This Magazine has a feature story on legalizing music file sharing, with particular focus on the SAC proposal.
This Magazine on Legalizing Music File Sharing
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Pandora’s Box
Imposing any “levy” to compensate the Music Industry will just create more “black box” money that will end up padding the Labels’ wallets (since they hold the brunt of the copyrights), and all the other failing business models based on “intellectual property” will insisting on getting THEIR cut of the new pot.
It’s got “Pandora’s Box” written all over it.
Artists will see very little of this money, and the administrative processes required to track and collect it will eat up most of the take.
Imposing a “tax” (or whatever) at the ISP level would force everyone to pay for something they don’t all use. (Remember Mirko’s “5%”??)
If ISPs had to collect this fee, they would need to become “administrators and accountants” for the Music Industry and devote a lot of resources to tracking the usage figures I’m sure the Industry would insist on having. If the providers consented to go along with this, they wouldn’t be doing it for free.
Then of course, there’s the tracking.
We’re already banging our heads against the wall with a number of alarming Bell/Rogers/CRTC-centered issues involving privacy, throttling and DPI. On just that one point, nobody would support such a plan that calls for ISPs to collect even more data, using more invasive types of DPI, while passing the additionals costs (that are sure to come out of it) on to their subscribers.
@Devil’s
Agreed. One good thing in the proposal is the ability to opt-out. A better option would have been to opt-in. All of these levies do nothing but create a hunger on the part of folks who aren’t part of it to get a levy of their own.
There is another option available that the SAC didn’t put forward. They create an online store of their own where the online consumer can purchase legal copies from. I suspect that they didn’t opt for this because it would have meant being an active participant rather than a passive collector of money. They could have directed the monies collected directly to the IP owner rather than basing a payment on an estimate.
@Anon-K…
“One good thing in the proposal is the ability to opt-out.”
Having ANY opt-in or opt-out option would mean DETAILED TRACKING. More intrusive forms of DPI would automatically get rammed down our throats as “part of life”. I just wouldn’t go there.
“There is another option available that the SAC didn’t put forward. They create an online store…”
The trouble with that line of thinking is, the market for copies is as good as dead now. You can’t recreate the “record store” concept for an online digital world.
The reason the SAC didn’t put such an idea forward was because they’ve already received the same objection from many sides of the equation.
Creating “legal” download sites would also, by direct inference, create the legal argument that all other existing sites, regardless of what they actually share, would be “illegal”.
Fantastic Idea
I think this idea has a lot of merit. There are obvious difficulties with establishing this; such as the overhead and privacy concerns of tracking the downloads in addition to the international nature of the internet (and national nature of any law). But overall it is a good direction to be taking.
I could see how the recording industry would be against this and with their political ties sadly it could be years before we see any (positive) headway on this.
@Jon
“I could see how the recording industry would be against this”
You’re kidding, right?!
What would they have against yet another source of blackbox money? And, why would they object to another excuse to demand ISPs track everything for them??
Your comment is curious, as the Music Industry was the first group to suggest that “the Internet be taxed”, supposedly to “compensate the Industry for piracy”.