fine, I’m in for it….

… just in the same second when MAFIAA puts up for download -from places where they are responsible for the HDD space the engergy providing the ISB uplink and so on- ALL songs ever recorded in at least FLAC quality of the best recording of that song they can provide!
Why should I pay them 60 bucks a year that I can legally download stuff that is depending on what other civilians with filesharing software running are willing to offer me?
Those parasites want money to suck? Then offer all you have in exchange for that!

“This is ALL YOUR FAULT.” – is not a fair remark. It’s a set-up – can’t you see?

“pay for whatever you took” – is not realistic cause if everyone paid their buck for every song they took they would go into bankruptcy – there is simply not enough money made in the world to pay for that.

“or just STOP BUYING” – fair remark. I like that one.

It’s a figure based upon the average industry take before the advent of online piracy, except now their bottom line is GUARANTEED. At least before they had to invest in an infrastructure, work and take risk for their money. They had to find, sign and promote artists. They had to record, promote and release and sponsor tours. They had to predict trends and put their money down and take their chances like every other industry. With this tax they have to do nothing, NOTHING at all to receive the same yearly gross as before. No new music. No A&R, no agents in the field doing the listening, no production staff, no recording staff or facility overhead, no promotion, no nothing. And how much are the artists really gonna get? PISS, that’s what. This is ALL YOUR FAULT.

Now they can sit on their existing catalog, invest not another dime in promoting artists and let it all fly out the door with no more worries because NOW you morons (sincerely, you are so amazingly, stupidly, shortsighted, there is no other word)……NOW this tax permanently institutionalizes the very industry you claim to deplore, AND, it guarantees their income, their existence and their future forever. With NO risk on their part, not ever again. They’ll probably get cost of living raises, for God’s sake. And to think all you ever had to do was exercise a few morals and pay for whatever you took or just STOP BUYING. STOP BUYING! Is this really all that complicated for you???

But NOOOO YOU geniuses had to steal it year after year in front of the Feds and hand this issue to the RIAA on a fucking silver platter. Nicely done, fellas, real smart. If this tax goes through the industry will have slam dunked you right into the toilet.

Now that the truth finally sinks in that suing P2P companies failed to stop filesharing, and suing 30+ thousand children, grandmothers, dead people and copier machines has failed to stop filesharing, the record industry has now changed its mind and decided to accept that now-ancient offer after all.

This is really no different from a criminal who refuses a plea bargain, elects to stand trial, winds up being convicted and getting the maximum sentence — and then decides to accept that plea bargain after all. He’d be laughed right out of the courtroom!

Yet Big Music seems to think they can do exactly that. Well, it’s too late now; there’s no going back. They chose war over peace and now need to accept its outcome.

The only way this has a hope of working is if the artists themselves are front and centre and able to contribute meaningfully at all stages.

If they’re not, the copyright owners will be the only ones to benefit.

Cheers!

So really the Government has to make a choice, scare the children with threatening letters, or start immediately charging people $60 per year in unlimited music taxes.

The Government should charge now and think later how to distribute that money back to the artists. The Government already does that with Library taxes, TV taxes, Radio taxes, Museum taxes and many other cultural taxes. This would just be one more of those taxes for the digital distribution.

Cheers!

But even so ……

Cheers!

This is the way to do it.

Then the question of how you distribute that money back to artists is a different problem, but that is totally fixable with tools such as razorback, bittorrent statistics and especially music-scrobbler plugins to media player software. The government can maintain a database of all files digital and analog fingerprints and thus create very representative statistics of usage of all the music and thus be able to compensate the artists correctly.

The music industry intermediaries of the past will quickly be pushed out. Those big coorporations may recoup whatever investments they currently have in productions, but quickly, the artists getting paid directly by this system, will be able to control the production of their music themselves. The control will be in the hands of the artists and not in the hands of marketing people at big record companies.

Chances of infinite DRM-free, high quality (OGG or FLAC please) music for a set fee?

Zero!

Too much bad blood has passed now. I’m not interested unless they can promise protection for consumers who choose to consume and share their digital entertainment in any way they see fit in a manner fitting for today’s world.

Artists would get more money, customers would get a better service and we can get rid of this DRM nonsence into the bargain!

I’ve been waiting for years for the government to force the music industry to wake up and smell the coffee. Look like thats now at least being considered.