Comments on: Masnick on the Music Tax

By: Charbax

Charbax — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 11:57:04 +0000

Radiohead are not representative of all the independent artists out there.¨

The music tax is needed. In face there should be a tax for all arts on the Internet. Start with a few dollars in average taxed on everyone each month. Then that tax can get higher once everyone clearly can see the benefit. But even by starting with an averaeg for $5 or $10 per person per month, you've got plenty enough money to revolutionize the Internet culture.

By: Charbax

Charbax — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 07:57:04 +0000

By: Charbax

Charbax — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 06:57:04 +0000

By: eee_eff

eee_eff — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 06:17:59 +0000

With that said, a music tax would have some short-term benefits. An effective collective licensing scheme would create a much more fertile environment for entrepreneurs to build innovative technologies on top of peer-to-peer technologies, so maybe a music tax is a price worth paying for the benefits of a peer-to-peer friendly legal environment.

Never. The innovation of a group such as radiohead, shows that such a tax is unneeded.

And I am enjoying very much seeing the large labels destroyed. They created the anti-freedom group known as the RIAA, and you will not use my tax dollars to deny me the very high value entertainment of watching them destroyed.

By: autodidact

autodidact — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 22:25:13 +0000

The major record labels did not fairly compensate artists for LP or CD sales. They are not doing so for legal downloads from amazon or iTunes, either. (Read Weird Al Yankovik's thoughts on compensation for digital downloads if you want some enlightenment there.) I'm not aware that artists have been paid any of the settlement money recovered from the thousands of threatened lawsuits against peer-to-peer file sharers, either. (And when I write of “fair compensation” I simply mean that stories of bands who had to sue just to get what was contractually due are dime-a-dozen. It seems to be almost standard practice to cheat the artists, and a few times they actually get called on it.)

Last but not least, it is in the major label's interest to find ways to exclude their competitors, the small fry independents. If not exclude, then at least they'll find ways to make it difficult for them to participate and get compensation.

Put the fox (or the fox's agents) in charge of chickens? Maybe a bad idea. Probably. Don't want to be too dogmatic.

By: Ben R.

Ben R. — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 18:28:10 +0000

It would be difficult to imagine major music labels signing on to an equitable deal on a voluntary music tax. If we assume for the moment it is possible to effectively and fairly distribute the income from this tax to the copyright holder, is there any compelling reason for new artists to sign on to a label that takes a lion's share of the profit from this pool?

You don't need them for advertising. They are, if anything, less effective at finding (or manufacturing) artists/trends than the internet. If you needed funding there are other methods of obtaining venture capital (with probably better terms). And you don't need them to tour.

If individual artists are allowed to share in this pool the major labels are finished. If they limit it to their music the ISPs in question could run foul of antitrust issues. And if they keep going without effectively monetizing internet music they are dead.

I'm sort of surprised they aren't trying to compete with free via something like Hulu. It wouldn't be too difficult. Let the user create a playlist and occasionally toss in some targeted audio ads. X number of ads for a given hour of streaming audio.