“Having failed to stop piracy by suing internet users, the music industry is for the first time seriously considering a file sharing surcharge that internet service providers would collect from users,” Frank Rose reports for Wired.
“In recent months, some of the major labels have warmed to a pitch by [consultant on digital strategy for three of the four major music labels] Jim Griffin, one of the idea’s chief proponents, to seek an extra fee on broadband connections and to use the money to compensate rights holders for music that’s shared online,” Rose reports. “‘It’s monetizing the anarchy,’ says Peter Jenner, head of the International Music Manager’s Forum, who plans to join Griffin on the panel.”
“Griffin’s idea is to collect a fee from internet service providers — something like $5 per user per month — and put it into a pool that would be used to compensate songwriters, performers, publishers and music labels. A collecting agency would divvy up the money according to artists’ popularity on P2P sites, just as ASCAP and BMI pay songwriters for broadcasts and live performances of their work,” Rose reports.
“In a 2004 white paper, the Electronic Frontier Foundation called for it to be applied to file sharing, but the Recording Industry Association of America immediately dismissed the proposal,” Rose reports.
“Things are different now. ‘The labels are beginning to like the idea of an access-to-music charge,’ says Jenner, who once managed Pink Floyd and the Clash, ‘because they’re increasingly aware that their current model is broken.’ U.S. music sales, which peaked in 1999 at nearly $15 billion, dropped to $11.5 billion in 2006. Last year’s figures are still being tallied, but with CD sales cratering and online sales overwhelmingly dominated by singles, the only question is how far they’ll fall.”
Full article here.
The music industry’s current model is not broken, it’s being fixed — by Apple. The old model was an illusion. The music cartels grew fat on artificially inflated profits from CDs because they overcharged for bundles (albums) for years.
Massive amounts of undeserved revenue is a broken, unsustainable model that the marketplace will eventually correct. Now that people can buy music a la carte and choose exactly what they want and not be forced to pay for music they don’t want, the music cartels think something is broken. The only thing broken is their stranglehold over consumers.
Now that they actually have to develop product that consumers want to buy, instead of forcing people to buy a load of stuff they don’t want in order to get a few good nuggets, they’re shocked. “Hey, where’d all of our free money go?!”
Well, too damn bad. That extra bundling cash is gone forever, boys. Now you have to work for your money. Imagine that.
Next up: The cable companies who massively overcharge consumers for bundles instead of allowing their customers buy only the channels they want. They’ll be shocked, too.
As for the main issue of this article: trying to correct the issue of the theft of music, should ISPs – meaning all of us – have to pay a surcharge for piracy?
This sounds more like an idea from Peter Griffin.
A surcharge would only encourage more piracy. If I’m being forced to pay for what other people are pirating, then I’m going to pirate my ass off to get my money’s worth.
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I think it is a great idea. I work with a few of the brutal Torrent abusers. They disgust me. Everything on TV, Every Movie, Every Video Game Every bit of Music is stolen everyday by them. I go about my normal routine of paying. The only reason these Bit Torrent **ckers get their crap for free is because there are schleps like me that legitimately pay. I say ISP measure their traffic. When you see they are loading 60 gig per month send them a bill for obvious illegal activity! They are a bain to society and they should be made to pay at least for their traffic jam they make on the net with their stolen material.
‘It’s monetizing the anarchy,’ says Peter Jenner.
No, Mr Jenner, it’s extortion!
I ain’t touching your ass.
If everyone is paying a surcharge, then will sites like iTMS or Rhapsody stop charging for music? Otherwise wouldn’t we basically be paying twice for the same music?
So, If in exchange for being forced to pay a $5 a month “piracy surcharge” on my DSL connection, I will get free reign to pirate any/everything I want on the web?
Am I alone in thinking this will make matters worse, not better for the rights holders. It would be giving pirates free reign.
Another dumb idea from an industry that seems to have little left but dumb ideas.
— Hano
Worked well for Canada with the surcharge for blank CDs [/sarcasm].
Actually, thanks to that we *do* have the legal right to copy music. But that’s only because the music industry here was (again) thinking old school when then won that judgement in the late 90’s, and didn’t consider the internet. They won’t make that mistake again.
Of course, most of the money from the levy never makes it back to the artists that the levy was supposed to compensate in the first place! Lying scumbags…
It’s simple Karma. You steal, you develop an entitlement mentality. You make enemies.
Everything else is smoke.
On both sides.
It’s extortion (the practice of obtaining something, esp. money, through force or threats) plain and simple. I do not listen to pop music, which constitutes most of the music being pirated, And I’m supposed to cross your greedy music industry hands with a $5.00 a month surcharge to compensate you for what you wrongly consider to e your just due? No way in hell. I’ll fight this by all means fair and foul and I’ll be happy to join with others who wish to do so.
That ISP surcharge is a great idea. Then I will feel justified to download everything I have ever wanted and then some because I have already paid for it.
I think Trent Reznor has the right idea in offering his latest music for a very reasonably priced high quality download and then offering some unique collectible packages. The ultra collectible autographed $300 package sold out in no time and in a limited release netted $750,000. Imagine if U2 offered an autographed release or the Stones. Reznor has always been a musical visionary, now he’s shown his marketing genius as well.
ISPs won’t go for it as they are already under pressure from consumers for their charges. It can only happen if it is passed into law, which won’t happen either. The music industry is grasping at straws….
This is idiocy. It’s like suing Bell because the Mafia does business over the telephone. Or the suing the electric company for obscenity for providing the power that your tv uses to display porn
This is such an insane article, I can’t even make a reasonable comment.
I think the MDN take is right on.
The industry has a legal option. Continue sueing the hell out of consumers. That will build a lot of good will with customers…NOT!
The old model is dead. Better get with the new one fast!!!
Quote: Next up: the cable companies who massive overcharge consumers for bundles instead of allowing their customers buy only the channels they want. They’ll be shocked, too.
Wrong. Cable companies, satellite companies have to bundle because there are stations that noone will buy unless they are forced on you. They are made to bundle them by the channels themselves or they can’t carry them on there network then they get bitched at for not carrying it. TWC my former employer had an issue with NFL channel where NFL was trying to dictate which pay tier TWC could put NFL Channel. I don’t know the outcome but the channels have alot of power in this. Alot of the channels are owned by same company so they might have a very popular channel and a not so popular channel. They require the not so popular channel to be offered on a certain tier or they can deny you the popular channel. If the cable company could do as they please they would let customers have whatever channel they want. And the price is derived by many factors. The cost that the cable company pays to the channels themselves, operating cost and the fact that they ARE a business and have to earn a profit. And yes I used to work for cable company so I’ve seen the other side of things.
Once I see rappers and rock bands not owning multiple cars that cost more than $100,000, then I’ll consider it. They probably pay more for insuring one of their vehicles per year than what my car is worth.
Hano and Mossman,
BINGO, right on the head.
A, it sounds like a good idea if you are the one getting free money from everyone for not being able to sell a crappy product.
These people that “steal” 30 gigs of music —- DO NOT and CAN NOT listen to it all. If you played that music constantly with different soungs, you would have to listen for YEARS.
These people collect music like I collect junk,….. treasure.
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NOPE, the music cartels have to DIE and be reborn into something that works and supports the music artists.
This “get rich scheme” that they come up with is only to support THEM. Screw the artist. Trust me on that.
Hmmmmm. So, since most robbers use getaway cars, it seems that all banks, convenience stores, and people’s homes should start collecting from car manufacturers. For every car sold, money should be taken and then given out to all homeowners and banks and stuff.
“Sounds rediculous,” you say? So does collecting from ISPs who have nothing to do with what people actually download.
Next up – since bank robbers often use cars to rob banks, we should stick an extra tax on gas and pass it along to the banks.
dd, great minds think alike. You beat me to it…
So does this mean that since we are being charged for something that we aren’t buying that we can take it now anyway?
Also @ mr_Matalino
“Once I see rappers and rock bands not owning multiple cars that cost more than $100,000, then I’ll consider it. They probably pay more for insuring one of their vehicles per year than what my car is worth.”
Most of those wannabees rent the stuff for the music videos to make them seem rich and successful. Besides, why apply that logic to musicians when the reality is people in ALL forms of business are the same way. Are you going to start stealing gas because the CEO of some oil company made 400 million last year?
Ok, so they charge the internet service providers, which will inturn charge the consumer, regardless of whether they downloaded from bit-torrent or not…
Yet another stupid idea from the m usic cartels
No matter what anybody says, the monster we call file sharing will never be killed, unless we go to a state of dictatorship! Then and only then, can the old take back what they once control!
But, that is not possible, soon more “providers” will collapse onto themselves… soon, the net will be the way, the only way and even then, that day will come to an end, but not for another fifty or hundred years.
People will always steal if they think they can get away with it. What better way is there to sit at your computer in your house and take anything you want from anyone you want! If you can stop that, then you will stop piracy!
The sky has fallen…
I don’t download music (except itunes that is) so I should not have to pay the surcharge
What a stupid idea! First, as someone pointed out, it will encourage people to pirate — if I’m already paying $5 per month “surcharge,” I may as well get what I’m paying for. Second, it assumes that everyone on the web pirates music. I’ve spent about $200 on iTunes in the last year, which is much more than I’d have spent on CDs. Why should I–or anyone else–have to pay roughly $60 per year on top of whatever I spend at iTunes? No, if the music industry does this, piracy will skyrocket. And rightly so.