Just the other day there was a report in the local newspaper that the Songwriters’ Association of Canada is pushing to have a $5 surcharge added to everyone’s monthly internet bill. This surcharge would make it legal for anyone to then download music as the surcharge would, theoretically, offset the lost royalties for recording artists and songwriters that has been occurring for the past several years.
There has been a bit of an uproar in the “Letters to the Editor” section of newspapers, as there are a large number of internet subscribers who do not download. In the main the outcry boils down to two points – it’s the youngsters who are downloading massive amounts of music, and the older folks just need the internet for keeping in touch with their kids, grandkids and checking email.
The problem I see with this surcharge is that it’s going to piss off a lot of folks. We already have a surcharge tax on recordable media – cassettes, CDs, DVD-R. The individuals who use massive amounts of them at one go tend to not be involved in illegal downloading of music but are using them for such mundane activities as computer backups, storing code and so forth.
Why are people downloading music, illegally or legally? Has the recording industry, instead of blaming the internet, actually looked at itself? It produces pap like the Simpson Sisters, Britney, and we are inundated with yearly releases of American Idol contestants. There hasn’t been any decent music produced and distributed by the major record labels in years. Interesting artists such as Tori Amos, VNV Nation, Loreena McKennitt and underground groups are not receiving the marketing that the pap does.
So we have pap that is being produced. What is the other culprit? Cost of the CDs. There was a report a few years ago in which it was pointed out that it cost $0.75 to produce a CD – the cost of the CD and the royalties to the artists. And yet we have CDs costing between $15-$30.
It’s time the recording industry, and their buddies at the Songwriters’s Association of Canada (and other counterparts throughout the world), took a good long & hard look at themselves before trying to suck yet more money out of the public.
American Idol » $5 surcharged added to your monthly internet said,
February 24, 2008 at 6:18 pm
[...] Opinionated Bean wrote an interesting post today on $5 surcharged added to your monthly internetHere’s a quick excerptIt produces pap like the Simpson Sisters, Britney, and we are inundated with yearly releases of American Idol contestants…. [...]
vegiVamp said,
February 25, 2008 at 8:19 am
Have you got a link to that report on CD production costs ? Sounds interesting
thx,
ikke
opinionatedbean said,
February 25, 2008 at 9:56 am
unfortunately the reports have been archived and I’d have to pay to get them
There was an interesting article about EMI http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/state-of-digital-music-2007.ars
To quote:
An anecdote in a recent Economist perfectly summed up the problems facing the major music labels. After EMI, the smallest of the Big Four, invited a teen focus group to its London headquarters in 2006, it wanted to give the teens something for their time. The response is worth quoting in full.
At the end of the session the EMI bosses thanked them for their comments and told them to help themselves to a big pile of CDs sitting on a table. But none of the teens took any of the CDs, even though they were free. “That was the moment we realised the game was completely up,” says a person who was there.
I may have under-estimated the portion of a cd cost that goes towards paying artist royalties. According to this article, with regards to Radiohead’s latest release (in which fans could pay whatever they wanted to download) the expected royalties that Radiohead could have gotten off a conventional cd release would have been $2.50-$3.00USD per CD http://a.abcnews.com/Entertainment/Story?id=3826638&page=1 Mind you, it is Radiohead, so they may have negotiated really good terms for themselves with a label.
Mr. Mike said,
February 25, 2008 at 6:02 pm
I don’t think the $5 surcharge is serious. It falls on its face in a bunch of places:
- What about CD stores? They’d be dead overnight. Do they get compensated?
- What defines an “Internet connection”? A DSL line? Satelite? HDTV? Wireless? VoIP? 3G Cell phones? Is this the thin edge of a wedge to put a surcharge on everything that might be capable of transmitting data?
- Once passed, what is the incentive for the music industry from closing up shop and living like kings?
- Who supports new artists?
- Which music is covered and which is not?
- if new artists are not part of compensation, is there any copyright protection of their works?
- If membership to the SAC is restricted, does it mean that all new music will have to be paid for anyway?
Dumb, dumb idea.
opinionatedbean said,
February 25, 2008 at 6:41 pm
I don’t see it going through, because of the general outcry occurring and it would be stupid of the government to implement such a law. The surcharge on recordable media can sort of (barely IMO) justified as not everyone pays it, only those who purchase the media. With the attempt to get all internet subscribers to pay it isn’t just the downloaders who are being “punished” but also innocents on dial-up (the article wasn’t clear on this, what sort of access would have the surcharge) and private businesses who provide access to their employees for theoretically work-related business.
PuckRobin said,
February 26, 2008 at 9:23 pm
A local musician friend of mine refers to the CD surtax as the “Celine Dion” tax, because it makes it more expensive to distribute his music, and the money goes to millionaires and corporate fatcats.
opinionatedbean said,
February 27, 2008 at 7:21 am
everytime the recording industry and in particular “songwriters” through their union/representatives cry of diminishing royalties this seems to happen. I still think it’s time that SOCAN and the rest of the recording industry take a good long hard look at their own activities. They are still basing their formulae on some antiquated set of ideals which no longer exist – we are past the analog age, skipped the digital age and are now in the cyber age. Because they can’t keep up they whinge and want governments to tax us because of their failed business model.
I also question where the Celine Dion Tax goes – to “established” artists who are registered with SOCAN. Not all writers are registered with them.
I also heard that there’s a push also to add a surtax on harddrives and MP3 players. I would love to have a second harddrive, for the sole purpose of backups, not storing music (and frankly my tastes are too discerning for me to be able to fill up more than a couple gigs of memory).