UK Royalty Group Wants ISPs To Pay For Pirating Customers

Idbar writes "A group representing British songwriters and composers will on Wednesday call for the introduction of a levy on broadband providers based on the amount of pirated music they allow to pass through their networks. Will Page, chief economist at PRS for Music, will argue at a Westminster conference that a piracy fee would better align the financial interests of internet service providers with rights holders at a time when the two industries are at odds over who should bear the costs of online song swapping."

Re:Rights Holder

[Anonymous Coward]

My dear fellow, every Brit knows that it is "Kiss my arse"

I have no desire to be near a donkey

Re:No further prosecution?

[Thanshin]

Dear god, now I'm suddenly in favor of this proposal.

Pr0n tax ftw!

Of course there would have to be public polls to vote for the best content, which should get the most compensation.

Or it could become part of the political parties' program. Democrats could promote child porn for their christian voters, and democrats... bestialism for the hippies? There's still so much to investigate... I suggest a ministry of pr0n to be created right now.

Re:Conflicting Ideas

[Rogerborg]

Yup, what we need is a self appointed super-umbrella organisation which will take it upon itself to speak for the self appointed normal-umbrella organisations.

Since I came up with the idea, I'm obviously the best person to run it. I'll collect the super-tax from ISPs - and mp3 player, CD/DVD, USB stick and hard drive manufacturers, hell, from headphone manufacturers. Don't worry, I'll be super-reliable, and pass all of the revenue on to the normal-umbrella groups, less a reasonable deduction for my expenses, say 25% or so.

Sound fair enough? I mean, if it works for the PRS, BPI and all the other TLA and ETLA shakedown mobs, why wouldn't it work for me?

Go for it, set a precedent!

[Anonymous Coward]

Then we can make the NY Thruway pay for my speeding tickets!

Re:Right. That's going to work well. Sure.

[beowulfcluster]

What if I set the comment on an mp3 file I seed to 'Shiver me timbers, yarr'. Will it match their MD5 then?

Irony incoming, in three... two... one...

[Drakkenmensch]

"Dear music lawyers. Following on your request that we should pay for illegal music downloads we allow to pass through, here is a detailed list of how much we allowed, which you will notice is empty. We 'allow' none to pass as we do not condone this practice, please find enclosed a fine payment cheque of zero dollars and zero cents. Love, the IPS."