HP Pays Music Surcharge On CD-Rs

Remember the plan, in the U.S. and Canada, to tax DAT and send the profits to the music labels? Bubblehead writes "GEMA successfully sued HP over the fact that music CDs can be copied with CD-Rs. Now HP has to pay DM17 (US$8) for each CD burner sold since February 1998. So far I only found a German article on this (AP). You can translate with Babelfish. I think this is going too far - it's like adding a surcharge to a camera, because you might take a photo of an expensive painting."

So....

[Hynman]

Now that I've paid a surcharge, I can copy all the music cd's I want?

-- Seems only fair.

Re:How do I get my share?

[Hynman]

Why not create your own label, like everyone else?=)
Seriously though, why isn't there (or why can't there be) an independent music label for the unsigned bands? I guess dues would be a must, so that they have funding to take on such legal battles.... but I don't see why it can't be done.

Re:How do I get my share?

[luckykaa]

There's got to be an independent music producers association that would be willing to fight for this. Especially since 90% of your (hypothetical) fans will pirate because of lack of availability. What need to happen is for a small band to try to gather some support.

I want my money back

[luckykaa]

Can I get the extra money that the CD-R cost back from GEMA if I can demonstrate that I use it only for producing my own data? (Hypothetically, since I'm not German and I didn't buy one)

You know what has happened to this world?

[The Evil Beaver]

I know what happened. Logic put his brother Illogic in charge and left to take a vacation, but gone run over by a transport truck. That's right, there's no more logic in the world. It's gone upside down with silliness! You hear me, umop episdn!!!


When the pack animals stampede, it's time to soak the ground with blood to save the world. We fight, we die, we break our cursed bonds.

already done with cassette tapes

[SlimElvis]

Actually, paying royalties on potential copyright infringement already exists in the form of a levy on audio (and i think video) cassettes which is then paid to royalty distrbution agents like AAPRA.

How do I get my share?

[bluGill]

As a member of a small band, I make CDs for sale at concerts. Since we are not a popular band, we do not have a contract with a major label.

How do I as a legitimate band get a) my money back from the extra I paid for a CD-R (and blank media in the case of cassettes) and b) my share of this money that belongs to me, in payment for those who buy my cd and illegally copy it.

PS, I'm not accually a member of a band, however I do hang around with bands that do exactly the above: record music in their homes, burn CDs on a CD-R and then sell them at concerts. This is common practice. They deserve their share of this money.

Short explanation of GEMA

[dadith]

OK, I'll try to get this straight but I'm not a musician ans thus not overtly envolved with the GEMA, but I'll try. GEMA [www.gema.de] is an abbreviation for Gesellschaft fuer Musikalische Ausfuehrungs- und Mechanische Vervielfaeltigungsrechte. Or (badly) translated: Society for musical performance and mechanical reproduction rights (of the music ;).
The Basic Idea behind this is to have a way to compensate an artist (Musician in case of GEMA) for his work, even when it is copied. This is done by collecting money from everyone who reproduces copies of music or on supplies needed to copy it. Tapes, CD-Rs (special ones with a GEMA Signature wich are extremly overpriced BTW). This of course includes broadcasting of music or public performance of songs written by someone else. You need to register with GEMA, pay and off you go. This money is used to do such useful things like pensions for artists.
The nice thing about the whole thing is, that currently with paying the GEMA-Fees on Tapes ETC you have a _right_ to copy things that are protected for private use. At last for analog devices this is pretty certain, e.g. it is illegal (or at last it was, EU might have changed that) to put Macrovision signals on a Tape. Unfortunatly it is not that easy with digital media. But the fact that I pay GEMA on the recorder AND (well theoretically) for the CD-Rs would make copying CDs for personal use (very important!) legal.
BTW: It doesn't matter wether you actually *use* your recorder/tape/whatever to store information that is protected by GEMA or not. You pay for the ability to do so. Of course if HP sold CD-Recorders that are not capable of burning audio CDs (or at last made sure they would only burn audio on GEMA-CDRs) matters would probably be different.
Ciao, Peter (who hopes this was not too far off.)
PS: Artist == GEMA member, what did _you_ expect? ;)

What about pirated software? Let's cut them in!

[coyote-san]

I recall hearing a rather humorous ad (unintentionally humorous, I'm sure), where Microsoft claimed a quarter of all MS discs are counterfeited. These shady duplicate discs supposedly have a far greater incidence of viruses than 100% Pure MS discs, and are the (sole) reason why Windows systems are always crashing.

Since CD-Rs can be used to burn duplicate software discs -- and in fact *are* routinely used to duplicate "working copies" of discs so the originals can be kept in a scratch-free environment -- and many of these discs illegally find there way onto unauthorized systems despite all reasonable efforts by the IT staff, doesn't it follow that MS should get a similar surcharge on all CD-R drives because of similar abuses?

I'm not seriously suggesting this, only pointing out that the same logic can be easily used by other groups to demand their own surcharge. I'm sure still others can find reasons why millions of law-abiding consumers should also chip in some cash. Should we accept all of these claims -- claims which paradoxically make it far easier for people to justify such illicit copies "since they already paid for it" -- or should these groups grow up and go after the handful of bad apples breaking the law instead of the vast majority of law-abiding consumers?