Copyright Law

Canadian Songwriters Propose Voluntary P2P Tax

By soulxtc

Call file-sharing the “most efficient distribution system of the largest repertoire of music ever assembled” and therefore “don?t want to sue file-sharers” so long as a “person isn?t sharing for financial gain,” and those that opt out would have to agree to “predetermined amount of damages if they are caught file-sharing.”

As town hall meetings are conducted across Canada to discuss reform of the country’s copyright laws the Songwriters Association of Canada (SAC) is trying to remind people of its proposal for a voluntary music file-sharing tax.

The proposal is simple: in exchange for a monthly fee set by Canada’s copyright board Internet subscribers would be able to share music so long as its not for financial gain.

It wants the monthly fee to be voluntary since not everyone shares music online. However, subscribers would have to “sign an undertaking to pay a predetermined amount of damages if they are caught file-sharing.”

The SAC says the proposal is simply a matter of facing reality and trying to figure out a way to monetize P2P.

“The Songwriters Association of Canada believes?and Internet technical experts agree?that unauthorized file-sharing cannot be stopped without actually shutting down the Internet,” says Bill Henderson, VP of the SAC, in a op-ed for Straight.com. “Attempts to sue it out of existence are futile. They alienate our audience, and earn us no money.”

Precisely. It’s a mark of a rather poor business model when you begin suing your own customers in order to try to convince people they should hand you over their hard earned money.

Henderson doesn’t stop there.

“Canadian songwriters don?t want to sue file-sharers. In fact, we like file-sharing. It?s the most efficient distribution system of the largest repertoire of music ever assembled, and it?s available to virtually everyone. What?s not to love about that? We don?t want to stop it; we just want to get paid for the use of our work. We think that most music fans agree with that, and that millions of Canadians would welcome a legal way to share any and all music files,” he adds.

This is the latest revision to the original plan for the “monetization of the file-sharing of music” proposed back in October 2007. Since then the SAC has listened to people from all sides of the issue and decided upon three important changes:

1. Internet and wireless subscribers may opt out
2. Participation is voluntary for Creators and Rights holders
3. Amount of licence fee to be determined by a regulatory or judicial process

The SAC also puts a lot of careful thought into why each of the affected parties ought to agree to the proposal.

For ISPs:

1. Monetization will dramatically lower bandwidth costs.
2. Costs of infringement notification and responses would be eliminated.
3. Creators and rights owners would be in a position to offer ISPs an administration fee (Some percentage of the collected licence fee would go to the ISPs).
4. Once music file sharing is monetized, other new business opportunities will present themselves to ISPs.

For consumers:

1. Guilt free, low cost access to the world?s entire repertoire of music.
2. Clean virus free files.
3. Access to tens of millions of songs, many of which are not found in digital stores or anywhere else.
4. Consumer can opt out.

For artists:

1. Creators will finally be paid for this new and growing use of their work.
2. The monetization of file sharing will create a low cost distribution system with equal entry for the works of creators at all levels.
3. Fair distribution of the licensing fee ?pool?.
4. Once music file sharing is monetized, other new business opportunities will present themselves to creators.

For copyright holders:

1. Rights owners will finally be paid for this new and growing use of their catalogues.
2. Increased value of catalogue (Much of what is file shared is catalogue music that may have represented little value to rights owners in the past).
3. Record labels and Music publishers will have the funds needed to develop aspiring artists and songwriters.
4. Once music file sharing is monetized, other new business opportunities will present themselves to rights owners

For everyone:

Preservation of and Exposure to Legacy, Niche and Ethnic music and culture.

While many record labels have come and gone, music ?fans? have stored and now share music that would not otherwise be available from commercial sources.

Talk about a plan that makes sense.

My only concern would be other copyright holders like the motion picture industry, video game developers, e-book publishers, etc.. would want a similar voluntary P2P tax raising the “small” monthly fee to a substantial one.

That being said, considering customers can opt out of the deal it’s far less intrusive than other copyright reform proposals like content filtering, bandwidth throttling, and Internet disconnection.

If you agree with the SAC’s proposal go here and submit an “I agree” message, or you can submit your own comments to advocacy@songwriters.ca.

What do you think of the proposal?

Stay tuned.

jared@zeropaid.com

Full post as published by ZeroPaid on September 01, 2009 (boomark / email).