French Government May Subsidize Music Downloads 187
angry tapir writes "The European Commission has approved a French program to subsidize legal music downloads for young people. The Carte Musique scheme gives €25 (US$35) to French residents aged 12 to 25 to spend on music downloads or subscription services. Young people can purchase a €50 card for just €25, with the balance paid by the state."
I guess that means (Score:4, Interesting)
for the next 2 years while this is in effect, the online music services will be raising their prices to milk the system.
They most likely won't but I wouldn't put it past those seeing this as a good money grab opportunity.
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Re:I guess that means (Score:4, Interesting)
Hey, let's give people a government-enforced ownership and monopoly over a thing, and then subsidize purchases of it.
If you want to let people download for free, weaken copyright somehow, you idiots. Demand that to have a copyright, you have to give the government X free copies of it or something, and the government can give those out.
This is just stupid.
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RTFA:
The scheme requires website operators to contribute a reduction in the price of the music, an extension of the duration of the subscription or a contribution to the cost of advertising the card. However as it caps the benefit each operator may draw from the scheme at €5 million there are concerns that the largest operators such as iTunes, FNAC and Amazon may not participate.
Doesn't sound like government enforcement, ownership or monopoly. However, I would have a problem with any of my taxes going to Apple or Amazon or whoever, which seems to be the idea here.
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> Doesn't sound like government enforcement, ownership or monopoly.
He means copyright, which certainly is a government-enforced monopoly.
Re:I guess that means (Score:4, Insightful)
Probably yes, and that would show how stupid they are.
If I were a teenager, I wouldn't really care about the subsidy. All I would want to know is what I'd be getting for my money. If I had to spend 25 euros on a 50 euros card to get 20 euros worth of music I wouldn't do it.
As usual, the taxpayer gets fucked. And the music companies, even with the subsidy, will get less than what they would if they had reasonable prices.
Re:I guess that means (Score:4, Insightful)
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The problem is, reducing the prices to 1 pound (~$1.60 US) wouldn't do much to stop piracy - it still costs money, and pirated copies are still free. If the decision to pirate is an economic one, you won't do much to end it by reducing the price, even drastically, unless the price drops to "free". If it's not an economic decision, then you've done nothing to change the fundamental objection someone has to paying for music.
Let's be honest, 99 cents for a new song is not much of a barrier to impulse buys, i
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Arguably, yes. And now we have the choice of buying the one song that's worth a damn for a buck, rather than $10-15 for a single song we like and 8-10 others that are pure crap.
So now, you can buy the individual song you like for 99 cents - even my *favorite* albums, I'd be hard pressed to say I love "every song on this album," so why focus on trying to help the record companies continue selling albums?
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The $1 iphone apps proves this really well in real life. There are literally many millionaires made because nobody hesitates to pay $1
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If I was a teenager, I would have bought as many €25 cards I could afford and sold them on ebay for €( 25+x% profit ) to adults wanting to save on their purchases. This scheme is doomed to fail quick.
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...and as a grown up, I will be selling music in France-- "Buy my song for €50 and get €25 cash-back!"
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If I was still one, I'd keep the card for "really good stuff that deserve to be paid for" or "stuff I can't find for free" ;)
And 3 years later the card would probably still be left unused and also invalid
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If I had to spend 25 euros on a 50 euros card to get 20 euros worth of music I wouldn't do it.
As usual, the taxpayer gets fucked.
Clearly the taxpayer won't get screwed then. Since by your logic no one would take them up on it.
Re:I guess that means (Score:5, Insightful)
Where do you get that they most likely won't? I probably won't be double, but an extra 50% increse is predictable.
Normally I'm a moderately liberal individual, and am for the government helping the people, but this is asinine. This is a luxury, not a necessity. This is promoting a specific business model that should survive or fail on it's own merits, not on some kind of corporate welfare.
W.T.A.F.?
Re:I guess that means (Score:4, Insightful)
Normally I'm a moderately liberal individual,
You can be conservative and socially liberal as well. Don't believe the trolls that tell you that if you are a liberal, you must be for ANYTHING proposed by another self proclaimed liberal. The reverse is also true, you can be conservative and not... Oh how do they put it, 'view Somalia as a libertarian paradise.'
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The reverse is also true, you can be conservative and not... Oh how do they put it, 'view Somalia as a libertarian paradise.'
Perhaps I'm just taking this the wrong way, but (assuming you group libertarians in with the "conservatives") you should know that it generally isn't the libertarians themselves who "view Somalia as a libertarian paradise." This is a categorization usually made by their opponents.
Libertarians are against aggression in general, of which government happens to be the largest source in most of the "civilized" world—made yet worse by its false shroud of "legitimacy"—but rule-by-tribal-elders (as prac
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Apparently in order to participate they have to lower prices, but I still think this is a terrible use of public funds.
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Liberalism, throughout most of the world including France, is usually considered a center-right political philosophy. Only in America is the word "liberalism" seen as "left-wing," which I think says a lot about Americans.
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Buy Apple shares, quick!
There's a bunch of French taxpayer money about to be transferred to Apple's account.
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5 million? In a post above I calculate that there are around 11M 12-25yr olds, and they get €25 each. I make that €275,000,000. Though I may well be wrong, feel free to correct me.
Phillip.
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The French government is subsidizing entertainment for a select part of the population, and THIS is your concern?
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When you consider that the "Health Care Industry" also includes the Health Insurance companies, yea. I do blame the Health Care Industry for charging too much too.
Among other problems in the industry...
Glad this is France (Score:4, Informative)
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You know what the worst part is? That damn socialism! Stupid government getting in the way of private business...SAY NO TO THE GOVERNMENT TAKEOVER!!!! /sarcasm
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Only if you define "socialist" as meaning "anything that affects society", which is incorrect.
The truly socialist option would be to force record companies to make music available for download at cost (in effect, free).
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That is only true if you use the US definition of socialism, i.e. anything more left wing than Ronald Regan.
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I can't see this providing any social or cultural value: most of the music people are going to be downloading is probably going to be readily available. This is why it is a waste. A better use of the money would be to invest it into music education programs where people actually LEARN how to play and make music.
I am not against government spending, so long as there is real measurable value in tha
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You indicate that what you're saying is sarcasm, but it's not clear what you're being sarcastic about.
Is it that you think this program is a good thing? Is it that you think it's *not* socialism? Is it that you think the GP post is off-base for saying this is a dumb way to spend tax money?
Because frankly, it's hard to see where this is anything but a waste of tax money that serves no purpose other than shoveling French taxpayer's money into the pockets of music industry executives.
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I know you're being sarcastic but maybe they're really not supposed to. Maybe a mark of a great society is one where record executives, lawyers and politicians don't get rich.
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Not particularly fond of this particular meme, but... FTFY
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The only society in which people of power are going to die "cold, hungry, and alone" is one where everyone else is already dead.
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France has 63.8 million people, 59.8% of which are 15-60. Assuming a fairly even distribution that works out around 11 million 12-15 yr olds. If they all take advantage then this is a €275,000,000 gift to the record labels from Sarkozy.
Bearing in mind that friend of Sarkozy's family Thierry Lhermitte [wikipedia.org] is board director on the company Trident Media Guard [wikipedia.org] that is enforcing the 3-strikes Internet disconnection "Hadopi", it wouldn't be surprising to find the money from this also making its way back into fam
Fraud (Score:5, Interesting)
How many cards can I get and can I buy my own music with it from my own 'label'?
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Cards are limited to one per person, per year and the French government expects one million cards will be sold each year.
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I think the French government hasn't done the math.
Choice A: Spend €25, get €50 of music legally, download the other €999,950* of music from the Internet.
Choice B: Spend €0, download €1000000 of music from the Internet.
Which do you choose?
Of course option B is just more proof that people will still download even when prices are 'dropped'(**).
[*] Numbers provided by the RIAA
[**] Only the RIAA could see this as a 'price drop'.
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If there is one thing I have learned over the last 25 years of internet use it's that intuition about music on the internet is often wrong.
in 1995, I figured there wouldn't be a music industry by now. No one would pay. The napster came along And i thought, this is it, it's over. But no. Apple comes out and sells billions of songs. huh, it turns out that a lot of people will pay for music... but... how will todays 12 year old act? what will they be used to? Don't know. So this might help get people to pay fo
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I honestly don't see how that's any more fraudulent than the intended purpose of the card. In either case the tax payer is ripped off and money is going to someone who didn't earn it.
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Which music store ? (Score:3, Interesting)
25€ to be spent in WHICH music store ? iTunes, Amazon, Napster ?
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Sam Goody [wikipedia.org].
That's right. Sam freakin' Goody.
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Knowing France, it will probably only be good at a French government site that only sells music by French bands or sung in French that have been approved by some council of culture.
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Oh good, just what we need. More shitty electronica from DJ Neckbeard, released under Creative Commons.
Truly amazing (Score:5, Interesting)
France has regular riots with minorities, an economy down the drain, one hell of a reputation with the deportation of Roma and now it gives a 200 million euro subsidy to the music industry?
Just WTF?
Is his wife payed for by the music lobby? And it still requires people that in the plan are claimed to be unwilling to pay for music, to pay for music. Just not so much. Once...
And why does the state have to pay for this? Can't the music industry itself offer a discount action? Why must the average french taxpayer pay for 50% off for some kid for an American song with the money going abroad?
This isn't even corruption anymore. It shows a level of detachment from reality in the French government that is closer to insanity. "Let them eat cake", at least showed an awareness that the issue was related to food. This proposal doesn't even grasp. "42, beezlebug for I am, bibble", Marie Antoinette was heard to say, just before her head came off. Insanity.
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Is his wife payed for by the music lobby?
Well, there were rumors going in that direction yes.
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Is his wife payed for by the music lobby?
Of course not! A mistress is uncertain of her wage; a wife has none.
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they as individual yes
the government is not exactly rich.
lobbies are. people in the government are. france, aka the governement, is not.
of course, that's not right.
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I don't see what's particularly different about this from Cash for Clunkers, aside from this being a more direct subsidy.
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Got a citation for that? Everywhere I've looked said her last words were "Monsieur, I beg your pardon."
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Is his wife payed for by the music lobby?
Considering Nicolas Sarkozy's wife [wikipedia.org] is herself a "singer/songwriter", it's less likely she's paid for my the music lobby and more likely she actually is the music lobby. It's baffling logic, to say the least - to combat the fact that a percentage of young people are consuming music without paying for it, we'll make a percentage of older people pay for music without consuming it!
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Same logic they already applied
you pay 200% price (yes its that much) on many medias such as DVD to pay taxes directly to the media companies already.
Even thus most of the DVDs are not used for music.
If you like to pay hard drives 200 eurs (only slightly exagerated, depends on capacity, but if you want 2To, bad luck) more than in the rest of the world, france is also a good country for that
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Becasue if the music companies offer it, they could never raise their prices back up.
If people pay for the music, that money moves around in the economy.
Marie Antoinette never said 'let them eat cake'. In fact she did what she could to help the people of France. She is the result of people making up lies and putting them cute slogans.
Like I said in an earlier post, it will be an interesting experiment. If it workd, even a little, the French government will make this money back.
You really need to earn to loo
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Can it be carrot cake?
State aid? (Score:5, Interesting)
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If there's any European people reading... (Score:3, Interesting)
Vote Pirate Party in the next elections. It's the only sane thing to do.
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Headline clarification (Score:3, Insightful)
Note that this is "may" in the sense of "is permitted to," rather than "might."
One quick question? (Score:4, Insightful)
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The supply of roads and the anal retention of strict French language.
French is a dead language.
Also in the news (Score:2)
There is more music than you can listen to (Score:3, Interesting)
In a normal market, that would lead to lower prices.
Even in an abnormal market, it will lead to lower prices eventually.
(There are also more movies than you can ever see now, more tv shows, more books).
Unless the music, book, movie, etc. is spectacularly special, I'll choose the less expensive one first.
I stopped paying over $10 for DVD's several years ago. Actually, I mostly just stopped buying DVD's as I realized they were clogging up the house and I was never going to watch most of them again.
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Same here - I don't "download", but I've set myself a very strict price cap on buying content, which tends to be around £5 for both music albums and DVDs. That's the maximum I'm prepared to risk on something being poor quality, even then I'm very picky about what I buy and I'll only ever break the cap for something I know I'll enjoy. If they could drop the prices of these things to £2 - 2.50, I'd be willing to risk my money far more often - I'm sure a lot of other people would follow suit.
It wou
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For something that's a commodity, yes. Farmer Bob's corn is pretty much the same as Farmer John's corn. Saudi Arabia's oil is pretty much the same as Venezuela's oil. South African gold is pretty much the same as gold produced by Peru.
However, Metallica's CD is quite different from Britney Spears' CD. The entertainment industries will never produce "commodity" music - or let's hope they never do. As such, price is not the only determining factor in ch
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Its valid except...
High quality entertainment has completely saturated me. There is now more high quality entertainment than I can consume.
Which means high quality entertainment is now a commodity to me. And I suspect I'm not the only one.
And what does this say to those 12-25 (Score:2, Interesting)
'Free' music is your god given right, so much so they government even gives it to you as a social service?
what happens when those cards run out (quickly)? Yea a bunch of 'kids' who now think they are entitled to it are going to steal it and have a whole new mindset about doing so
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Surely having whatever you want is one of the "human rights" guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights?
Wow... (Score:4, Interesting)
Now they will throw 25 million euros a year (according to their estimates) - in order to pay the music industry. Why not grab the 25 million and use them to build more parks, or reduce homelessness, or put into education?
Answer: Because there aren't any 'homelessness lobbies'
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Because by getting kids to pay for things, that money goes to people. A strong economy is an excellent way to reduce and help homeless people.
Why the middlemen? (Score:3, Interesting)
Cut out the middlemen and give it directly to recording industry lobbyists.
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Sometimes you need some lube to make it through. Cards are the lub.
Just you wait... (Score:2)
Musician's websites should offer them instead (Score:2)
For example: Purchase Radiohead In Rainbows [uk.com] for 7.5 pounds or $12 US.
Seems fair to me.
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And this is the way more and more artists seem to be moving. One which I encourage whenever I can buy buying direct from the artists when/if I can.
sick (Score:2)
This is just sick, it's sick that any government would subsidize any business ever at all.
Ridiculous... (Score:2)
This is utterly stupid, why should the government (ie TAXPAYERS) pay content distributors?
If anything, the government should put pressure on those distributors to lower prices, not pay them off.
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Not enarly as ridiculous as posting without reading the article.
Come back when you wan't to discuss the merits of why they are doing this.
BTW, we all know it's taxpayers, no need to shout.
An Insult (Score:2)
How to increase availability of music and art (Score:2)
"We welcome initiatives from member states to increase the availability of music online at a lower price for consumers and through legal distribution channels. Music online is certainly a driver for the success of the Internet and for economic development," said Almunia.
You know what will do that, without any extra money from the people? Just put copyright back to sane terms or abolish it altogether. Stop criminalizing a whole generation of people and stop cutting families off the internet based on accusations only.
Interesting experiment. (Score:2)
Can't wait to see it's impact in over the next 10 years.
Re:I guess the French outdid themselves again. (Score:5, Insightful)
Ultimately it won't work, I doubt very much that this will really convince people to stop pirating. And on the unlikely event that it works, the question really is why does the French government need to provide a subsidy to what was apparently an issue of supply and demand.
By all means crack down on those that are distributing the copies, but that's the responsibility of the recording industry, not the government.
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The real question that bugs me is how much does this have to do with the President's wife being a recording artist?
No subsidies? No blowjobs for you!
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Ok, we need to stop saying France is a socialist country. Sarkozy is anything but socialist. And this latest idea is much more in line with what a neo-con government would do, which is to subsidize the private sector.
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Strange that you've been mod'ed troll.
It's closer to insightful unfortunately.
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I think the biggest question is "Is it supposed to?"
This is the same government which put in the 3-strikes law for filesharers, let me remind you that.
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Why dont they just write a cheque to the record industry and cut out the middle man.
Because the point of this program is to train the 12-25 yo crowd to pay for music. Apparently the French government believes they're all pirates (who might vote pirate party if not trained).
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You can by instilling a sense of fairness in the kids. I.E. people should get paid for their efforts.
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that's because they don't give them free music.
they are forcing them to pay for music with that card actually. and the lobbies get the money.