Trent Reznor on ISP tax
p2pnet news | Music:- Reznor Talks ‘Niggy Tardust’ Sales Data; Favors ISP Tax
That’s the headline to a DigitalMediaWire story which among other things says, well, Nine-Inch-Nail’s Trent Reznor favours an ISP tax.
The story continues::
Reznor … might favor an ISP tax as a means of ensuring that artists benefit when their songs are downloaded for free on file-sharing networks, after being leaked before their release on a physical CD.
"I think if there was an ISP tax of some sort, we can say to the consumer, ‘All music is now available and able to be downloaded and put in your car and put in your iPod and put up you’re a** if you want and it’s $5 on your cable bill,’" Reznor told News.com.
Blogs Reznor on the NIN site:
I was asked by Saul’s camp to do some press with CNET explaining my position on releasing Saul’s download numbers to the public. It seemed like a good opportunity to explain where I was coming from. We spoke for over an hour and I left the conversation thinking I’d cleared up the misconception that I thought the entire release of "niggytardust" was a failure.
Well, it appears the story was written before I was involved, and I woke up the next day to find out I’m a supporter of an ISP tax.
Thanks, CNET.
I believe I was asked for possible solutions for the recording industry to which I replied something along the lines of "perhaps an additional 5 dollars on your ISP bill that allowed you complete, easy access to all the music in the world would work". Of course in reality this would never work because it would require accurate accounting, agreement among thieves, etc. And, who the fuck cares what I think about this, anyway?
Well, that became the attention-grabbing headline and thanks to Google alerts I can see that lazy journalists all through the internet love a good headline to borrow.
On, "who the fuck cares what I think about this, anyway?" – a lot of people, obviously. 
Also See:
DigitalMediaWire – Reznor Talks ‘Niggy Tardust’ Sales Data; Favors ISP Tax, January 10, 2008
NIN – bigmouth strikes again, January 21, 2008
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January 25th, 2008 at 11:11 am
I would love an opt in flat fee to legally download all i want of any music and scrap the blank media levy in exchange. Opt in your safe, don’t opt in and get caught you pay a fine.
January 25th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
The reasons why this would not work:
(1) The record companies would never agree to it. It’s one step closer to cutting out the middle man (them).
(2) Logistical nightmare of determining who gets what and when.
(3) That’s all good and well for the music industry, but what about all the others? By this I mean, artists, writers, film makers.
Artificially supporting only the one industry would be seen as prejudiced.
(4) Why should the public be responsible for guaranteeing the survival of privately run record companies? The rhetoric about trying to protect the artists is a specious campaign to divert our attention from the real truth, which is that most artists make there money from touring / concerts, as they have for hundreds of years.
We seem to forget that artists managed fine long before the invention of copyright law. And considering most of the copyrights are owned by the record companies, it’s clear their agenda isn’t the protection of the artists, but for themselves.
They already have a stranglehold on government decision making. Isn’t it time we said farewell to the record companies and copyright law?
January 25th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Im not in favor of any isp tax or anything like levies on cds, dvds, mp3s etc. although the levy on cds means its legal to download in Canada, it punishes people who pay for music and burn it on cds. They are paying twice. I also know several bands that still pay the levy and they are putting their own music on the cd.
In the end some people just dont want to pay for some stuff. even if you could download a movie for a buck legally or free illegally. People are still going to grab the free one.
January 26th, 2008 at 9:07 am
Still, it’s a much nicer alternative than seeing 12-year-olds, college students, single mothers, people with disabilities, the elderly, and even the deceased get terrorized by the music industry.
January 26th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
the deceased may get sued but they are hardly terroized. even the music industry doesn’t have that much clout!
January 28th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
Well, what if I DON’T want to download any music? (Especially if they should only offer DRM…) Why should I thus be made to suffer the tax then? No taxation without representation!
January 29th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
lets do the math $5 to criaa + 5 to to mpaa +5 to the publishers of books + $5 to news papers / Mags + software designers will pipe in and claim more then a fiver (microsoft + novel + apple in the same room!)
$25 + B4 the ISPS get a cent and because of NO net neutrality they will block there download / bandwidth ETC
second who gets the cash to hand out to the “artists” ?
January 29th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
QUOTE;
Eric Says:
January 28th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
Well, what if I DON’T want to download any music? (Especially if they should only offer DRM…) Why should I thus be made to suffer the tax then? No taxation without representation
they would NOT make the music available at all because they would still try to push there old business model of cell CDS or DRM “product” Because the TAX would be only in ONE or a few countries not the whole world
February 3rd, 2008 at 9:01 pm
An ISP tax would mean admitting we’re music thieves.
February 8th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
One good way for people to really get fedup and burn the envelope, is to keep pushing it down their throats.
Much of the reasons for the ‘nay’ wore already mentined, so I won’t go over them.
February 17th, 2008 at 10:04 pm
Eh, he’s just pissed off that more people didn’t want to pay for that horrible rap album he produced.