Christopher Parsons is someone who’s deeply interested in Deep Packet Inspection (DPI).
A doctoral student at Victoria University on Vancouver Island, BC, his research interests focus on how privacy is affected by digitally mediated surveillance, and the implications it has in, and on, contemporary Western political systems. But he’s also a music lover and as such, signed up to a2f2a.com.
“The intent of the site is to bring artists and fans together and encourage these parties to speak directly with one another, without needing to pass through intermediaries such as producers, labels, public relations groups, managers, and so on,” says Christopher on his blog, Technology, Thoughts, and Trinkets.
He notes a key element is the “discussion of paying artists (and other content creators); how can we avoid demonizing P2P users while at the same time allocating funds to artists/copyright owners in a responsible manner.”
Musician, writer and a2f2a technical manager Chris Ovenden broached this in ‘In Favour of a Music Tax‘, “and I wanted to bring some of my own comments surrounding the idea of a music tax to the forefront of my own writing space, and the audience here,” says Chris, continuing >>>
I think that an ISP-focused levy system is inappropriate for several reasons: it puts too much authority and control over content analysis than carriers need, puts carriers at risk when they misidentify content, and would make carriers (for-profit content delivery corporations) in charge of monitoring content without demanding consumers that pay ‘full value’ for content moving through their networks. This last point indicates that an ISP-based levy puts ISPs in a conflict of interest (at least in the case of the dominant ISPs in Canada). Another solution is required.
I’m a Canadian, and I don’t have an issue with a levy-system that works.
In Canada, we are charged a levy on all blank media that is sold. The levy originated several years ago, and was meant to recoup losses from the copying of mp3s (and related audio files) onto disks. The levy is very small:
- $0.24 per unit for Audio Cassette tape (40min or longer);
- $0.21 per unit for CD-R Audio, CD-RW-Audio & MiniDisc;
- $0.21 per unit for CD-R, CD-RW (non audio).
- In 2009 the levy on CDs and MiniDiscs will rise to $0.29 (Source)
Arguably, fewer people burn mp3s onto disks than in the past – with the advent of cheap and portable storage media, media tends to find its way to mp3 players and similar portable (and slightly less portable) media environments. Rather than targeting ISPs (who, really, should function like semi-intelligent data piping networks, rather than smart content monitors) why not impose a small levy on mp3 players/consumer electronic storage equipment?
When I see an iPod or something like it, and am told that ‘160GB of storage just isn’t enough’, I have a hard time believing that someone has paid the not-so-small fortune to fill it with music, TV shows, and other content.
I argue that we should toss a levy on the device at the point of sale, and then have a mechanism where the money is blackboxed and distributed back to content owners.
Is blackboxing ideal? No, but distributing the funds collected can be improved by developing either a more broadbased sampling of what is being listened to (i.e. one that accounts for the long tail of P2P downloads, YouTube watches, etc) or ’smarter’ devices (i.e. ones that can read what is being played and then report this back to a mothership) to adjust the levy distribution in near-real time. As a consumer, the former is an acceptable shift in distributing the levy, whereas the latter strikes me as a gross violation of my reasonable expectations of privacy (regardless of whether it would cross an actual legal boundary). Let’s think through what this ‘tracking’ system might look like:
First, it won’t involve any deep packet inspection appliances, so we can dispel any worries associated with that particular technology. Instead, we get a few clever programmers together to develop an aggregation system that identifies the number of downloads of songs/albums/artists across a wide set of media environments (e.g. P2P sites, YouTube, MySpace, etc). Either the sites themselves or the aggregation system can include anonymization protocols that scrub data sets after initial collation, ensuring that the data can’t be traced to individuals/sites.
Scrubbing protects consumers and has the benefit of mitigating some efforts to ‘game’ the system by demanding particular sites are included in the aggregation step at the expense of less favourable ones. It should be noted that I’m not seeing this system as one that tracks particular users but instead the number of downloads particular sites have for files. While this doesn’t generate 100% accurate picture of content transfers, it will capture the long tail better than the present Canadian levy’s evaluation metrics.
Taking account of the fluidity of the P2P environment, it is important that the aggregation system is designed so that adding new sites to the scrape is relatively simple, and the system generally should be modular so that it can scrape new P2P platforms as they come available.The nice thing is that, once this system is paid for and set up, it’s largely self-running AND can be exported to different jurisdictions as needed. This system should be open source, so that anyone who is interested can take a look at how the algorithms calculate levy distribution in an effort to facilitate transparency and rigorous code-checking.
While there are certainly valid concerns around the organizational collection and distribution of these levy fees, I see a distinction between the value of a levy and organizational logics. In Canada, as an example, a key issue that I keep hearing between major players in the content industry is that the metrics used to identify popular artists is defunct – it needs to be broadened to capture the long-tail of media downloads. The Canadian situation sees (relatively) little overhead, and has distributed over $100 million dollars since the levy’s inception. This isn’t a small amount of money.
This model does recognize that labels will get some of the money out of the levy system should they own the copyright of the content being downloaded. There isn’t any reason why they shouldn’t receive some of this money from a (layman’s) legal perspective. If this is perceived as a problem, because it ignores the artist, then that’s a larger issue of copyright ownership and not a reason why the levy itself is unworkable. If artists retain their copyright, they get the cut of the levy fund instead of a label. If there is a strong desire to change how present copyright systems work (and I think that there should be) that doesn’t undermine the levy-system; we should reform rather than scrap the levy, and not let copyright/label issues motivate a refutation of the levy model.
Perhaps most crucially, the levy is not designed to capture the ‘full value’ of media – it doesn’t correlate one download to one sale. Instead, it recognizes that there is partial value derived from a download that is unlikely to parallel the same value that is demonstrated when someone purchases a CD, pays to download music through a content delivery system like iTunes, or attends a concert. If we take the stance that P2P is a means of facilitating interest (and partial value) for content then it is obvious that the levy-system is not enough, on its own, to create a full-value stream between artists and fans. Additional monetization schemes must be adopted so that, after deriving partial value from a download, fans (as distinguished from downloaders) can provide what they perceive as full value to the artist(s) in question. How this is done extends beyond a levy system – while important, I don’t want to work through my thoughts on this extension right now.
I want to quickly turn to some very broad, general, and tentative ideas of how the collection and distribution of a levy might work. This is most definitely a work in progress.
While there is a worry that the levy could increase as various parties who are not currently supported by the levy system try to muscle their way in, I think that the solution is just to set a particular (fixed) rate for the levy, and have it increased by X (where X=rate of inflation, or some other clearly identified, relatively autonomous metric that is outside of the music market), and then an organizational metric for distributing funds. Figure that every Y years the distribution metric could come up for organizational review, with the review board being composed of a balanced group of people (e.g. members of the non-profit’s board, artist and label copyright holders, hardware vendors, fans, etc). Where it appears as though the non-profit levy-distribution group is overstepping their bounds, a judicial review could occur (as happened in Canada, when there have been attempts to extend our levy to portable music devices).
In terms of actually establishing how much money the levy should collect per device, I’m inclined to set a very low levy that is based on a per GB/TB calculation of the storage media purchased. These rates should be automatically adjusted over time per a formula that takes into account drive size increases by reducing the cost-per-GB/TB so that the levy doesn’t get prohibitively high. The algorithm for this can be developed prior to the levy being restarted/instated to avoid hidden surprises and put in the public domain. Participation from a wide community should be invited, with a recognition that any formula set is a compromise position; there is no way that everyone is going to be happy. Consensus is highly to emerge between all the interested parties.
On the whole, what I’m trying to express is that levies are workable, partial, solutions.
They do facilitate artists getting paid for their contributions to culture. They do benefit the consumer because it is clear why the levy exists and how funds are distributed without adding complexity (for the consumer) at the point of sale. Levy systems do not try to equate one download to one sale, and instead recognize the partial value of downloaded media. The proposed hardware-centric levy does not require ISPs to spy on content as it moves across their networks. Further, as I’ve proposed the aggregation of data points, this levy system does preserve anonymity and privacy.
“Does this approach ultimately result in consumers paying a slightly higher price for blank media/devices?” - Chris asks, adding:
“Sure, but I don’t think that’s anymore unreasonable than paying the trivially small environmental taxes already associated with the purchase of new computer equipment.”
October 31st, 2009 at 10:17 am
I think this is a great idea if you want to keep the RIAA and it’s ilk cash flush forever. The objective of this site is how to get the ARTISTS paid. The a in a2f2a stands for artists NOT rights-holders, who in any “tax levy” scheme are going to grab the majority, in some cases all of the money doled out from such a system. Anyone who thinks they are going to do an end run around the RIAA to get direct payments to musicians from a music tax levy, be it on the net or music media aren’t dealing with reality.
October 31st, 2009 at 10:42 am
@Chris:
1) If the blank media levy is so small, have you any idea why the price of CDRs is approaching DOUBLE that of the similar, but more-capable DVDR?
It would appear that “per unit” means “per disc. If that’s the case, I don’t call that a small tax.
2) It’s nice to say we can “just put limits” on these proposed levies when it’s being theorized, but we all know that’s not how it works in practice.
Who’s going to impose these limits? Who’s going to enforce them? Who’s going to prevent all the other interested parties from demanding their cut and inflating the whole thing to the point of bursting?
We all know the answer to any of those is not “the Government”.
How do you ignore the 800-pound gorilla in the room? This thing has “Pandora’s Box Syndrome” written all over it.
3) You’ve already acknowledged that “some” of the money would end up in the hands of the labels (mostly due to owning the majority of copyrights).
Why give them more, then? Why go through the costly administrative headache of implementing such a scheme, if we know it’s only going to benefit the labels??
From that perspective, this could be seen as nothing more than an elaborate (and perpetual) “bailout” for a failing business model.
I’m with Monkey on this.
4) You’re obviously not in favour of a provider-based levy (”Internet tax”?), or the prospect of having ISPs do the tracking necessary in this scheme. (Neither am I!)
We obviously need to be fearful of any plan that would give anyone else that kind of power, all in the name of appeasing copyrights. I can’t even imagine who’d be a suitable “administrator” in that respect – certainly not the labels or any of their “authorized” music sites. Don’t think for one moment the labels wouldn’t kick and scream until they got that arrangement!
October 31st, 2009 at 11:28 am
Chris, you seem to have accepted the legitimacy of the cartel’s aspiration to “capture the ‘full value’ of media”. You do realise that it has only been the privilege of copyright that has come close to enabling this? In any other trade one does not capture ‘full value’, one exchanges one’s labour or product for whatever both parties consider it worth in a free market. It is then the purchaser that goes on to obtain value from their purchase, or sell it again. The seller also goes on to obtain value from whatever they received in exchange.
Anyway, the idea of a levy or tax is a failure of imagination. Because you’ve bought the line that the value of art lies in its copies (instead of the art), when the market for copies ends you conclude that art has no market value and must therefore be charged for (under threat). There is obviously a fundamental flaw in this. The art is not the copy. You pay the artist for their art. You pay your neighbour for a copy (or they give you a copy for nothing). Copy=$0. Art=$1,000. Don’t confuse the two.
The traditional solution to apparently intractable local problems like charging for copies, is to think globally: “We’ll get our big brother the government to knock heads together and collect a levy through force”. Instead, why not at least think half-way, say at the audience level, i.e. identify the artist’s customer? Then, instead of a reluctant and angry planet charged a tax on threat of jail time, you’re dealing with a crowd of people who a priori want to pay the artist for their work. Why not come up with a way of charging that willing audience a levy for the artist’s work? In fact to them it won’t be a levy to be charged, but a share of the commission they WANT to pay the artist.
Then you are effectively enabling the audience to assume the role of the artist’s traditional customer, the publisher. The publisher traditionally pays the artist a pittance for their work and then the publisher attempts to extract extortionate amounts of value from the public for their enjoyment and use of it – with none of that revenue from extortion generally getting back to the artist except in rare cases.
So let the audience pay the artist, and then it’s up to the audience whether they pay them a pittance or a decent amount (probably the latter). Fortunately the audience has no need or inclination to extort monopoly rents from everyone else.
So, when you reduce the scope of taxes down from everyone to just the traders concerned (each artist and their audience interested in exchanging art for money, money for art), you end up with the free market exchange that should have been obvious in the first place. Why waste billions on a levy? There are certainly organisations who’d jump at the chance to have money wasted on them, but that doesn’t make a levy a good idea.
October 31st, 2009 at 1:44 pm
First:
That’s the case already! Last years amendment of Germans copyright-law allows German collecting societies to put a levy on storing devices like MP3-Players and the like (Source:http://www.ftd.de/it-medien/it-telekommunikation/:urheberrecht-abgabe-fuer-usb-sticks-kommt/531470.html (sorry German)), they are sorting out the rates still, though. This on top of our levy-system which is in place already since 1960!! BTW: This levey comprises fax- and copy-machines and all sort of reproduction devices, too! Are German artists significantly better of these days? I don’t think so…
In Switzerland you pay this levy already since September 2007 (Source http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Abgabe-auf-digitale-Speichermedien-in-der-Schweiz-kommt-doch-150137.html (sorry German)) and I am not aware of Swiss artist being significantly richer than non-Swiss ones.
Why? The money ends up in the “unallocated money” bucket of the collecting societies and the get’s generally allocated through very shady mechanisms that leaves the top 40 and major labels significantly better off that the average artist. That’s a matter of fact and that will not change if you introduce that worldwide.
Second:
Music is not the only digital product stored and copied. There is software, games, literature, pictures, what have you. The whole media- and entertainment industry is effected by going digital. How will a small levy accound for that? Or shall the music industry have a privilege? NO WAY!
(BTW: 100 Million since it’s inception in 1997??? That’s a joke, that’s less than 10 Million per year!)
A good source to read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy
October 31st, 2009 at 2:42 pm
Chris says: “I argue that we should toss a levy on the device at the point of sale, and then have a mechanism where the money is blackboxed and distributed back to content owners.”
Crosbie says: “In any other trade one does not capture ‘full value’, one exchanges one’s labour or product for whatever both parties consider it worth in a free market.”
Chris identifies the recipient of such a tax by it’s real identity “content owners” rather than “artists.” Points for that. However, he goes on to lay out a program that seems to indicate a belief that an owner/recipient form of distribution is the only workable option. Crosbie corretly points out that exchanging labor for value IN THIS SOCIETY is a negotiation process. (Please forgive the caps. I’m not shouting. I’m something of a tech infant and haven’t figured out how to italicize letters outside of Word or my Email program.)
There are many reasons why I don’t view a tax or royalty distribution system as an acceptable option, but two primary ones.
1. It is unworkable. From all the stories you read on the subject, you would think that all the creative people in the world are working for the music, software and movie industries. Chris says the Canadian system works. I ask “for whom?” Does it work for photographers who’s work gets bandied about without so much as a credit? Does it work for fiction writers who create those chain emails (many are creative – you can’t deny that)? Does it work for for architects (building plans are easily put in digital form)? Does it work for shop manual writers (auto fix solutions)? Does it work for chefs (recipes)? Or does it only work for cartels? If every creative person recieved a perpetual royalty (or however long it is) on their work it would become a moot point because the cost of medium would either skyrocket to the point of unaffordability or the payout would be the cost of a ham sandwhich.
2. The most important in my estimation – The IP system is class divisive. I know that Billy doesn’t want to bring class issues into the conversation, but I don’t see how it is unavoidable. (Blly, if I misread your “very helpful” comment in the previous copyright topic as sarcasm – my apologies.) IP is the primary tool used to move wealth away from the working class. It is the bedrock of every international trade agreement while human rights and worker writes get lip service written on toilet paper. If the human rights language in NAFTA had the same teeth as the IP language, the US wouldn’t be building fences on the Mexican border. If the human rights language in GATT had any teeth, you wouldn’t see the whole garment industry abusing labor in offshore operations. In the US we wouldn’t have health INSURANCE plans (a proping up of existing industtry)stuffed down our throats as a viable alternative to health SERVICE. (Try to find any health requirement as a stipulation for entering GATT. It isn’t there.) The artist community does not live in isolation. It is part of a larger group of workers. The answer to compensation for workers lies where it always has in a capitalist system – in strenghening the bargaining position. If corporations profit from our work – they must pay accordingly. On delivery. That cannot be accomplished by persuing compensation for individuals or small groups. It has to be approached en masse.
October 31st, 2009 at 3:39 pm
“If corporations profit from our work – they must pay accordingly.”
Excellent way of putting it!
(Emphasis added for you.)
October 31st, 2009 at 3:52 pm
I’m somewhat limited with my time, so I apologize if I don’t get into as much depth as I’d like in responding
@Monkey D. Luffy
There are many artists themselves how are rights holders. As it presently stands, the current Canadian system is flawed in that it does a poor job at accounting for the long-tail of the music ecology. Those artists closest to the beginning of the tail are most likely to have exchanged their copyrights for various label-advertised benefits. Those towards the end of the tail, whom lack labels, would be able to (right now, without reforming the copyright system) receive some small amount of money from downloaders. It is then the responsibility of the artists to figure out how to offer additional modes to attract direct money from fans, as those fans see fit to pay
@DA
“1) If the blank media levy is so small, have you any idea why the price of CDRs is approaching DOUBLE that of the similar, but more-capable DVDR?”
There are various reasons, but one of the key ones is that CD manufacturing plants have been retooled to meet increases in demand for DVD products.
“2) It’s nice to say we can “just put limits” on these proposed levies when it’s being theorized, but we all know that’s not how it works in practice.”
The Canadian system allows for limited increases – there has not been a radical explosion of cost added to consumer products under the levy. There is judicial oversight over how the levy is collected which, in Canada, has led Canadian courts to push back efforts to extend the levy to items and devices not originally covered under the terms of the levy.
“3) You’ve already acknowledged that “some” of the money would end up in the hands of the labels (mostly due to owning the majority of copyrights).”
Because I distinguish between the need to reform the conditions under which artists sign their contracts with the value of a levy. That labels have established particular contracts indicates an issue there, not an issue with the levy-system itself.
@Crosbie
“you seem to have accepted the legitimacy of the cartel’s aspiration to “capture the ‘full value’ of media”.”
No, not really. What I’m trying to do is make a distinction between some value derived from a product that is produced by someone, and arguably merits some small restitution and ‘full value’ which is represented by that value a fan is willing to contribute to a particular artist based on their strong valuation of the artist’s work. The ‘negotiation’ that you speak of is effective in a labour-contract environment, but with P2P downloads artists are unable to assert (should they choose) that individuals can only download a song at X value – there isn’t an effective mechanism that would see artists/copyright holders establish this contractual relationship.
“Because you’ve bought the line that the value of art lies in its copies (instead of the art), when the market for copies ends you conclude that art has no market value and must therefore be charged for (under threat).”
I’m not making an argument that aims to define what constitutes ‘the beautiful’; this is not an aesthetic argument. I am saying that you pay the artist some small fee on the basis that their work is being put onto media devices and listened to. If you want to then support the ‘art’ that is produced, then this is where alternate revenue streams are born (e.g. actual merchandise sales, concerts, various innovative strategies that bands regularly come up with).
“hen, instead of a reluctant and angry planet charged a tax on threat of jail time, you’re dealing with a crowd of people who a priori want to pay the artist for their work. Why not come up with a way of charging that willing audience a levy for the artist’s work? In fact to them it won’t be a levy to be charged, but a share of the commission they WANT to pay the artist.”
I’ll note that I’ve not mentioned jail time in my writing – in fact, per Canadian law if you download music and put it on a CDR, then you’re free of legal liability (as long as the content is deleted from your HDD, etc). for possessing the music. The levy system is a *partial* mode of capturing value; I’m not talking about a ‘global tax’ that ‘gets the planet angry’. I pay very small environmental tax on any electronics product that I purchase; I don’t have an issue with this, so long as the monies raised are used in a moderately responsible way. My paying a tax doesn’t mean that I don’t contribute money to environmental charities – the levy is a partial (and small) capturing of an absolutely minimal value. It is not the only, or even primary, mode for artists to receive monies for their work.
I’m not going to engage with you on principles of the free market, because I don’t think that such a market effectively exists. I will say that I’m deeply critical of most absolute free market structures based on the works of Balibar and Wallerstein, various academics that think through feminist standpoint theory, Bourdieu, Baudrilard, Virilio, Habermas, and Taylor (to name a few). I’m not trying to evade the issue, but I have a suitably complicated approach to capitalism and issues with it, and limited time, so I can’t provide a response in this space.
@bjoern
I tried to express that this was not meant to capture the full value of content. Full value IS NOT the price of a mp3 file from iTunes (just as an example) but instead the particular perception of the worth of a work through the eyes of a fan. I contrast this with downloaders who, after listening to a mp3 3-5 times may never listen to it again, may never be inclined to listen to the artist again, and would never desire to go to a concert. The value they have derived from those listens are (presumably) fairly small – they would be a partial value of the content in comparison to a downloader who, after listening to a piece of content for 3-4 times then want to continue listening, collect more of the artists work, see them perform, etc. I’m not expecting the levy to make anyone rich; I am hoping that it will at least minimally provide some compensation to artists who produce work. The levy-system is not the primary, sole, only, core, or dominant mode of making money from art; it is a fan-based engagement that operates (or, at least should operate) as the key way of generating revenue for content produced.
“Why? The money ends up in the “unallocated money” bucket of the collecting societies and the get’s generally allocated through very shady mechanisms that leaves the top 40 and major labels significantly better off that the average artist. That’s a matter of fact and that will not change if you introduce that worldwide.”
I noted this deficiency, and argued for the need for more in depth tracking mechanisms. I agree that this is presently a problem, and offered a possible solution to reform levy organizations.
“Music is not the only digital product stored and copied. There is software, games, literature, pictures, what have you. The whole media- and entertainment industry is effected by going digital. How will a small levy accound for that? Or shall the music industry have a privilege? NO WAY!”
This was addressed, with the idea being that there is a fixed rate and then there is an internal process of dividing that rate amongst right holders. I’m not proposing that the levy be called a ‘music levy’ so much as a ‘content levy’.
“(BTW: 100 Million since it’s inception in 1997??? That’s a joke, that’s less than 10 Million per year!)”
It is a small amount, but one that is largely attributed to the inability to collect levy fee from portable music devices; it’s only on the very limited subset of items that I listed in what I originally wrote. How many people walk around with CD players anymore, versus iPods and similar portable, hard-drive based, music devices? Extend the levy, and the numbers will go up. This said, the levy is NOT supposed to be the dominant mode of collecting revenue for artists, but a small element of a larger process to generate revenue for work produced.
@bill
“Chris says the Canadian system works.”
It works in the sense that there is an organizational dynamic that leads to the individuals identified in the levy receiving monies that are collected. This is a limited body, largely because of the challenges in modifying the governing documents surrounding the levy. This said, in Canada this is the present structure of the levy:
a) 60.1 per cent, to be shared between the Society of Compos- ers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN), the Canadian Mechanical Reproduction Rights Agency (CMRRA) and the Society for Reproduction Rights of Authors, Compos- ers and Publishers in Canada (SODRAC), on account of eli- gible authors;
(b) 22.6 per cent to the Neighbouring Rights Collective of Can- ada (NRCC) on account of eligible performers; and
(c) 17.3 per cent to the Neighbouring Rights Collective of Can- ada (NRCC) on account of eligible makers. (http://www.cpcc.ca/english/pdf/c06122008-b.pdf)
While I can see where we might like adjustments (and I include myself in this ‘we’), the underlying framework of a distribution system is fine. Further, in Canada it’s not like when I buy a CDR I see ‘levy’ on the bill; the levy is placed at import/manufacture and then silently passed to the consumer. This could be adjusted, if needed/desired.
As to the larger issue with organizations and capitalism, again, too big for me to get into. To your arguments for organization, I would side with Hardt and Negri, Galloway, Thacker, and members of the critical digital studies niche of the academy to suggest that traditional modes of organization that depend on a presence/absence dichotomy are out of place in a digital system that focuses on pattern/randomness and authentication protocols. I will, just briefly, not that I’m (again!) not suggesting that the levy system is sufficient to cure ALL issues, but that it is useful to address a particular, fixed, complaint that artists and various copyright holders have.
My apologies to all for (at least in two cases) offering large academic texts as references rather than detailed accounts – I just don’t have the time to delve into these issues with sufficient nuance and subtly at the moment. I hope that, at least, it is clear that I’m not advocating for a levy-system to be the sole, core, dominant, or only means of paying artists/copyright holders (I’m not advocating a universal ‘Zune’ tax! *grin*), but that I see the levy system as a possible method of providing some limited, and partial, value for work that is downloaded.
October 31st, 2009 at 4:08 pm
“I’m not going to engage with you on principles of the free market, because I don’t think that such a market effectively exists.”
And that’s key.
Cheers!
October 31st, 2009 at 5:13 pm
Devilsadvocate says “‘If corporations profit from our work – they must pay accordingly.’ Excellent way of putting it!
(Emphasis added for you.)”
Thank you for adding the emphasis. It is key. If the industry continues to successfully convince politicians, some artists, and Christopher, that wage responsibility lies with the end user, as seems the way it’s going, we might as well turn all the libraries (one of the greatest of all social experiments) into collection depots and get it over with. Is there a way to italicize on a2f2a without writing a reply in Word first and then doing a cut & paste? Sorry for my ignorance.
October 31st, 2009 at 6:05 pm
It’s key because all we need to do is create such a market. A market that has been neglected for three centuries. A market in which artists and audiences can exchange their art for money.
The market for copies has ended, and it wasn’t even a free market. The monopoly that corrupted it has gone up in smoke like the wicked witch of the west.
October 31st, 2009 at 8:05 pm
” I noted this deficiency, and argued for the need for more in depth tracking mechanisms. I agree that this is presently a problem, and offered a possible solution to reform levy organizations. ”
The entities that benefit the most from a lack of proper tracking methods currently control key decisionmakers and thus have no incentive to work on proper tracking. This is precisely why they push for more of these cash dumps. The only way to force them into the future is to stop giving them even more money without any accountability. End the levies. When the money dries up then maybe they will start looking at current proven models.
November 1st, 2009 at 10:24 am
@bill:
As described below the comment box, you can use HTML tags to put emphasis on text. I would put true examples here to show you, but any real tags I type would disappear.
So what I’ll tell you is, if you look at the examples at the bottom, after “The following HTML is allowed:”, one of them contains simply “b”, and another contains “i”, inside the pointed brackets. Those are the starting tags for “bold” and “italic”.
To apply them, you need to type the tag, complete with the pointed brackets, before the word you want to apply them to, without adding a space, and then you need to put a closing tag (again without adding a space) immediately after the word.
The closing tag is the same at the starting tag, except with a forward slash (/) before the commmand.
Applying it would look something like this, but in this example, you need to remember that the square brackets I’ve used are supposed to be the pointed ones…
[b]word[/b] (makes the word bold)
[i]word[/i] (makes the word italic)
[b][i]word[/b][/i] (Makes the word bold and italic)
November 1st, 2009 at 10:32 am
@bill:
The very last example I gave you might not have been completely proper. When using combinations, some HTML engines are particular about ending the last issued tag first, and then working backwards. (Haven’t tried it here yet either way myself.)
It should have looked like this:
[b][i]word[/i][/b]
November 1st, 2009 at 11:51 am
Italic as in ‘emphasis’ is <em>emphasised text</em>. Bold as in strong is <strong>strengthened text</strong>.
Italic as in ‘emphasis’ is emphasised text. Bold as in strong is strengthened text.
November 1st, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Cascading Style Sheets are fun too!!
November 1st, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Ooops, guess not here, that showed up green and in comic sans on the preview pane, but not when actually posted, DOH!!!!
November 1st, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Dreddsnik, Christopher…
Something else to keep in mind… We don’t want to be “tracked in depth”, or to develop better tracking methods. Even if you said it would just be in aggregate and anonymised, it still has to be gathered, and we don’t want it.
One reason for getting files through sharing is that it isn’t necessarily tracked in any way, it isn’t necessary to sign up, give information like an email address, or use a bank account etc, it can be anonymous. Even when it can be visible (e.g. peers on a bittorrent network)… There’s just so much of it, and people also share in other ways, by swapping media, and on closed networks.
We do not want tracking methods mandated by “rights-holders”, we want the option to use and share with our friends without having to go through that. If money is changing hands, that’s not the same, and one of the reasons why copyright enforcement of direct commercial use (selling copies) is capable of being somewhat effective is that there’s a money trail to follow.
November 1st, 2009 at 5:30 pm
‘In depth tracking’ isn’t meant to follow using email addresses, sign ups, or anything like that. All I mean is that it looks at aggregate numbers of people downloading, say, a Michael Jackson CD from a place like mininova by scraping something like the seeds/leachers numbers, perhaps 1/day or something. It’s not a granular level of tracking, but remains very broad, and is just using information and scraping techniques that exist today – if I so chose, I could cook up a program to gather this information right now. The issue (as I read it, in terms of distributing levy monies) is that top 40 charts and similar mechanisms are predominantly used to distribute levies (and thus miss the long-tail of the music ecosystem). The aggregate system I’m thinking of lets small and independent artists collect some of the levy.
In essence, the system I’m envisioning takes already existing public data and uses it for better levy distribution. You can still share with your friends, and not all sharing will (or needs to be, frankly) noted in the aggregate – this is just to *better* rather than *perfectly* distribute levy funds.
November 1st, 2009 at 6:27 pm
@Crosbie:
Thanks for adding the part about “strong” and “emphasis”. There are indeed lots of fonts that don’t have bold or italic offerings.
One question for ya:
How did you use the pointed brackets in your examples, without them being taken as actual tags and disappear from view?
November 2nd, 2009 at 4:14 am
<strong>
And to do the ampersand in the above I used &
And to do the ampersand in the above, if to end this recursion we substitute @ for ampersand, I used @amp;amp; (@=&)
November 8th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Let’s look at different payment models:
1) You can pay for strictly controlled access to the art, like buying a CD in a store or a ticket to a performance.
2) You can pay for more loosely controlled access by buying a pass to a festival or using the iTunes store where you know you can buy any song for $.99.
3) You can pay on a voluntary basis, like going to a free show and making a donation or buying merchandise as you enter or leave, or through pledge drives like public radio or television in the US.
With free P2P technology, solutions 1 and 2 (the levy thing falls into the solution 2 category) become unenforceable. So solution 3 is what we’re after. This can work, but it needs to be an organized effort. Volunteers need to advocate for the system. We need software to keep track of how much we’ve payed, and for what. Wouldn’t it be amazing if buying music (or other media) fell in the category of a tax exempt contribution to the arts?
November 8th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
One of the central problems in this discussion is “who gets paid?” Say you like a particular song, performed by a particular artist. You’ve downloaded the song and listened to it every day for the last month. You just want to pay the artist $1. So who do you pay? The person who wrote the lyrics? The one who wrote the music? The producer? The performer? The DJ who released the remix? The owner of the copyright to the sample used in the chorus? Should they all get equal shares?
So that part has to be worked out by the artists and some mechanism needs to be in place before they publish the song. Someone needs to collect the money, distribute the money to the artists, and track the payments for the artists’ legal/tax purposes.
I think some sort of new or existing Performance Rights Organization (BMI, ASCAP, etc) or Copyright Collection Society (CCC, PRS, etc) needs to be fully engaged with any A2F2A effort.
November 9th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
I think most people here DON’T want to pay the RIAA leeches. As I’ve stated before, too much bad blood for reconciliation there.