In a comment post to Dear independent artist, James Kelly says he’s the owner of PureTone Records in the UK.
“I am currently working on creating a new business model that would see music fans allowed to legally share and download music over the internet, would not require ISP’s to police or pressure their customers and would reward artists and rights holders,” he says, going on >>>
Proposal
• PureTone Records owned by James Kelly, licenses its catalogue to Internet Service Providers allowing their customers to legally access and download PureTone Records music via any file sharing website.
• A license fee would be agreed by PureTone Records and the ISP’s that could then be recouped in customers monthly bill. The license fee would represent the status of PureTone’s catalogue and online activity.
In order for this model to work, the online activity of PureTone’s music would need to be monitored as accurately as possible and at present ISP’s are not willing to do this. If an independent organisation such as PRS for Music or Merlin were willing to undertake this role, then this model would not criminalise consumers, see income for artists, labels and possibly ISP’s where current revenue is lost and also open the door to the full potential of music in the digital age.
I have recently had meetings and discussions with Feargal Sharkey of UK Music, Patrick Rackow of BASCA, Jon Webster of MMF, BT and the ISPA regarding my ideas and I also attended the FAC event at Air Studios on file sharing and illegal downloading where I briefly spoke with Jeremy SIlver.
I am currently in discussions and meetings with possible monitoring bodies and ISP’s.
For for information please see – http://www.jameskellysounds.blogspot.com http://www.myspace.com/jameskellysounds or contact jk.puretone@hotmail.com
James Kelly – PureTone Records
November 10th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
I’m sorry, but this is totally unworkable.
The public hates the PRS already for double dipping on radio fees, and absolutley will not accept them, or any other unaccountable private (or even governmental) organisation spying on all the data they send over the net.
There is absolutely zero chance that the public will be willing to throw away their right to privacy just to prop up your business model.
ISPs would have to charge *someone* for the cost of delivering a duplicate copy of their entire traffic to whoever is doing the monitoring, doubling their costs and breaking every data protection law in the process, and that’s before deciding who would pay for the actual monitoring.
Even if you could somehow deal with checking the whole of an ISP’s traffic for content that you hold the rights for, you’d also be getting a whole load of copyrighted content that you didn’t have any right to along with it, making you the world’s biggest ‘pirate’.
Lastly, it would be absolutley trivial to for people bypass this system, by using encryption.
November 10th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
The license fee recouped on your ISP bill == tax (riaa proposed this since 2007)
Monitored as accurately as possible == DPI.
PRS for Music or Merlin == ASCAP/SOCAN (where no money really goes to artists and most is “admin” costs).
We’ve talked of auto-charging, even for accessing a site, and it is not something people are comfortable with, opens the door for a lot of abuse of privacy and financial trickery, and runs the risk of false charges by IP mixups.
At least you are trying, but fans need to be trusted and all of this doesn’t show any trust in fans. The donate buttons will be pressed once we’re trusted and not criminalized or gorged for money.
November 10th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
This is almost identical to the “Voluntary Collective Licensing” proposal put forward by Fred von Lohman at EFF (eff.org). Unfortunately this entire concept is flawed at the core.
The biggest issue is that by collecting a flat fee, you are trying to set up a situation where creators are continually rewarded for past work or creating “hits” instead of encouraging artists and fans to work together in win-win situations. The only way to move forward is to give up the idea that filesharing can be somehow limited, monetized, or tracked. Simply accept it as the baseline situation that it is, and design business models to compete in this climate.
The rest of the issues are already addressed by the previous two commenters. Enacting or supporting a system like this is inviting in all of the invasive, controlling technologies we decry in the hopes that “this company will be nice.”
The only people with anything to lose by continuing to cling to these ideas are the artists, who are forsaking powerful revenue-generating opportunities to defend business models that became unworkable a decade ago.
November 10th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Horrible idea, endlessly re-tread in one form or another. The real beneficiary of this would be the RIAA, not artists.
Almost no one in the net community wants their IP logs turned over to some “collection agency”.
As mentioned before, leaves the door wide open for every copyright holder group on the planet to come rushing in demanding a piece of the pie. I want to get RID of those leeches, not feed them.
November 10th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
Instead of licensing to ISPs, why not try licensing to the file sharing sites themselves? If the content is considerable, they might be willing to pay a nominal fee. Let a file sharing site raise enough money for a license (through ads or user donations) and then offer all your content to that site unfettered. Make special versions or mixes for each site to give each site a reason to buy.
November 10th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Besides, believe it or not, there are people on the internet that do not download RIAA/MPAA anything. Shocking I know. Any ISP tax will affect them as well. Why should they have to pay for something they don’t do ?
November 10th, 2009 at 7:48 pm
For the same reasons this idea stinks as an ISP tax or media levy. People who keep proposing this endlessly in one form of the other just don’t seem to get that any “compromise” which keeps the RIAA fat in perpetuity is not going to be accepted by the p2p community. I think one of the things we are trying to work out with Billy is how to get the artist money without paying the RIAA leeches. While there is debate as to just what those rights should be, I think both sides can at least reach a consensus that the rights holder should be the artists, NOT third parties like RIAA members. I think PPUK has some pretty good ideas, pretty much in sync with my thoughts on this matter.
November 10th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
Alternative appraoches? Good so I’ll bring that one up again looking forward for comments/action plans to get started.
If you cannot sell your music piece by piece, then sell it only once. But then to the whole market. The idea is to satisfy the artist’s (note, not some large corporation’s) financial interest right at the products digital release and give up control afterwards.
How? Like this: Say you just completed the recordings of your new album. It hast not yet been published, though. You offer the world the following:
“World! This is my new album. For $10,000 I will release it under Creative Commons* license by-nc. That means everyone will be free to legally copy and share the album as long as it is for non-commercial purpose. If you want to make money with my recordings, please contact me and we sort out a deal. Everyone of you if free to pay whatever s/he wants. But remember, the album will only be released if we reach this target together. We’ll be collecting for the next three weeks.”
* if you want to learn more on CC, check: creativecommons.org
This is a totally fair approach, engages fans and enables artists to make some money from their unique role as gatekeepers. There are a couple of reasons for people to actually pay: They can legally share afterwards, they can get it for maybe $2 if enough people join in, the love the music, they love net-neutrality, etc.
What I love about this solution is that (1) it does not require a change in copyrights law – a major legal act; (2) it leaves all power to the most important parties involved – artists and fans; (3) it does not require a central organization.
I brought this up in an earlier threat (http://a2f2a.com/2009/10/27/louie-louies-jack-ely-joins-a2f2a/#comment-263) but it did not really get picked up. Hope to get some responses here.
November 11th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Why the artificial distinction between “commercial” and “noncommercial?” If I remix a song that gets released, should I not be able to continue to be paid for my work as a DJ that includes playing that remix? Can I not play that song outside my store?
If you’re going to do an upfront payment idea like bjoern describes, set the price you want, and then let it go. You got the money for doing the work, and everybody else gets the music they commissioned released into the shared culture, as it should be. The key is that ANY use, regardless of what you label it, reflects favorably on the artist and drives up demand for new works. By allowing the music to be used, everybody benefits.
November 11th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
@bjoern
I like your idea. I was riffing off it (your previous post) in comment #5 in this thread.
My variation lets an artist release the “same” music (really, similar music) multiple times by letting different groups get unique remixes. Or acoustic sessions or promos or alternate takes or whatever. After someone (fans, site, etc) had paid enough to have the music released, it would be available to everyone on CC or similar.
November 11th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
“If you cannot sell your music piece by piece, then sell it only once. But then to the whole market. The idea is to satisfy the artist’s (note, not some large corporation’s) financial interest right at the products digital release and give up control afterwards.”
That’s an interesting idea, but I wonder if it wouldn’t slam into the classic social psychology problem of diffusion of responsibility that plagues both communism and capitalism in different ways. In other words, if nobody has any more responsibility to donate than anyone else, and nobody gets any more benefit from donating than anyone else, why should I [generic I] pay, and not let somebody else pay, instead?
November 12th, 2009 at 10:07 am
Quantam,
That’s why any effective business model is independent of “goodwill.” By all means, put a “donate” button on your website, but don’t consider that your primary source of revenue.
The reason you, or anybody else, pays is because that is the only way to get the new content. As I often say in these discussions, it’s silly to publicly release something and then expect to receive money for it after the fact. Once released, the benefit of recorded music is that it increases exposure and serves as advertising, driving sales of other actually scarce things. If you want to be paid for making more, you need to get the money for that work up front.
I think many people would be surprised at how little it actually costs to record quality music, and how many fans, fansites, or companies would willingly contribute to its creation.