

The RIAA wants to charge broandband users $5 a month because of online piracy. - Readmore
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/news/2008/03/music_levy?currentPage=all&

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hobbs
Sure, the RIAA get's $5/mo, then the MPAA will want $10/mo. Television isn't
covered under RIAA or MPAA, so they'll need, say, a $5/mo surcharge as well.
Naturally, the BSA will want $5/mo too. Next, comes the book publishers who
will only want $3/mo. Then, the audiobook publishers, which aren't represented
by the RIAA, want $3/mo too. But wait! The game publishers aren't in on the
action yet either. They want $3/mo. Newspaper and magazine publishers are
satisfied with a modest $1/mo.

So far, we have a total of a $35/mo surcharge on your internet bill just in
case you should happen to download copyrighted content. And that's not even
covering the more niche copyright holders such as photographers, graphic
designers, and 3D modelers.

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gruseom
_Whether ISPs will be willing to ante up remains far from clear, especially
since many users can be expected to protest the extra charge._

Whether the snowball will stay frozen in hell remains unclear, especially
since the temperature can be expected to exceed 5000 degrees.

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Readmore
There actually could be a business here. Start an new ISP and make a deal with
the movie and record labels that you'll charge your users $10 more a month to
compensate the artists as long as your users can download as many movies and
songs as they want without fear of lawsuits.

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marvin
This post turned out rather bipolar. Please bear with me.

I might bite on such a deal... It doesn't, however, give full moral absolution
as RIAA/MPAA only covers a subset of all the artists hit by file sharing. And
at that, they only support the guys I wouldn't give a dime. So on second
thought, perhaps I might not bite on such a deal.

It is a good idea, though..if we could somehow push in some organization which
fairly distributes the copyright infringement tax (fat chance of that!)
artists could be fairly compensated for whatever amount of money we can
finally agree they lose to "illegal downloads".

On another note..your idea wouldn't work after all, because it would be
voluntary, and hence the MAFIAA wouldn't get the coverage they slaver for.

Even if a copyright tax could be successfully implemented, it would, as the
history of such taxes suggests, remain in place indefinitely, even long after
it has lost its relevance. Which is incredibly stupid. Why can't we cover this
budgetary post with the money from a tax instituted to pay the welfare of
coach drivers removed from business by the automobile, or something in that
vein?

All things considered, this idea seems just as harebrained as everything the
RIAA comes up with...

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mixmax
They already have something like this in place in Denmark. Whenever you buy
blank CD's, DVD's or other storage media you pay a fee to copydan. This money
then goes to the artists. Of course this doesn't make it legal to use the
media you bought to actually store music you haven't bought.

It's insane - you pay and get nothing in return...

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kkshin
In the US there is a royalty fee paid for each blank cd that is labeled for
"music" use. Also manufacturers for certain recording devices pay royalties
whose cost is passed on to the consumer. Every time you buy a VCR/Audio Tape
Player/DVR(?) you're probably implicitly paying the RIAA some money.

If you really think about it from their position, it sorta makes sense. If
they're already receiving payments for some devices that facilitate recording,
then in their minds they should get payments for copying over a network as
well. Interestingly enough, I believe "computer peripherals" are excempt from
this tax/levy/royalty.

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mixmax
interesting, I didn't know other countries had something similar.

The fallacy, of course, is that you don't get to legally copy any music even
though you pay. Basically it's just a subsidy to the music business.

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joeguilmette
this is one of the few ideas to come out of the riaa that i think might
actually be worthwile.

imagine this: -ISP's charge an extra $10-20 per month. -Your internet access
comes with free access to music/movies/tv/bloggers, etc, whichever media
conglomerates opt in -You have free access to their media -The extra fee is
appropriately distributed to wherever your bandwidth goes.

Yes, it needs to be refined/rethought, but the idea of charging for content at
the ISP level solves a lot of problems.

