee

Warner Music has made an important move toward creating a monthly ISP fee for unlimited access to music.  The world's third largest music label has hired Jim Griffin, a proponent of the monthly fee approach, to develop a plan that would create a pool of money from user fees to compensate artists and labels.

6 Comments

  1. When wining becomes music
    Music as a service it the original model. Musicians play and the audience pays. It was simple, but now we have a redefinition of music and a redefinition of service. We’re talking about recordings, which are a copy of music and not actual reality. Many musicians have gotten on the recording bandwagon and found a way to make money selling snapshots of original performances. That’s just a choice. There’s nothing stopping them from playing for a living. Over the years, I’ve played all over the place: concerts, restaurants, recording studios, department stores, private events, and I’ve gotten paid. That model works too. I don’t think recordings are worth nearly as much as the music industry says they are. I think it’s time that musicians started playing for a living and we went back to the real music as a service model. The problem is finding a source of money for all those people in the “music” industry, like Warner, who don’t play. They’re also the ones who are wining the loudest.

  2. whining
    Sorry… I know, it’s “whining”. I can’t spell… that’s why I’m a player not a writer.

  3. Crosbie Fitch says:

    Voluntary
    I’m amused by the use of ‘Voluntary’ in ‘Voluntary Collective Licensing’. I think you’ll find that it’s voluntary for the record label – the poor punter is still compelled to hand over the money.

    “Griffin says those fees could create a pool as large as $20 billion annually to pay artists and copyright holders”.

    Hmmm. It sounds like there’s quite a few marble floors in this plan. And if the record industry is happy about it, they’ve no doubt been reassured that the same 99:1 split can be achieved, thus keeping them in the lion’s share to which they’ve become accustomed.

    I always knew the recording industry would eventually go for this idea, as no doubt did the astute Jim Griffin, however, I think the public might not be too keen.

    Copyright suspended the public’s liberty (given as a privilege to publishers), and the Internet restored it. And the public are supposed to be wringing their hands over this as a tragedy? Will the people gladly vote to reward the restoration of their freedom with a selfless tax for the benefit of publishers?

    I think we’ve got a little wiser since copyright’s enactment around 300 years ago. I think the people will say “We’ll have our liberty back thanks, and because it was ours to begin with, no you can’t tax us instead – do you think we were born yesterday or something?”

    Let’s try a free market instead. No monopolies. No taxation.

    Art for money, money for art.

  4. Vincent Clement says:

    Why should the record companies receive a guaranteed revenue stream because THEY failed to change with the times?

  5. Where’s Graham?

    I believe in the recent past that I heard “SAC plan would ruin the viability of online music sellers such as iTunes and PureTracks.ca and seriously threaten Canada’s bricks-and-mortar music retailers”, “The primary marketplace for records completely collapses, to be replaced by a levy system”, and “many artists themselves are against the idea because they would lose control over how their recordings are sold.” Aren’t these points equally valid now that Warner is heading this proposal, even if it is voluntary instead of manditory, rather than SAC.

    Mr. Henderson, please come out from under your desk and assert your previous arguments for the good of the artists and music retailers. I’ll wait….

  6. AND YOU CANT DOWNLOAD says:

    AND YOU CANT DOWNLOAD
    AND YOU CANT DOWNLOAD
    so useless idea
    i nor will any canadian pay when we only have 30Kbytes to get it with, also note the 5$ SAC proposal gives artists 18 time smore then they get now so it should be FOR ALL THINGS.
    until ISP’s get there heads out of the traffic shape business then the idea and concept is dead.
    Last day for me on the net too as im not paying for a 5 megabit 200GB capped account that i cant hop eto get what i pay for.
    have a good one folks and im betting if everyone just said no to the net for a month might give them and the govt the cause to see that traffic shapping is what it is, anti competitive , and against innovation.
    Thanks microsoft/BCE…