Record Labels Strike Back With A Music Tax Proposal
Griffin threw out the idea of a $5/month tax (which would be added to people’s ISP bill), generating $20 billion/year in revenues. The tax won’t be mandatory, he implies. And he also said that it isn’t really a “tax”: “we have no such interest in government running this or having any part of it.” Users who are paying the tax will be able to download music from the Internet legally, through all the normal channels (BitTorrent, other P2P networks, etc.). The core of the plan is a covenant not to sue anyone who pays the fee. Griffin touched on this in the article, saying ISPs will want to “discharge their risk” around file sharing that occurs over their networks.
Basically you will add five dollars a month to your online bill to avoid ever being sued. Clearly this is only benefiting record labels because there is no way they can catch most people stealing music. This is dangerous territory because its starts at 5 and next thing you know other labels want it to go up and then the movie industry gets involved.
March 28th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
first…This is so dumb…record companies should just give up…the amount of ways to get music now is ridiculous and there’s no way to stop it, let alone tax it…idiots
March 28th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
IF THEY DO THAT THEN I’LL START MY OWN TORRENT SITE AND PERSONALLY DISTRIBUTE EVERY SINGLE LABELS ALBUMS,INCLUDING THE FLOP ONES SUCH AS THE ELEPHANT IN THE SAND
March 28th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
its a tough business…
March 28th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Yeah, go on ahead and make internet cost more. Then before you know it, someone somewhere is gonna find a way to pirate the internet! Lol
March 28th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
LMFAO @ #4
March 28th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
its a shame folks have all thse crazy areguments about music and money but won’t even pay 60 dollars a yr for unlimited downloads… thats not broke thats jus cheap as hell…
Thats not even hood or ghetto thats jus a cheap ass period.
March 29th, 2008 at 11:05 am
look up the 16th amendment.
the government can’t tax.
that is unconstuitional.
the tax this isn’t being contributed 2 the public means
March 29th, 2008 at 11:10 am
look up the 16th amendment.
the government can’t tax.
that is unconstuitional.
the tax this isn’t being contributed 2 the public means.
this tax will only help corporate interests and also the money received from this “tax” is just going in the pockets of people who don’t giving a damn about people being sued.
March 29th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
Smart.
As a consumer, theres no reason to oppose it. Whats $5/month if theres a chance at getting a $54 Million lawsuit just for downloading THA CARTER III.
I dont see the harm in it.