Source: Torrentfreak

Recently Dutch Record Companies decided to no longer use copy protection on CDs because the costs didn’t outweigh the benefits. Politicians are now looking for alternative ways to compensate the Music Industry.

Martijn van Dam, a member of one of the bigger political parties in The Netherlands said, “Taxing Internet traffic is great way to compensate the Music Industry for the loss in sales by illegal filesharing”. He added that a prerequisite would be that DRM and copy protection should be abandoned. The battle against piracy is lost according to Van Dam, he says that the Music Industry has to accept that their products will be traded over the internet.

Surprisingly, Van Dam is not alone in this. Nicolien van Vroonhoven, a politician from the leading party (CDA) in the Netherlands, also thinks that this pirate tax would be a good idea. She adds that this could only work if people can’t be charged for downloading music anymore.

The statements (Dutch source) from these leading politicians basically say that piracy should be condoned, as long as Internet traffic is taxed. Although the (hypothetical) model might sound appealing to some, it is not very practical. First of all, illegal music downloads are just a small percentage of all files that are swapped illegally. What about movies and software, will those companies be compensated too? And an ever bigger problem, these politicians seem to assume that all internet traffic is generated by illegal downloads. What about sites like YouTube, or software, music and videos that are released for free? These all generate a lot of traffic, but have nothing to do with piracy.

A bad idea if you ask me. It is good to see that politicians are exploring alternative methods to overcome piracy, but this one is quite ridiculous. This clearly shows how alienated politicians sometimes are from the real (or virtual) world.

Ain't the devil always in the details?

Maybe we will follow and sell pot at StarBucks too.

Why did the first line of an old Beach-Boy tune just pop into my head?

"Wouldn't it be nice..."

But seriously.

I actually have always had similar concerns about the possibility of any "compulsary licensing" scheme being implemented.

MY fear is that were we to adopt/incorporate it into copyright law, the "details" would be dictated by the RIAA devil.

With radio, soundscan, etc. we ALREADY have bias in favor of the corporate music world.

If we as a society push (even with the INTENT on making things fair) too quickly for compulsary licensing, I promise you all that it will end up being the RIAA and their associated/like-minded corporate entities who actually dictate the details.

Copyright reform/revision/reversion needs to occur first.

(Don't be too hasty!)

But Holland is a small country. Perhaps they have a government that listens to the wishes of its' people BEFORE bowing to the wishes of corporate overloards.

Horray if so!

"And an ever bigger problem, these politicians seem to assume that all internet traffic is generated by illegal downloads."

Where the hell do you suppose they got that idea? The RIAA, IFPI and every other acronym has been pushing that premise down the throats of politicians in every country that would listen to them for the last 7 years.

"I promise you all that it will end up being the RIAA and their associated/like-minded corporate entities who actually dictate the details."

I think they had a perfect opportunity to do this (several, actually) and they passed it up every time in the name of greed.

If the politicians wake up to the fact that all internet traffic is NOT generated by illegal downloads, that would require recognizing all the legal stuff the RIAA has been asking them to ignore the existence of.

It worked for a while, but that's over now. Their window of opportunity has closed.

You know the "acronyms" stuck at least a finger in that shut-down-window George. Let's hope it wasn't a crow-bar.

(I'm uneasy and usure.)

The things going on with the "YouTube" story for example.

I see implementations and examples of OUR side in all this, but I ALSO (and more-so) see the strength of the old-school way of thinking.

--------

Let's remember to warn our side not to ever declare "victory" until it is absolute.

(Which, of course, it never will be.)

re: not declaring victory until it is absolute (which, of course, it never will be)

Do elusive dreams yield victories?
(rhetorical question)

"The things going on with the 'YouTube' story for example."

You haven't stepped back far enough then. If YouTube was already sharing revenue, today's big winner would be a cat in a dryer.

Good for the cat!

Meow meow is now a STAR!

*

(Folks, sign a contract with the RIAA and I promise you will end up in virtually the same shape!)

I'll talk to ya later George.

I dunno. there are some things they could do to iron out the imbalances. if you ask me it looks like it turns into a flat monthly/quarterly/yearly rate for downloading. cool. that would stop a lot of the bs.

I am personally opposed to any corporate welfare tax being put in place. I do not download, or offer up, any of their crap so why should I pay for it?

Even if this approach looks attractive, keep in mind that taxes never go away...even if their intended purpose does.

Next there's the problem of who gets what. If I download a sample from D-Music, wouldn't I be generating revenue for the likes of Sony?

It seems that this would also have the effect of paying over and over for the same thing. This has the effect of turning music into a purely rental model. I don't like to rent anything, but there are things I flat refuse to rent...Food, clothing and music to name a few. The problem with rentals is that you can't keep them, or change them in any way and I like to personalize things.

Keep in mind that all you get from any of these guys is a license to use...Subject to terms that can (and do) change on a regular basis. They could simply change the terms to only allow personal possession of a music file for say thirty days (the period of time until your next installment for connectivity) and still sue anyone on those terms regardless of any tax alread collected.

I think our founding fathers here in the States were correct to separate the church from the state. Too bad they didn't think to do the same with Corporations (or any business interests for that matter).

If they want to sell subscriptions, go for it. They would do very well and rake in a lot of cash from their back catalog of music from dead artists that they no longer pay any royalties to or the stuff that they contractually got ownership of. They shouldn't get paid for stuff they do not own

Lastly, how would this tax be divided? If there is no DRM type mechanism in place how will they be able to determine who got what songs? Should there be a tracking mechanism, then what prevents it from becoming a honey list for spam, viruses, etc? How do we keep them from flooding in order to get better numbers?

Bottom line...Let them earn their income like the rest of us....With no gaurantees.

Corporate America, generally speaking of course, opposes public welfare systems. So why should middle America support corporate welfare systems?

Really good points.

I disagree with TotallyFrustrated on the rental part, though. Rental is what they've tried to corner everyone into. What Napster turned into, for instance. That's what DRM is for.

If you download an mp3, you can keep it.

As for people paying for it that don't use it, I can think of several ways to alleviate this problem. The phrase "music service provider" comes to mind.

The real issue is the question of paying the right people. And by "people", I don't mean corporations.

They've never really tried to accurately track radio. After 85 years, ASCAP and BMI rely on professional radio listeners to determine who gets paid broadcast royalties, not playlists. You know what music is playing in the millions of bars, restaurants and concert halls across the country? Neither do they.

Digital downloads provide accountability. You can check weblogs and see exactly what was downloaded and how many times.

As SoundExchange has proven, this is still not enough to get the money collected into the hands of the people who deserve it. The cartel always gets the money first.

Anything that can break that chain is an improvement.

Well there is a better idea -- although the RIAA and MPAA wouldn't realize it if it walked up to them and bitch slapped them.

If the RIAA and MPAA started their own P2P Network that was subscription based -- this would work fine and they could control all under their copyright while giving indie artists and DJs the right to remix their crap and make it availabe there without fear of retaliation.

At this point -- the Indies would see that this is working, impliment something similar -- then it would be the battle of the Networks. One service trying to outmarket the other -- just as commercials do with competion all the time (i.e - the lame "Mac / PC Commercials")

But there are reasons why this would NEVER HAPPEN.

#1 - fair competition isn't complete donimation

#2 - they're still stuck on a "per unit" marketing platform (which is ironic because their own services like Napster and Rhapsody are gonna hurt them severely -- who wants to pay $10-$20 per CD if you can have unlimited downloads for practically nothing?)

So the only solution is: let them keep fucking up. let them DIE They've only themselves to blame for it when it happens.

isaacfeagin

I am against welfare too. I am not against the premise, or saying people do not need help in some cases. I am against the government managed system. Name one thing that our government does efficiently. Nothing.

Let the people have more of their own money, and they will give it. Let the deserving welfare people get it from local organizations where relationships and friendships can be established.

Government should be what it was designed to do. Protect us, make sure trade is fair, and other than that stay out of the way.

lowdbrent & isaacfeagin -- So you're saying that songwriters and performers shouldn't collect royalties from broadcasts of their work? Or should radio just not be allowed to play the songs in the first place? Or how about we let the record labels sue every radio station out of existence?

Without compulsory licenses, this would still not be resolved. There would be no issue about music on the Internet because there would be no such thing as popular music.

Thats not at all what I'm saying, I think cumpolsory liscensing or however the hell you spell it, is a great idea. My meaning is that there shouldn't be an internet tax for it, and we all know that precious little of the tax would actually be going to the artists, even less than is usual nowadays, it would in its essence, as has already been said, a tax for the welfare of the corporations.

Anyone that spends 15 minutes talking to me about politics and economics will walk away thinking I'm a complete nutjob because i have both "far leftist" and "rightist" ideas. I don't support the public welfare systems as it is, combined with social security and SSI they make up about 57% of the government budget, money better spent...so you can see why i don't support the tax on internet

And btw...if that didnt make sense...im really really drunk right now...

there is no better way to argue politics

or religion.



or philosophy.

"And btw...if that didnt make sense...im really really drunk right now..."

Excuses, excuses.

(lol, can I claim that defense for anything and everything I have ever said here over the years? I probably wouldn't be telling too many lies if I did plead that defense.)