Canadian Songwriters Propose $10/mo Internet Fee

BitterOak points out this Windsor Star story, according to which "Canadian songwriters are proposing a $10 fee to be added to monthly ISP bills, giving users a license to download music using peer-to-peer file sharing technologies for free, without fear of reprisal. The money collected would be distributed to members of a Canadian association of songwriters (SOCAN). The story doesn't make clear whether the license would apply only to Canadian music, or how musicians in other nations would be compensated otherwise."

Intl. Distribution

[rueger]

how musicians in other nations would be compensated

SOCAN (and most other country's performing rights organizations) collects foreign royalties for members of ASCAP, BMI etc through reciprocal international agreements.

So in answer, USian composers whose work is played in Canada still get royalties.

Hmmmmm......

[Donniedarkness]

Hmmm.......

No.

No.

[Sarten-X]

As someone who simply doesn't listen to music, pirated or otherwise, I'm going to go with "no way in Hell".

We already pay a royalty on CDs for this.

[tomhudson]

They negotiated a levy on all blank CDs long ago, for this same reason.

This is double-dipping.

Better idea - why not make it a levy on iPods and other music players. Why should I have to pay a royalty when I don't download music?

10 bucks a month?

[the_Bionic_lemming]

So they would want me to add over 25% of cost to my monthly bill in order to download songs - which I wouldn't and don't?

I have a better idea. for that ten bucks a month I can download any song, movie, or game I want. No media protection, no online DRM, and no exceptions. Iron Man 3 would be available for me to grab and watch for free the day it's released.

Otherwise - Get bent.

Re:Intl. Distribution

[iamhassi]

If this passes I'm so becoming I'm a "musician"....

Re:Deaf people think what of this idea?

[betterunixthanunix]

Funny, because blind people still pay taxes that are used to construct highways, at least as far as I know. People without children still pay taxes that are used to support public schools. So what exactly is wrong with deaf people paying a tax that supports the creation of music (in theory, anyway)?

My issue with this tax is that it is probably not going to result in an end to the recording industry lawsuits. That is the real problem here: they want taxpayer support, while retaining the ability to attack taxpayers who dare to download music.

Bridge toll.

[unity100]

Why not cut to the chase and just toll everyone passing any bridge, junction, road crossing, waterway and then divert the loot to the "intellectual property 'rights' holders" ?

because that is, entirely this.

Re:Deaf people think what of this idea?

[gman003]

But blind people still benefit from highways (even though they don't drive, they still ride), and people without children benefit from educational taxes (because, seriously, would you want to put up with someone else's uneducated brat?). The only people this tax would benefit is the RIAA (or whatever the Canadian equivalent is).

Re:Hmmmmm......

[iamhassi]

I have no problem either, we should all pay for our music on iTunes and then pay an extra $10/mo to... wait, I already paid, why am I paying again?

But I don't think it should stop with music! What about that copy of Office you downloaded? We should all pay $XX/mo to the BSA [bsa.org] (Business Software Alliance... not boy scouts) for downloading programs.... also remember the MPAA needs their $XX for the movies.... and the Entertainment Software Association needs their $XX for those games you download.... am I leaving anyone out? Music, software, movies, games... PORN! We owe the Adult Film and Video Association of America [wikipedia.org] a TON! $XXX/mo sound alright? Ok so your monthly internet bill is $1,800, we offer a convenient payment plan of only $20 charged three times a day...

Make it Opt In

[Rinnon]

Shooting this down without having a discussion about it is terribly short sighted. We keep complaining that the RIAA and co need to think of better business models. Maybe this is it. I am not opposed to paying 10 dollars a month to download as much music as I want. I am however opposed to it being tacked onto my Internet bill against my will. So why not make this an Opt In option? People who don't download music don't need to Opt In. I could Opt In and download whatever I want without fear of legal reprisal. I don't think that's such a terrible deal. Next it'll be Hollywood wanting it's 10 bucks a month, or Book Publishers. Again, I'd be happy to pay 10 bucks a month to be able to legally download all the movies or books I want to. As long as it's my choice, I think that's a really reasonable price to pay. Having the Internet cost 100 bucks a month because of Entertainment Taxes when all you want is Wikipedia is ridiculous. Being given the OPTION to pay 100 bucks a month with all that Entertainment legally included is actually fairly reasonable.

Re:No.

[martin-boundary]

Oh please.

Do you really want to pay $10 for downloading songs? You know, even if you don't, it's because everybody does it. How about an extra $10 for downloading movies? It makes sense, everybody does it. And an extra $10 for downloading pirated Microsoft software? There's studies about that, you know. And an extra $10 for ebooks, let's not forget the publishing industry.

The internet surfing population does not owe artits a living. The world has changed, and (music) piracy is here to stay. It's time to reinvent business models so they don't depend on stopping copyright infringement. Adapt or die.

Re:Intl. Distribution

[dgatwood]

But on the balance this would likely be good for the unknown performers because it would likely open up a new audience, one which wouldn't likely pay just to sample.

Unlikely. It would probably be distributed in the same way as royalties for audio CD taxes are, which means it's based on radio airplay counts. Translation: unless you're writing music for a major label, you're not going to see a cent.

That's the real reason the big music publishers want bullshit like this. It ensures that artists and songwriters will be forever beholden to the major labels. The songwriter organizations are playing right into the larger players' hands, and are basically defecating on the indie music scene.

For musicians as a whole, this law, if passed, will be a tremendous step backwards. By further institutionalizing the dependence on radio play and other highly restrictive channels, and by effectively reducing the value of sold music in Canada to zero (because you'll be able to legally share and download it for free), the proposed law would make it so that you can't make money with music except by teaching it.

In an era when the rest of the world is embracing the Internet as a great equalizer, Canada's law is threatening to destroy that---to eliminate the usefulness of the Internet as a medium for independent musicians to sell their music and make money outside the context of a major label. Frankly, any law like this is downright criminal.

Re:Intl. Distribution

[commodore6502]

>>>this would likely be good for the unknown performers

Why should I have to pay another $128 (taxes) just to listen to crappy pop music? Frak that. This is nothing more than Government tyranny to subsidize megacorporations (Sony, Warners, et cetera).

Megacorps == Dirty pieces of shit.
Let Sony and the rest of them die.

Re:Intl. Distribution

[commodore6502]

Is they are so "good" at it, how come the Canadian artists had to sue in order to recover nearly 1 billion in unpaid royalties? (Their songs were used on greatest hits CDs, but the sales never credited back to the singers, writers, etc.)

Re:Intl. Distribution

[therealkevinkretz]

"being able to listen to whatever you want without a direct cost"

And that "$10/mo Internet Fee" is better than your avoided "direct cost" how?

Re:Intl. Distribution

[Anonymous Coward]

.

..the proposed law would make it so that you can't make money with music except by teaching it.

You mean musicians will have to make money by passing on the skills they learned for a fee; by selling tickets to live performances; by selling physical, branded merchandise or licensing such sales to third-parties; by selling commissions to write songs for others; by having a patron; etc.

rather than

using government to establish artificial scarcity of a non-scare resource in order to apply old business models to new technology.

Perhaps stepping back to the way musicians previously made money before the recording industry took over might actually be a Good Thing(TM) Perhaps it'll be harder to become a millionaire rock star that way, but the world might be better for it.

Re:Intl. Distribution

[afxgrin]

As if the equitable way to distribute the money is dividing it equally among members. Some musicians are clearly more popular than others, so they would get a larger cut, right? Considering their material is probably 'downloaded' more than others.

This whole thing is ridiculous. $10/customer for SOCAN, what next? $10/customer for the movie industry? $10/customer for graphic artists? $10/customer for the telecom union guys who maintain the network? I still find it appalling that the recording industry managed to push through the fees on mp3 players and CD-R discs. The internet one will NEVER fly.