The problem with filesharing, is that there is no compromise to be seen. Uncontrolled anarchy and monopolistic control are both not the right way to go. You can either get stuff for free, or buy media at horribly overpriced retail prices and support a corrupt industry. Neither is getting anyone anywhere.

Capitalism, while a great system, does not work well in a market where there is no one dominant law, or force of law enforcement. Filesharing as it is is communism. Everything is free and everything is there for the taking, yet(assuming no one who downloads buys CDs or DVDs) a free download is not paying the artist, and there's little you can do to stop it. A free download cannot be equated to a lost sale, which is a big arguement for this - a download does not equate to a lost sale. Many downloaders are young, and the kind of people who can not afford an extra meal a day, much less a few CDs.

Communism has appeal because everything is free and everything is freely provided, yet it will fail because the creators of the content, eventually will not get paid. So, the goal here is to combine capitalism and communism in order to make a working system, and we have already several times.

Take for example, public school. 150 years ago, many did not go to school because they had to pay for it. If you somehow got into a school and did not pay for it, you were stealing an education. The idea of paying for an education did not ring well with most people, so most were uneducated. What the government did to fix this was tax education. People had to pay a higher percentage of their salary to taxes, and in exchange public schools were free to every child and teenager that was able to go to one. Today, no matter where you live in the U.S., you can find a free, public school within miles of your home.

Apply this to filesharing. Many do not pay for media, because they don't want to support the industries behind it, but mainly because it doesn't make sense to do so. So, suppose a media tax was created. This would fund the movie and music industries. In exchange for this small tax, music and movie downloading would be legal because the industries would make money off of people downloading, yet as with public schools, you're not actually paying for all of it. You're just paying taxes.

There is also the water example. Few if any would pay for bottled water. Most people find it horribly overpriced as it is, and if it were the only source of water, there would be worldwide protest due to the pricing of it. The alternative that most {sane} people use is a monthly bill for water into their house. A shower is not $40 due to high prices of bottled water, but less than a dollar because you're paying a monthly fee for something that is so easy to create(filtered water). Just as a CD is so easy to create - this is the second example. perhaps services could arise like iTunes, except ones of higher quality. Ones that allow unlimited downloads in a lossless codec, none of that low quality 128k media they sell. Ones that have no DRM, and could be so low priced(due to industry reform, which is discussed below) that many would use. Or, your ISP would charge a slight fee in exchange for the legality of music and movie sharing. Again, like the above, it'd be too small for you to say you're paying for media, yet you would be.

They would make their revenue and you'd get your open media, a perfect compromise. Neither side's goals are ever to be reached if the bickering going on now continues. One side wanting to continue screwing over artists, and screwing over and suing their main consumer base. The other side looking to have free media in spite of the fact that it costs money to make(not half the amount of money they'd like to get you to believe, though). Both side's optimistic views of the future are just unrealistic. The only realistic outcome to me, is a compromise, or a continued battle of internet vs industry.

Onto reform in media industries. If CD prices were reduced, they would still have to start giving more to the artist. Instead of $1 to the artist and $15 for a CD, it could be $2.50 to the artist and $5 or $7 for the storebought CD. As of now, this would work because they are making too much money as I pointed out with this link. They also would not need to make nearly as much money if media had a tax on it, as that would be their big source of revenue.

If a system like this were implemented, lots of positive changes would begin to occur. Filesharing networks, instead of focusing on becoming more anonymous and less centralized as to avoid the limited digital law enforcement nowadays, would focus on becoming better networks. Files would be indexed at sites centrally such as shareconnector and sharereactor again without legal reprucussion. They would become better networks because they'd be evolving towards efficiency, not anonymity. Servers could use ads to pay the bills and host as much music as they can find, so people could have full speed downloads, or people could just download off their favorite filesharing network which would be booming with popularity after being legalized.

That's just on the network side. Think of the benefits for the people using them. If a compromise like this were ever to come about, the next generation of people would have access to all the free art they can find. Much more people would see movies and listen to music if it were so easily accessible, and free. My optimistic vision of the future is that the next generation would get to be exposed to all the music, and all the films they want because it was free and so easily accessible, just like public schools are. Good music is one of my greatest hobbies now, and I'd love to see it hit more people, especially if at a young age.

True... there is that 'hidden' media tax (who cares, so long as the media is cheap?! ).

We can always hope and pray for a nice change for both sides, but honestly, with how things are going now, is there a better-than-slight chance that an 'insider' will think about this and get the big boys to consider it, let alone play along? Our side is willing (and also pushing for change due to the changing landscape), their side sticks with one model and want to maximize it.

Compromise will so not be easy. I'm not intentionally pessimistic, there is hope, but looking at reality. With filesharing networks, similar issue as IRC - queues. With ads - someone's going to find a way to block them, if it's worth bothering about.

"a nice change for both sides"?????

"So, suppose a media tax was created. This would fund the movie and music industries."

No, no, no, no, no.

1) Joe Conservative living in Red State America will tell you he's not going to pay for Hollywood to produce smut.

2) Larry Liberal living in Blue State America will tell you that if you create a tax, the industries are now government subsidized. Censorship will be the condition and propaganda will be the product.

If you're talking about a compulsory license, such as radio pays to broadcast, paid by the p2p companies themselves (radio listeners do not pay the fee), that is a different thing altogether.

Some of us do not want to possess the RIAA's content because we are musicians and have discovered that the entire music industry is run by crooks and thieves. We don't want their content nor the media it comes etched upon.

A music tax could actually be annoying enough to create a Boston Tea Party effect.

So yeah, go ahead. Try it. Let's get this right to the boiling point where EVERYONE in the country except the 1000 RIAA artists that are still around can hate the music industry.

"You can either get stuff for free, or buy media at horribly overpriced retail prices and support a corrupt industry."

There are three sides to this argument -- the labels, the consumers and the other million artists who are NOT part of the RIAA megaconglomerate.

Any "compromise" which fails to recognize this third party is a victory for the RIAA.

Good points, George, as usual.

"Any 'compromise' which fails to recognize this third party is a victory for the RIAA."

. . . and would be patently unfair -- therefore, intolerable for us savvy consumers who are wary of getting screwed over.

Webcasters currently pay 7/100 of a cent for each "play" (per listener). Napster offered the RIAA a nickle. It wasn't enough.

Wasn't enough. 400 bazillion jillion downloads later...

Nice and idolistic, doesn't float though.

Any and every time I or you go buy a blank media we have paid the RIAA and majors for that ablitility to record. It is a hidden surcharge in very media purchased. I have already paid for the right to burn what ever I decided to burn, doesn't matter at what bit rate I burn at, the charge is the same. What also doesn't matter is if I am going to use a vcr tape for a homemade movie of the family, a cassette tape for recording personal notes to myself, or a dvd for a data backup off my computer. I still have to pay the fee because "I might" record infringing media. To date I am sure the RIAA is money ahead on media that was NOT used for the purpose of recording copywrited files.

Prehaps one of the things missed here by the article has been brought out already. The fact that if you are an artists and you aren't turning over your potential life earnings to them, then you are excluded from any sort of deal involving money or laws. Simply, they don't care about Joe Blow who learned his talent the hard way if he isn't contributing to their coffers. In fact the majors have done everything they can to restrict the market, media, radio, and distribution channels to exclude those that have not signed the evil pact in blood.

As such there can be no fairness, no bit of equal tax, no amount of data counting that levels the playfeild while these tactics are empolyed.

As George has so kindly made presentation of, it was never about money. At anytime the p2p could be solved with licensing. I make the point over and over to demonstate that this is a made crisis and not one that "just happened".

"Filesharing as it is is communism"

PLEASE PLEASE DONT MISTAKE COMMUNISM WITH SOCIALISM.

Socialism is a neutral economic structure with its merits and demerits, Communism is a totalitarian state control of society and economy to the point of complete choking off of civil liberties.

One is a benign and widespread regime among many western nations, the other is essentially fascist tyrrany under another name.. they are not to be considered synonyms.

If it were communism, the state would own it, not the people.

Thasp, interesting article, Canada's been paying the "media tax" for ages but they're still arguing over the merits of file sharing - and I believe thinking of changing the law so that filesharing IS copyright infringement - if they do so I'll wager that they don't remove the media tax!!!!

The other thing that springs to mind is the whole concept of "media", when I first subscribed to Boycott-RIAA CDs were the order of the day, it was a hassle encoding them to put a few songs on my tiny 64MB MP3 player, it was easier to use Napster etc. especially as that gave access to tracks that either were hard/impossible to find or else I already had on vinyl (and ripping those was 1000 times more hassle than ripping CDs so I felt completely justified in downloading even though the UK doesn't have "fair use" rights).

As the music library grew on the computer there was something of a sea change, the little MP3 player was replaced by an MP3 CD player, suddenly I could take a trip across the Atlantic and just take a dozen CDs with me and I wouldn't have finished them by the time I got back (previously I used to take a 48CD case "doubled up") - bit of a bugger when it comes to playing them in the rental car of course! (trick there was rent the cheapest, with a tape rather than CD and use an adaptor!)

At this point I'm suddenly finding myself happy with digital media, the household computer grew into a wifi network of computers - the laptop reaches the parts that the mains doesn't get to!

(Computer illiterate) lodger moves in, finds out that the room comes complete with computer and internet, (He actually sat in front of the thing for 20 minutes wondering what to do next!) - took to the internet like a duck to water but it was the music that grabbed him most, no hunting amongst the racks for a CD, no more hunting amongst the piles of CDs that someone's been too lazy to put back, no more "which compillation is XYZ on?" - we'd actually prefer to buy new (or old!) songs digitally, what we are NOT prepared to do is buy low bitrate, DRM files, especially when to buy a chart CD in the UK can cost 50% more to buy online than it does in the supermarket and for a much inferior product.

We now have 60GB Creative Labs Zens, they don't yet allow us to carry ALL the music on the system (300MB - x2 for backup) but they come close in terms of storing the music we want to listen to at this moment in time.

"Physical product" - no thanks, I now see how much storage space I gain by putting the plastic in the loft! in any case the magic of the gatefold LP sleeve was well and truly lost with the move to CD. 18 months ago I'd have demanded a product I could "hold in my hand" now it's the last thing I want, it's that change that really tolls the bell for the record companies, there are too many uses for mass media storage for it to be a fair option for a media tax, CDR or DVDR both started out as a non-computer medium so up to a point it's fair that the the media industries have an interest in the "blanks" - I don't think that that holds true when there's an attempt to extend that to media that they traditionally have had no interest in - and even been hostile to.

At this point I guess I have to do exactly that - make my point

1) I want to see the ARTISTS get paid, but I'm not sure that recorded media actually has much revenue potential, it's more of a revenue generating tool.
2) more than ever there's no need for the "Label" to be anything other than a service industry to the artist, and when there is no longer any "physical" product they should lay down and die gracefully
3) publicists/pluggers (separate from the "recording industry" may have their place)
4) Ultimately revenue cannot be raised for recorded works, there is no longer any realistic way to do this, charge for media, charge for internet bandwidth yes, but people will still lend music to their friends who will copy it, DRM is, in all cases, an inconvenience and nothing more (the evil day could be held back by reducing the price so that it's not worth the bother to copy it yourself)
5) recorded music in the future will only be a promotional tool for concerts and merchandising.

We can argue all we like about compensation models but the bottom line is that the cat is out of the bag and it's not going back in! Times have changed, the product has changed, the technology has changed, the distribution methods have changed. Once the artists (Or more to the point, the consumers) no longer need physical product there are only two things they need, talent, and a "street team" to get the word out. RIAA clings to the past but I think that all too often we, the opponents, are equally guilty of that, we try and appease, we still see things from their point of view, but we really need to take a step back, think of how things have changed in the last two years, think two years hence, think WTF and then just sit in a corner and sob!!!

If you've got this far thanks for sticking with me!!!! - I'm done!

Another great post from PipzUK