French proposal to combat illegal downloading

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0,36-731584,0.html

In any case, the current situation is totally untenable for artists, and is made worse by the actions of record companies who are scared stiff they'll lose their lucrative middleman position.

It's frustrating, though, that so many groups have come out against the idea. I'm sort of surprised that the publishers are pro, however!

I wonder what kind of DRM they would use!? Whether they would encourage CD burning? Fascinating.

(I don't think it will pass.)

shocking though this might sound, some people use their computers for things other than downloading music. i don't think my boss or my parents, for instance, would be very happy if their broadband bills increased because they were paying for a service they never used.

so what's the alternative? if you want to download music, you have to use specific ISPs: ie more expensive ones? nobody's going to agree to that, and i don't even think it would be feasible: there will always be P2P/sharing networks that are open to everyone, no matter what provider they're using.

It may be unworkable, but not on those grounds. People pay tax all the time for things they never use, ie childless people paying for schools, people who rarely watch BBC paying TV licence etc etc. This ultimately would be a tax destined to fund artist royalties, and like all taxes, would have a strong collective element.

u so crazy!

-- jz (j...), January 19th, 2006.

ok, so do we get to vote for record company executives now?

education = vitally important for the future of the nation. nobody - even a die-hard non-parent like myself - is gonna moan about their taxes being used to fund schools.

downloading music = er, not really that important in the general scheme of things.

and even TV ... come on, the percentage of people who "rarely watch the BBC" is tiny.

basically, what we're talking about here is a situation where everybody gets billed so a relatively small number of people can download music more easily/ethically. fuck that. we - the music downloaders - simply need to accept that, y'know, we should be fucking paying for what we download, on a track-by-track/album-by-album basis. it's as simple as that. why should my boss/my parents be paying for me to download albums? i just don't get this. the more i think about it, the more i think it's insane.

When I said upthread that "I wasn't sure what rights citizens should then be afforded", it was sort of because of this... I support this kind of ISP/media/hardware tax, but am not sure that the public should be given a direct benefit, especially something like an all-you-can-eat digital buffet.

Maybe it would just no longer be illegal for people to share music, so long as they were not receiving any payment? Or something?

yes, absolutely ... i just think there are many, many greater wrongs that need righted by "taxation" first - especially as this particular wrong stems only from greedy music-lovers wanting something for nothing! once again: why should anyone other than us, the people actually doing the downloading, be paying?

we should be fucking paying for what we download on a track-by-track/album-by-album basis

Subscription models for music are already around.

The problem is that it's unfeasible, technically and legally, to track who is downloading things illegally, and then to charge, try and fine each and every person.

i can see what this proposal is trying to do, but that doesn't stop it being fucking insane ;)

yes. subscribed to by the people downloading the music. clever, eh?

Beyond that, surely the artists in a French state-sponsored music industry should be democratically elected? They could run a Pop Idol-esque show each year, where the voting is free and rather than a Cowell-led judging panel contestants are allowed to conduct their own campaigns by appealing directly to the electorate (so you wouldn't have 12 versions of one man's idea of Pop, but a free contest of musical ideas). You'd also have to vote artists out of the industry, funds being finite, but that would just give it more excitement. Disgruntled rejects would be free to record and distribute their own music without state sponsorship.

On another front, when I first read about this bill, the article clearly stated that the minority party proposed this bill during an interim session and they acknowledged that it would not pass in the general session. Their purpose was ostensibly publicize A solution.

I tried, but I can't resist calling record companies stupid and greedy.

Not if you illegally download sheep.

Highway subsidies are much higher than public transportation subsidies... Highways are basically free to drivers.

I don't know what my point is.

2 of the Beatles won't miss the royalties.

The majors would actually find this harder as they can't get the same loyalty and support as smaller labels can.

More generally, what other proposals are out there? Given that the present situation will increasingly become impossible for artists as downloading becomes ubiquitous. Should we keep the current system of copyright and simply become far more draconian in our application of it? If so, who will pay for the cost of policing authors' rights to the point where the system becomes workable and illegal downloaders can reasonably assume they'll eventually be prosecuted? The general public?

i really think this overestimates the number of illegal d/lrs out there, but also i'm under the impression that the regular d/lrs, the slsk users, d/l far more than they'd ever possibly buy. they aren't denting sales as much as the record companies say.

and with increased broadband access and the ipod phenomenon, won't paid-for d/ling take off?

But it won't take off if you can download something almost as easily illegally, and with almost certain impunity. The present situation is rather like if an art gallery had the policy that you could take any painting you liked for free, although if you felt guilty you could always hand over the true cost to the gallery at your own discretion. That's an unworkable business model in the long run.

actually, it isn't that easy -- i've no real idea how to do it, and none of my even less webby coworkers do. i leach ysis from here but otherwise no. you'd be surprised how little people know.

The present situation is rather like if an art gallery had the policy that you could take any painting you liked for free.

are you off your meds?

i'd have thought so. my aforementioned boss, for instance, has an iBook and says her husband buys the occasional song from iTunes - but she and he wouldn't have a clue how to get hold of music "illegally". (i'm putting that in quotes because, from what i understand, the act of downloading isn't in itself illegal; it's the uploading/sharing of files that's the crime. i could be wrong, mind.)

let's not forget that file-sharing isn't as simple as we make out. most of us here on ILX are geeky enough to understand port-forwarding etc, and manage our presence on the network(s); to the majority of computer users, however, the whole thing is a bit of a mystery.

which, once again, brings me back to my point: why should they etc etc etc.

what are your views on the TV licence and the Public Lending Right

i know nothing about the public lending right, i'm afraid. as for the TV licence: i think it's a terrible anachronism that gives a badly managed monolith a vastly unfair advantage over its competitors. but as a non-BBC journalist, i would say that, wouldn't i?

which, in a fun side-effect, would make Linux illegal in France

?!

can you explain more, or give us a link? (i'm too hungover to go searching myself.)

That's not a great example because art is one of a kind and priced accordingly.

Groceries might be a better example. And there are open-air markets where you could pretty well walk away without paying, but your sense of morality keeps you from doing so. (Possibly because you know it's a shopkeeper who get's screwed and not Wal-Mart.)

gaaah, and this is an xpost too.

dude! my boss wouldn't even be able to download the fucking sharing application and install it, let alone open the correct ports through her firewall etc etc. i had to take her computer back to mine and upgrade the OS because she didn't know how to/want to know how to do it.

and we're talking about a vastly intelligent woman here.

the majority of people aren't geeky enough to give a shit about this kind of stuff. that's why iTunes has taken off: it makes it all very, very easy.

And there are open-air markets where you could pretty well walk away without paying, but your sense of morality keeps you from doing so

There's an element of embarrassment in doing these things in public that you don't have when you're downloading something in the privacy of your own home. Actually, I think there's a much wider sociological issue, in that although the vast majority of people accept that stealing from an individual shopkeeper is wrong, somehow illegally downloading something just doesn't feel wrong, even if we can objectively see that it's denying an artist his/her royalties.

you *could* pay for it.

ports?

carefully managed "holes" in your firewall so people can see your music, for want of a better description.

Disagree. In 1998, all you had to do was download Napster, install, and that was it. Since Napster was shutdown, it's been harder. These days, before you go off to use filesharing services, you have to open ports, download PeerGuardian to fend off RIAA/BPI/IFPI spies, navigate through bad rips and trip over bogus users. It's so much easier for the average person to just load up iTunes and buy it from there...

-- grimly fiendish (simonmai...), January 19th, 2006.

i don't want people getting into my computer without asking, unless it's that nice steve jobs.

-- Theorry Henry (miltonpinsk...), January 19th, 2006.

This is the worst argument ever. First of all, even if the artist only gets like a dollar for every 9 the industry makes, that's still a dollar the artist is relying on, and a dollar you're depriving them of if you don't pay for their music.

Second, this is the 21st century. A lot of artists self-release, and a lot of small labels give their artists much better deals than the big labels. Keep rationalizing.

I'm not entirely sure about the idea, but I'm wary of it because it sounds like an industry bailout to me.

All this has been said before many times ...

musicians have nothing to bitch about ---- let em play live if they wanna get paid. you cant download a party, a roomful of people, a night on the town ----

this whole free recordings thing is fantastic, it just torpedos so many of the forces which have long conspired to crapify music