I don’t see that being a problem either. well, we’d have more than rubik’s cube in common I guess ( tee haaaaa:) )

So far as I’m concerned, no corporations should be allowed to lobby anyone or anything. They could protest an unreasonable law, perhaps, but they should not be allowed to have any more of a say in a matter than any of the general public.

And I won’t even mention the greediness.

Unlike some musicians, I don’t see that as impossible. If book authors can retain the rights to their works while giving exclusive publishing rights for a time period to publishers, why can’t the same be done for musicians who still feel the need to deal with big music?

It’s interesting, for written authors this kind of deal has been normal, mandated by contract law rather than copyright law. So I’m with Monkey on this, why can’t the same be done for musicians dealing with distributors?

On music/ISP taxes, Philip Hunt answered my earlier post “People love to share”, recognising the issues we have with existing collection agencies, and suggesting amongst other possibilities that any such levy should be used to fund the creation of new work (rather than anything else, such as rewarding established intermediaries).

Philip is the Campaigns Officer for PPUK, and has been grokking this for a while now, and writing about it on his blog.

Which is something similar to a few comments I’ve heard before here, and divorces the remittance from agencies and what was popular before, though it maybe raises new questions. For further thought and future comments…

Yes, that’s right, Cassettes did (still do) cost more to make than CD’s. However, at the beginning of CD production, the price was high due to supply/demand. They charged more for CD’s than cassettes because, put simply, they could. Although, one would easily argue that the new ‘high quality’ that you would get from the CD made the CD more ‘valuable’, so, people were willing to pay those prices. Bear in mind that it was new technology and the price of all ‘gadgets’ seem to start out high and slowly decrease. The reason for this is pretty obvious. Fixed costs to start-up (build a factory, buy the supplies, higher the workers, etc. Phasing in a new technology and phasing out an old one, in the case of tapes vs. CDs. Eventually, the volume will drive down the price of production.) But, the cost of making the cds wasn’t all there was. There was also, as per above, the cost of producing the music and the price of marketing factored into the equation (which was already there before with the cassette, the LP, the singles on 45s, etc.) Anyway, you’re right, eventually, the actual price of the CD should have fallen more sharply than it did.

My point on CDs is valid, as records at the same time period had all the same retail costs as CD’s, I believe tapes if anything were even more expensive to make, as they had to be recorded and couldn’t just be stamped out like records and CDs, so the almost double price of CDs in comparison with records and tapes being sold was a rip off. I gave it a separate category, but drm is also a rip off, as it artificially limits a devices capabilities to the detriment of the consumer.

BTW Kerchoonz does look like an interesting idea that could work well.

It also bears mentioning that ACTA is so secret that when a Freedom of Information Act request was made to get ahold of it the request was denied as a matter of “national security”.

When it comes to the price of music in the past, however, it’s not much different than the price of anything marked up at retail. Remember, in the past when their were still cd’s & cassettes, there were still distributors (who took a cut), sales teams (who drove around and sold the plastic or vinyl into the shops), shelving fees just to stock the stuff, manufacturing and delivery costs, and back then the overall cost of production was a bit steeper than it is today. Plus, the shops generally always want at least a 51% gross margin after cost.

The real problem is that record companies are trying to charge as much for downloads as they did in the past for cd’s, vinyl, etc. and they are limiting ‘legitimate’ access by asking services for massive advances on a territorial basis.