Surprise: European Artists Defend Free Money From Blank Media Tax

from the gee,-who-would-have-guessed? dept

Thu, Oct 19th 2006 9:29am — Mike Masnick

Imagine, for a moment, that every week the government sent you a check for a $100, just as payment for the fact that someone, somewhere might have done you wrong. If that program came up for discussion among politicians, you'd have to imagine that an awful lot of people who received those checks would stand up and defend the importance of such payments, while complaining about the supposed (if unproven) wrongs against them. That's why it's hard to put much weight in this article that Ben submitted about a bunch of European artists talking up the importance of the blank media levy that many European countries tack on to things like blank CDs or iPods. Of course artists are going to defend those fees. After all, they get a bunch of money for not doing anything, on the off chance that maybe, just maybe, someone somewhere is using the blank media for copyright infringement. So, it's hard to take claims that "it's disgusting" that the levy might go away, as anything other than pure greed from someone who doesn't want to see a free lunch taken away. As for the claim that struggling artists need this money, another take might be that more people would be able to pay the artist directly for their works (or some related performance of their works) if they didn't have to spend all this extra money on their blank CDs and iPods.

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15 Comments

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Anonymous of Course, 19 Oct 2006 @ 9:57am

Paying as you go
The only thing Disgusting here is their
greed.

I guess it's OK to copy their music then,
since payment has already been made.
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eric, 19 Oct 2006 @ 10:13am

so how do I become an artist?
seems like a few hours with gar(b)ageband and I could be getting checks too?
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Starky, 19 Oct 2006 @ 10:21am

Who actually gets it?
I'm curious as to who actually gets the money from this: The Record Labels or the Artists. I mean, the Record Labels already get most of the money from CD sales, not the Artists. If it goes to the artists, then they probably wouldn't mind people downloading their songs and burning them to CD's, which would get them more money than CD sales probably would.
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bigpicture, 19 Oct 2006 @ 10:31am

Value Added
First off, the need for the services of recording companies has long past, they is no longer add any value to the process that I would want to pay for. Distribution and quality recording (which was the service that the recording companies used to provide) can be done over the internet and by PCs.

So then the only party that adds value that I would want to pay for, is the artists themselves who actually produce the content. I don't mind paying the media tax, if it provided me with access to all content, so I have choices about obtaining just and only the content that I want.

I pay this tax to the recording companies anyway to buy a whole CD that has only two songs that I want anyway, which I then record onto other meda and put the CD away.
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Sanguine Dream, 19 Oct 2006 @ 10:34am

Hope
I just hope that the music industry in Europe isn't as greed base as it is in the America. If the money from this levy is going DIRECTLY to the artists then I could be convinced to support it but if the check is filtered through the record label then the artist isnt missing out on much anyway...
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Beefcake, 19 Oct 2006 @ 10:49am

New model?
Maybe this could be the great new business model media companies haven't been looking for. The content is free of cost and DRM, but the media you buy to store it is now ten bucks instead of one. Basically, software, music, movies, etc is now free-- the revenue comes from the storage medium.

Then we can go after counterfeit media-producers instead of high-schoolers with music.

Of course, what would probably happen is they'd ruin it by charging you twice (like they are in Europe now)-- you still have to pay for the song, plus an additional cost for the media. Yep, greed always gets in the way.
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Rabid Wolverine, 19 Oct 2006 @ 11:12am

There might be a chance...
Gee, this precedent opens up a whole new can of worms...

Why don't we lock everybody up on the chance that they might commint a crime?

Issue EVERYONE speeding tickets on the chance that they might speed.

We could give everyone the death penalty on the chance that they might murder someone...

I bet this was a french idea...
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winnie, 19 Oct 2006 @ 11:32am

Always a chance
We could give everyone the death penalty on the chance that they might murder someone...

Ever see minority report?
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Oct 2006 @ 12:03pm

CDs...? what CDs?
I haven't burnt an audio cd in a very long time.. Go ahead tax them all you want, I dont use them.

oh, wait, thats a piss poor attitude to take. and I do on a not-very-often basis need to mint about 5-100 cds for work purposes (ie small conference/demo/handouts).. so I'd be pretty annoyed if I had to pay the **AA for the right to be able to distribute MY OWN CREATED CONTENT to MY OWN CLIENTS.
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- Beefcake, 19 Oct 2006 @ 12:26pm
  
  Re: CDs...? what CDs?
  What applications did you use to create your OWN CREATED CONTENT? Just curious.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 19 Oct 2006 @ 1:16pm
    
    Re: Re: CDs...? what CDs?
    not audio.
    
    software written in visual studio mostly. websites, templates, databases...
    
    but not audio.
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  - Adrian Anders, 19 Oct 2006 @ 6:47pm
    
    Re: Re: CDs...? what CDs?
    Hey hey, now's a new time to whore the music-tech blog that I'm loosely affiliated with:
    
    http://www.createdigitalmusic.com/
    
    All the latest news and in-depth coverage of music and multi-media creation.
    
    As for me, gere's a short list of what I like to use and run on my DAW:
    
    FLStudio
    Sonar
    Live 6
    Plus a TON of plug-ins, most of which you can discover on:
    
    http://www.kvraudio.com
    
    I hope that answers your question...
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CLGC, 19 Oct 2006 @ 12:13pm

Media need to rethink
Content providers (both artists and the music "industry") need to come to grips with an increasingly media and tech savvy public. Paying "artists" not to produce or to produce self-indulgent content that no one wants is a little bass-ackwards. I suspect that something like Magnatunes, where you pay a minimal amount to download cd quality music that you can burn without restriction and with most of the payment going directly to the musician is probably where the music world will end up eventually.
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Oct 2006 @ 12:40pm

sonar
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Oct 2006 @ 12:42pm

They also dont shower enough in EU.
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